Welcome to the Pitt mailbag. If you have any questions about the Panthers, send them to Christopher Carter and Stephen Thompson, and they may answer them in their weekly show. You can catch the full version on YouTube, with an edited transcript below:
WVU has never won the Big XII: Legitimate question — if Pitt loses out and finishes 7-5, is Pat Narduzzi on the hot seat? I doubt the new AD would be thrilled with that.
Christopher Carter: With Pitt starting 7-0, losing five straight would be pretty disappointing. Those questions were alive and well coming into the season after going 3-9 in 2023. And then there's the 7-0 start, and you’d think all those questions have gone away. But now they’re back. Still, I point to this for people who don't remember — Pat Narduzzi signed a contract extension in 2022 after Pitt won the ACC Championship, and his salary before that extension was something in the neighborhood of $4.8 million a year.
Pitt couldn't buy out Jeff Capel when he had three years left in this deal, so I find it very hard for Pitt, given all the reporting we've done on Victory Heights, the house settlement and NIL, that they're going to also want to throw money into buying out their head coach, who, by the way, just secured his third winning season in the last four years. I have a hard time believing they’d find the money to chase out Pat Narduzzi while needing to address these other issues.
Stephen Thompson: You're 100% right about the buyout, but I also think the perception of this season is more negative than maybe it actually is. I think fans are more down right now than — I'm not going to say that they should be because a three-game losing streak is a three-game losing streak, and the way Pitt has lost in these three games has been pretty devastating — but I think we'd all feel very different if they started the season 5-2 or even 6-1 and had a win to break up this streak.
We've got to remember that they won three games last year. They have already improved and exceeded expectations for this year. I guess you can alter expectations throughout the season, but I don't think this is a scenario where you do that. Pitt played a lighter schedule in the first half of the year, and they faced some harder teams in the back half. Most of their expected losses were going to come in this second half.
We knew that from the beginning of the season. So I still hesitate to call this season successful, but it's an improvement from what they were last year. And that, combined with the fact that Pitt would have to buy out a pretty hefty contract from Pat Narduzzi, tells me that even if his seat does get a little bit warmer, it's not going to be anything resembling hot.
412Crew: Have you noticed that after Virginia, Narduzzi (with 10 years of losing big games, many at home) really took some shots at offensive coordinator Kade Bell?
Carter: Stephen, I do feel like there are times — I mean, I've covered it when Pat Narduzzi had thrown Mark Whipple under the bus and even in years when Mark Whipple's offense was the very thing carrying Pitt. But I don't think he's done that yet to Kade Bell. If you're looking for it, he has certainly left some breadcrumbs for you to follow, but I don't think he's crossed that line into “taking shots” just yet.
Thompson: Look, the thing is that Kade Bell deserves a little criticism, and as his head coach and boss, Pat Narduzzi has to be critical of his offensive coordinator when he's struggling. He was also critical of himself following that Virginia game and the Clemson game. Saying he “took shots” at Cade Bell, that's a subjective way of framing it. You have to be critical of your team when they lose and lose in that fashion. Is that necessarily taking shots? To me, that implies that some of the criticism wasn't deserved, and I think it is in this case.
Narduzzi had some expectations for what Cade Bell would be able to do, and he had some expectations for this offense that this offense had, quite frankly, created for itself. Now, the offense isn’t meeting those standards. So Narduzzi was critical, and he was critical of himself too. I will repeat that. It's not like he has absolved himself of blame. But he was asked questions about the offense, and he's got to answer them, so those answers aren't going to be positive during a time like this.
Carter: I also think the biggest shots that Pat Narduzzi has taken right now have been about personnel. He said they didn't have another Branson Taylor and brought up the lack of “free agency” in college football regarding Pitt’s ability to replace injured stars. There's a full acknowledgment that Pitt's offensive line has been bad this year, and it's gotten worse with the injuries that they've had to sustain. So, if he and Kade Bell have some frustrations and disagreements, I think they're minimal.
Elijah: Should Pitt consider leaving one of their backup offensive linemen — either Terrence Enos, Jackson Brown, or Isaiah Montgomery — in for the last couple of weeks to build chemistry as opposed to rotating them in and out each week?
Thompson: Your options for rotating those guys are pretty limited now, but I think they should at least consider leaving one of those backups in for a longer period just because I look at all the procedural penalties they committed in the last game and see communication issues. None of these guys are necessarily separating themselves for their individual performance, so I believe it's probably in Pitt's best interest to take a shot at who they think the most talented or the highest upside one of that group is and let them work for more extended periods of time with the starting unit.
The other thing is you're going to have guys moving on after this year, and one or more of Enos and Jackson Brown and Isaiah Montgomery will, at the very least, be contending for starting jobs. So you can have it both ways and try to find your most talented guy while also maybe keeping an eye towards the future too. They’ll also have a few weeks of bowl practices at the end of this year when they can test some of these guys out.
