As Pitt wrapped up its 14th practice of the spring Thursday afternoon, left tackle Adam Bisnowaty, the man usually tasked with protecting Chad Voytik’s blind side, had a message for his quarterback.
“Chad, you’re going down!” Bisnowaty shouted as Voytik spoke with the media.
Right tackle Jaryd Jones-Smith answered back with, “Don’t worry, Chad, I got your back like always!”
That was just life two days before Pitt’s Blue-Gold spring game, which will be at 1 p.m. today at Highmark Stadium in Station Square. With Bisnowaty on the Gold team and Jones-Smith and Voytik on Blue, teammates have become rivals and friends have become enemies.
At least for a few days.
“I think the kids are excited,” coach Pat Narduzzi said Thursday. “They’re talking trash already to each other, which is fun.”
The smack talk actually started Wednesday night, at the draft to divide up rosters for the game. The Blue team will have all three of Pitt’s offensive stars in Voytik, running back James Conner and receiver Tyler Boyd. As the only quarterback on his team’s roster, Voytik will presumably play the whole game, but Narduzzi hasn’t been shy about protecting Boyd and Conner this spring, so both could see limited snap counts.
The Gold team will be led by quarterback Adam Bertke, who will play in front of fans for the first time since arriving at Pitt last year as the Panthers’ sole quarterback recruit in 2014. He won’t have the luxury of Conner or Boyd on his side, but will be protected by Bisnowaty and fellow offensive line starters Alex Bookser and Alex Officer.
In just less than five months, everyone will be on the same team, facing off against Youngstown State. But for now, both teams want to win the game at hand.
“They’re getting into the rivalry of a Blue-Gold game,” Narduzzi said. “I think it’ll be a little different because they’re playing for something, and on top of that, there’ll be fans there.”
Technically, at least as far as the NCAA is concerned, today’s Blue-Gold game is just the last of Pitt’s 15 allotted spring practices. But Narduzzi, Voytik and his teammates know there’s a little more to it than that.
The winners get to eat steak and lobster; the losers dine on beans and hot dogs. But more important, bragging rights are at stake on a big stage.
“There’s going to be a ton of people watching and it’s kind of the game that we’ve been practicing for,” Voytik said. “We all want to do well and show out, so yeah, I’d say it has a little more weight to it.”
That doesn’t mean the coaches will bust out all the tricks in their playbook today. Narduzzi said earlier this week that fans can expect a relatively “vanilla” contest from a schematic standpoint.
A scaled-back game plan is partially not to tip Narduzzi’s hand for early opponents like Youngstown State and Akron, but also because the staff is much more focused on how the players are performing their assignments, rather than trying to outsmart the other team at this point.
“What we think is vanilla and what you think is vanilla might be two different things,” Narduzzi said. “If we’ve got 100 formations, you may only see 60 or 70 of them. You’re going to see plenty of stuff, but it comes down to execution.”
Sam Werner: swerner@post-gazette.com and Twitter @SWernerPG.
First Published: April 18, 2015, 4:00 a.m.
