Whipple’s track record with QBs major asset

Pro-style offense should mesh fine with Narduzzi

With Mark Whipple taking the reins of the Pitt offense, we won’t truly know if Pat Narduzzi nailed this hire until we see how the Panthers adapts under its new coordinator.

But we can try to play Narduzzi’s yellow legal pad for the purpose of this exercise and list the pros and cons of hiring Whipple, who brings a reputation of being a whip-smart quarterback whisperer with plenty of NFL and college experience.

First, let’s take a shot at some reasons why hiring Whipple makes sense:

• His quarterback development piece is critical, and there might not be a position on the roster more in need of progress than the room led by junior-to-be Kenny Pickett. If Narduzzi pared down his list of candidates to coordinators who made a name for themselves by molding quarterbacks, Whipple is a perfectly logical fit. He comes highly regarded from none other than Ben Roethlisberger and also worked with Donovan McNabb as a Philadelphia Eagles offensive assistant. Shawn Watson had a very similar background, and his two years at Pitt were less than stellar.

• He has ties to important areas for the Panthers, namely Pittsburgh and South Florida. No, Whipple never coached college football here, but in three years with the Steelers, he surely made connections and built some relationships along the way. Familiarity is always a plus in the small world of sports in Western Pennsylvania. But Whipple also spent two seasons as offensive coordinator/quarterbacks coach/assistant head coach at Miami, “The U,” where he recruited the same hotbed high schools Narduzzi and his staff traffic in currently. If Pitt continues looking to that territory for offensive playmakers, Whipple might be able to help.

• From a philosophical standpoint, Whipple’s prostyle offenses match with what Narduzzi wants on that side of the ball. While Watson’s system produced results that were often painfully boring, Sun Bowl finale included, his predecessor Matt Canada showed that a team with a mostly traditional approach can still light up a scoreboard. Wholesale changes to the offensive scheme could have left a lot of questions up and down the roster personnelwise, considering Narduzzi has been recruiting to fit a certain style.

• Stability still matters. Perhaps Narduzzi put too much emphasis on this point in hiring his friend and former coworker Watson, but nearly four decades into a successful football journey, Whipple isn’t likely to use Pitt as a steppingstone. He has been a college head coach, he has spent time at the next level, and he has even been a coordinator at another major-conference program, so it might not be a surprise if Whipple, 61, views this as his last job.

And now, as promised, a dissenting opinion, or why picking Whipple might not have made that much sense:

• Age is only a number, but it’s one that undoubtedly had Whipple’s hiring judged quicker than almost anything else. Pitt had just moved on from a 59-year-old coordinator whose passing offense seemed antiquated, at best, and broken, at worst. Now, rather than place his bet on a young, fresh face with a shorter resume, Narduzzi goes with another coaching veteran. There’s almost always a stigma associated with older coaches that they aren’t able to recruit or relate to prospects as well as up-and-comers in the profession.

• The end of Whipple’s tenure at Massachusetts was rocky, with a once-beloved head coach resigning seven months after signing a threeyear contract extension, one that had two seasons left on the deal. Granted, his athletic director didn’t hire him, and he wasn’t even among the 100 highest-paid Football Bowl Subdivision coaches, but Massachusetts (4-8) mostly won the games it was supposed to win and lost the others. Whipple was the winningest coach in program history, across two stints, but his final season had a bout of controversy, too.

• From a philosophical standpoint, Whipple’s prostyle offenses match with what Narduzzi wants on that side of the ball. Of course there are two sides to this coin. You’ll find many Pitt football followers who believe that Narduzzi’s offensive leanings are a problem in the first place. Massachusetts ranked in the top 25 of highest percentage of pass plays each of the past five years with Whipple as offensive coordinator and playcaller, according to teamrankings.com. But if you wanted an air raid, uptempo, run-pass option offense, you didn’t get it.

“We’ll run kind of like a pro spread, but mix and match it,” Whipple told 93.7 The Fan’s morning show Tuesday. “I think when it comes down to it, you look at the NFL playoffs, the teams that can run it really well and stop the run are really the ones that are successful. But that quarterback’s got to make the play on third-and7, third-and-8.”