Carter: Chemistry is important, but like you're pointing to and like we've been talking about, I also wouldn't be shocked if they bring in a whole bunch of new offensive linemen next year that start. So look at the young guys; maybe you will find someone, but also protect your quarterbacks because Nate Yarnell was sacked eight times and hit a lot more than that.
You don't want him to take that kind of abuse. It shouldn't just be experimenting. It should be going out there to win and protect guys. If you can get young guys experience, great. But you've got to protect your quarterback, and you've got to come up with a plan for the offensive line.
JubJub: Why didn't Capel close the deal with some of the big recruits over the last few weeks? You've seen Derek Dixon, Amari Evans, and now Meleek Thomas, some long-time Pitt targets, choose to go elsewhere recently.
Thompson: It's a little obvious at certain points. Dixon committed to North Carolina, Amari Evans committed to Tennessee. Meleek Thomas committed to Arkansas and John Calipari. So Thomas, I'm sure he got quite a bit of money from Arkansas and the Tyson Food Corporation, who seems to be backing their NIL program down there in Fayetteville.
But Evans chose to play for Rick Barnes, who's a really outstanding coach, and Evans is a much more defensive-minded guy, so he's going to play for a defensive coach in a defensive program in Tennessee. And Dixon, I mean, the allure of North Carolina, a blue-bud program, that's pretty hard to deny as well.
I hate to be reductive like that, but sometimes brand power and money do win out. The flip side of this, though, is you look at a guy like Omari Witherspoon, who is fast rising, a little bit underrated, a good athlete — he fits the profile of a guy like a Bub Carrington, who eventually blossomed into something really, really good at Pitt.
Jeff Capel told us, I guess it was last week, that he doesn't really chase stars or recruiting rankings, so I don’t think he gets as disappointed anymore when one of these guys chooses a blue blood school over Pitt. I think he understands the position that Pitt is in and wants to win these battles, but he understands when he loses them. Sometimes, you just lose out to the bigger kid on the block, and I don't think that's necessarily news to anyone, even if it's disappointing.
Carter: Something to remember for Pitt fans. As good as they are feeling because of back-to-back 20-plus win seasons, feeling that they should have been in the NCAA tournament last year and two tournament wins the year before that, this program is still not back to being one of the best programs in the country like it was in the Jamie Dixon era.
If Jeff Capel can get them back to the Sweet Sixteen, maybe an Elite Eight at some point, then Pitt will be a more serious player in those conversations. Then you're also getting more money from fan support and national attention. There's still lots to wait and see because, like you said, Capel has done really well with those guys that have been overlooked.
Thompson: I would also add that — and I wrote about this in my recruitment report last week — there aren't many guys left in the high school ranks that they have offered who haven't committed yet. So it's not like the Panthers, after they've missed out on guys like Thomas or Evans or Dixon, have started chasing after other high school recruits. This next class is going to be pretty transfer portal-heavy.
They’ll look for some experience, especially at the guard spot when you've got Brandin Cummings and Witherspoon coming in while losing Ishmael Leggett, Damian Dunn and likely Jaland Lowe, too.
Brandon: How many wins does Pitt need to get during this coming five-game stretch against power conference teams (LSU, Wisconsin or UCF, Ohio State, Mississippi State and Virginia Tech) for it to be a success?
Carter: I don't know about you, but I feel like it would be reasonable for Pitt to go 3-2 during this stretch and say they did an alright job. But knowing what we know from last year, I almost feel like they have to go 4-1 to prove a point about their non-conference strength of schedule and remove any doubt from their resume. They’ve said that “leave no doubt” is the theme of this season. I think if you're a team that is all about “leave no doubt,” you need to be able to beat these power conference teams now.
Thompson: It does help that Wisconsin climbed into the rankings this week after really dominating Arizona over the weekend, and Ohio State’s currently ranked, too. But it all hinges on whether they play Wisconsin or UCF for me. My first instinct was to say 3-2 would be successful as well. You definitely need to beat LSU and Virginia Tech because those aren't particularly quality power conference teams.
But then, from the Wisconsin, Ohio State and Mississippi State group, those are all teams that could reasonably be considered top 25 teams. But UCF is a little different. I would say that that's a team Pitt should beat. If they can steal one off of Wisconsin, Ohio State, and Mississippi State while beating LSU and Virginia Tech, I'd consider that a success. But if you throw UCF in the mix instead of Wisconsin, you definitely need to go 4-1.
You do make an excellent point, though. If you are a “leave no doubt” team, which Pitt wants to be this year, you need to dominate. It helps that these games are also on the road because a loss won't look nearly as bad. Most of these, if not all, would be considered quad one games if Pitt played them now. So, wins or losses, it's still better that Pitt has kind of scheduled this way and scheduled some tough teams like this as opposed to last season when their non-conference schedule was extremely light.
First Published: November 19, 2024, 7:34 p.m.
Updated: November 19, 2024, 8:15 p.m.
