The backyard brawl

Neal Brown's gun misfired and Narduzzi wins the fistfight.

I was struck by a particular moment in the offseason involving Pitt coach Pat Narduzzi. He was disparaging departed offensive coordinator Mark Whipple for failing to run the football more.

Gary Segars @GaryWCE

Via @ShultsFord "Bazzy's Black & Gold Banter Episode 38" Pat Narduzzi obviously didn't get along with Whipple, and he's explaining that if they ran the ball more, Kenny Pickett might have played the bowl game.

It was a strange criticism to make. Pitt went 11-3 and won the ACC Championship behind the play of quarterback Kenny Pickett (then drafted in the 1st round by Pittsburgh) and Biletnikoff winner Jordan Addison (then drafted by the USC Trojans).

The Pitt Panthers were great in 2021 and they did it with a pro-style spread system which was extremely hard to defend because of their abundance of good receivers and Kenny Pickett’s experienced play and overall athleticism. Whipple maximized those features and helped Narduzzi reach heights he’d never reached before as a head coach.

Narduzzi has always been a lunatic about the run game. His final game as Michigan State defensive coordinator saw his unit hold Art Briles’ Baylor Bears to -20 rushing yards while giving up 603 passing yards. Somehow they won that game, thanks to the Spartan offense and a blocked field goal.

Yet, he has shown a nice knack for hiring offensive coordinators even if he doesn’t particularly like them. His offensive coordinators have included Jim Chaney (Drew Brees’ Purdue coordinator), Matt Canada (now OC for the Pittsburgh pro team), Shawn Watson (helped Charlie Strong get the Texas job), Mark Whipple, and now Frank Cignetti who has a great reputation as a developer of pro-style quarterbacks including from a previous stint with Pitt.

That was important, assuredly, in securing the transfer of quarterback Kedon Slovis from USC who threw for 308 yards at 12.8 ypa in Pitt’s big 2022 opening win against West Virginia.

On the other side of the field, Neal Brown is also probably feeling pretty happy about his recent offensive coordinator hire. He brought Graham Harrell in from the wreckage of the Clay Helton USC era which assuredly helped the Mountaineers land transfer quarterback J.T. Daniels (another former Trojan, more recently with the Georgia Bulldogs). Daniels threw for just 214 yards in this game but was clearly a big boost to their offense and ultimately victimized when his star receiver Bryce Ford-Wheaton volleyball set a wide open pass that hit him square for a Pitt defender leading to a pick-6 which flipped the outcome.

It was a pretty wild game. West Virginia will struggle to accept the results but they showed a lot in this one as did the Panthers. Here’s a few key dynamics I noticed.