Tough task awaits Pitt in Happy Valley
Pitt won last year’s first meeting since 2000 in thrilling fashion, 42-39 at Heinz Field. Also, Penn State is eyeing a national championship and looked the part in its 52-0 season-opening rout of Akron. And finally, the Nittany Lions get to play host to the Panthers at their place this year, and even coach James Franklin tweeted Monday morning: “Need 300+ Lettermen on the sidelines, stadium completely sold out, every seat filled! Make our stadium the most challenging environment in CFB!”
“Hate” is not too strong a word for what the two fan bases feel toward each other, but what about from a football standpoint?
“You’d have to ask them; I don’t know,” Narduzzi said in one of his more subdued answers of Monday’s news conference.
“Ask them if it is. I don’t know. We’re just gonna play the game. We’re just gonna play football. There’s no hate here, I know that. But I don’t think there’s any hate there, either.”
After Saturday’s victory against Youngstown State, new starting quarterback Max Browne was asked what he knows about the Pitt-Penn State relationship.
“I know I’m supposed to hate ’em,” Browne said with a chuckle. “And I guess I know I do hate ’em.”
Disdain aside, Narduzzi noted that “the Penn State game is a big game because it’s an in-state rivalry game. It’s important not only to the guys that sit in this room, but to the community out there, to the state of Pennsylvania. To the city of Pittsburgh, it’s a pride thing, and that’s why it’s big.”
And yet, he stopped short of speaking for Franklin and the Penn State faction, or anyone who might try to minimize what this series means for Nittany Lions.
“I know it’s a rivalry game for us,” Narduzzi said. “But some people think it’s a rivalry game, some people don’t; it doesn’t matter what they think, it just matters what we think. If we think it is — that it is for us — then it doesn’t have to be for them. It really doesn’t. Everybody has different rivalries.”
As for the game itself — once all the talking has been done — Narduzzi expects a considerable challenge. He called Penn State “dominant on all phases of the game” in Week 1.
“They're nasty on defense,” Narduzzi said. “Obviously, credit to their coaching staff and what they've done recruiting-wise.”
“Nasty” might be an understatement for running back Saquon Barkley, a Heisman Trophy candidate who put 172 yards rushing and two touchdowns on just 14 carries, with 53 more yards receiving on the Zips.
After Youngstown State scored consecutive touchdowns by hitting its backup running back out of the backfield, Narduzzi said his defense will work all week on defending the “wheel route” in anticipation of Penn State trying to exploit it with Barkley. He’ll get his share of handoffs, as well.
“You'd better be sound,” Narduzzi said of slowing Barkley. “You'd better be in the right gaps. He'll jump out of a gap, you'll think he's going there, and he'll go there. Everybody has got to be gapsound. You've got to get penetration in the backfield, and you load the box, and then they've got the other things — they've got players outside, too.”
Between Barkley, quarterback Trace McSorley and that “nasty” defense, Penn State is certainly the heavy favorite.
Narduzzi acknowledged that’s exactly what Clemson was last year at home when Pitt went there and emerged with a victory, and that his team doesn’t mind being counted out by those outside the program.
“There's no doubt about it, and we've got to go into a hostile environment, which we've done before and had success,” Narduzzi said. “The odds are against us. I'm not blind to that. It's OK, it’s OK. It's nice to be the underdog.”