Pitt’s game vs. Georgia Tech Saturday will be maturity test
Narduzzi said. “You can watch all the way to the end.”
Just watch the final Penn State extra point, the one that followed a one-play, 34yard drive, Narduzzi insisted.
“I’ve seen teams take plays off. … It’s not like they’re just standing there watching the ball go through the uprights,” Narduzzi said. “They’re coming off the ball, trying to get [the block]. So, there was effort. I’ll never question their effort.”
With Georgia Tech coming to town next to begin ACC play, Narduzzi called it “a maturity test” for his senior-laden team.
The Yellow Jackets have problems of their own, allowing two consecutive kick-return touchdowns by the same player and blowing a 38-28 fourth-quarter lead Saturday to South Florida as the Bulls finished the game with 21 unanswered points in the final 13 minutes.
Pitt is 2-1 under Narduzzi against Georgia Tech and its triple-option calling card, but that defeat came last year in Atlanta. It was also the ACC opener and came on the heels of the Panthers being embarrassed by Oklahoma State, 59-21, a week earlier at Heinz Field. Sound familiar?
“It’s gonna be a maturity test, it’s gonna be a coaching test, it’s gonna be a test, period,” Narduzzi said. “They’re all tests. How we respond is gonna be the most important thing.
“We got to focus on the details, as we talked about last night, and there’s some good things that happened in that [Penn State] game.”
Narduzzi went as far as to say Pitt actually might have gotten better from Week 1 to Week 2, but that it’s difficult to gauge because the talent difference in opponents was so drastic between Albany and Penn State.
As a coach who has often preached his belief that a team makes its largest improvement from the first game to the second, he wouldn’t mind it if this particular squad sees that uptick from No. 2 to No. 3.
In any event, given all that went wrong Saturday, it would seem the 2018 Panthers have a long way to go. Not just to meet the expectations set publicly and privately by Narduzzi and his players, but even to keep the program moving in the right direction. Through 40 games, Narduzzi is 22-18, but his first two seasons, he went 16-10. Two years ago, Pitt even beat Penn State. Since then, the Panthers are 12-13 overall and have lost nine of their past 12 games against power-five conference foes.
Asked about where he thought his program would be by this point in his fourth year, Narduzzi essentially cautioned those who follow Pitt not to make too much of one game. One terrible, horrible, no good, very bad game.
“We’re not gonna measure anything after a game,” Narduzzi said. “One game, two games, three games, nothing’s measured like that. You are where you are. Everybody’s got goals.”
• NOTE — The ACC announced that Pitt’s game Sept. 22 at North Carolina will kick off at 12:20 p.m. Locally, the game can be seen on WTAE as a broadcast of Raycom Sports.
Brian Batko: bbatko@post-gazette.com and Twitter @BrianBatko.