Narduzzi confident about fall season
Pitt will have to endure long road trips in 2020
Chairs are spaced 6 feet apart. Masks are required while players train. Plastic shields have been fitted to helmets. Showers are even on a timer, with Pitt’s equipment manager shutting off the hot water after five minutes to keep things moving.
Pat Narduzzi said he has felt like a police officer the past couple months, patrolling the Panthers and pushing the program’s COVID-19 protocols. He hopes to get back to coaching strictly football, not safety measures, sooner rather than later.
But it’s the apparent results of those rules that make Narduzzi “100% confident” in fall football. Confidence is a rare thing these days with so many around college football expressing measured and reasonable pessimism around the sport’s near future. And yet, a week after Pitt athletic director Heather Lyke said she wasn’t “overly confident” in a fall season, Narduzzi offered his own sliver of hope.
The Pitt football program hasn’t had a positive COVID-19 test since July 9, Narduzzi said Friday. That implies there was at least one positive test between the players returning to campus June 8 and July 9. Pitt doesn’t publicize athlete-specific testing numbers, and Narduzzi didn’t offer any player figures beyond that 22-day streak.
Still, the Panthers’ recent bill of health couldn’t come at a better time. Pitt finished its seventh “summer access practice” — basically 25-player walk-through sessions and film study — on Friday. It will have five more before training camp opens next Friday, when the Panthers will strap on pads and prepare for a season.
When that season starts, no one knows exactly. Sometime between Sept. 7-12, per the ACC schedule that was released Wednesday — a schedule without dates, times or television information. But there are opponents. Narduzzi has that to cling to as he motivates his team to stay safe and anticipate that actual football will be played.
“I’m confident we’re going to have a season . ... That’s really how I feel. If I don’t have that confidence and our kids don’t feel that way, we’ve got issues,” Narduzzi said on a Zoom call with local reporters, his first since April 10. “We’re doing our job here in
Pittsburgh . ... Our kids, they all understand. They know that the football season is riding on how smart, how accountable you are . ...
“We’re going to continue to educate them and hope they’re making good decisions off the field. That’s the only thing we can do.”
On the field and in the film room, the Panthers are tasked with preparing for a season that is in question — and some new opponents.
Pitt and the rest of the ACC will play an 11-game season with 10 conference games and one unidentified non-conference opponent. Four of those ACC foes — Clemson, Boston College, Louisville and N.C. State — were recently added to the Panthers’ plate. Pitt will travel to Clemson, Boston College, Miami, Florida State and Georgia Tech, and it will host Louisville, N.C. State, Virginia Tech, Syracuse and Notre Dame — a full ACC member in 2020, eligible for the conference’s title game and Orange Bowl berth.
Pitt already was scheduled to welcome the Fighting Irish at Heinz Field, and Narduzzi is pleased to keep that game on the docket. He also thinks it’s beneficial for the conference to have Notre Dame aboard in 2020. But Narduzzi wishes Notre Dame’s commitment to the ACC was long term, not one in the short term out of convenience and necessity.
“I wish it was a permanent member, to be honest with you,” Narduzzi said. “I’m not pulling those strings, but I thought we had some leverage. You’d think they might be permanent right now. But I’m excited about them being in the conference. Let’s go. It’s just another team that gets a chance to go win a championship.”
Of course, that ACC championship has been won by the same team the past five years. Clemson, the favorite to take it again, is not only on Pitt’s schedule, but also another lengthy road trip the Panthers have to make.
Pitt had away games at its two farthest ACC opponents on its original schedule: Miami (1,178 miles) and Florida State (921 miles). Pitt maintained those two games, lost trips to Virginia (316 miles) and North Carolina (478 miles) and added travel to the next three farthest ACC teams: Georgia Tech (685 miles), Clemson (575 miles) and Boston College (566 miles).
Pitt’s total travel distance of 3,925 miles ranks second in the ACC behind only Miami (4,239). Lyke said on Thursday morning on 93.7 The Fan that the athletic directors were “aware, but not really involved” in the ACC’s scheduling process.
“Do I love the travel? Not necessarily,” Narduzzi said. “I kind of wish we had some closer flights. When you look at the safety of our student-athletes, flying all the way down to Miami, I thought we would be a lot closer. Let’s put it that way. I thought we would have a game in North Carolina and Virginia.
“I’m not criticizing. I love our schedule. I love who we’re playing. But I also worry about the health and safety of our players and our team. That’s the most important thing. I do worry about being on a plane longer than some people have to be on a plane. ... I know there are some people that don’t have to travel very far and they can all play each other in a nice little neighborhood game together, which is very, very convenient. Some have it more convenient than others. That’s just the way the cookie crumbles, I guess.”
That “little neighborhood” Narduzzi referenced is Tobacco Road, where North Carolina, N.C. State, Wake Forest and Duke reside. Those schools rank 10th, 12th, 13th and 15th, respectively, in total distance because they all play each other. N.C. State will travel to Pitt, but Duke won’t play the Panthers as previously scheduled. Neither will the Tar Heels, which is frustrating for Narduzzi.
During quarantine, Pitt’s staff “wasted a lot of man hours” over three or four days preparing for Mack Brown’s North Carolina via Zoom. It did the same for Virginia, “which drives you nuts,” Narduzzi added.
But like everyone else for the past few months, Narduzzi is taking this thing one day at a time, adjusting to whatever is thrown his way next.
Narduzzi doesn’t foresee any players opting out of the season, like Virginia Tech cornerback Caleb Farley decided earlier this week. And he hopes the Panthers avoid positive tests and keep that streak going — making football in the fall, while tenuous at best, a little more viable.
“Just give me a team to play, give me some white lines, a green field and let’s go play,” Narduzzi said when asked about the ACC’s temporary elimination of divisions. “It doesn’t really matter. Our goal every year is to win them all anyway. So we want to win them all and get to that championship game, whatever date that is . ... I just wish we knew who our opener was.”
Social justice statements
The NCAA announced Thursday it will allow athletes in all sports to wear social justice statements on their uniforms in 2020. That includes replacing last names with words to memorialize people or causes, similar to what the NBA has done.
Narduzzi said Pitt will support players utilizing their platform in that way but hopes it’ll be done in a team-wide fashion.
“I’m a uniform guy. I don’t come out with a pink shirt on game day to look different than anyone else. We’re going to try to keep our uniform the same,” Narduzzi said, mentioning coming up with a helmet or jersey logo to support social justice causes. “I want to keep our uniforms uniform . ... I don’t want it to be a me show. I’d like it to be a we show, so we all look alike and uniform. We’ll definitely do something.”