I'm in the South Side for Pat Narduzzi's weekly press conference. I'll post news and notes from what Narduzzi says here in this thread.

There was a lot of discussion about whether Pitt should have taken more time off the clock on its final drive yesterday. I initially said that I thought it was fine, since they marched 73 yards and took more than 7 minutes to do it.

Now...I kind of agree with the criticism.

Pitt ran 18 plays; 7 of those were snapped on stopped clock due to four incomplete passes, a UNC timeout and the first play of the drive. On the other 11 plays, here's the amount of time left on the play clock when Pitt snapped the ball:

:02
:16
:16
:31
:08
:27
:18
:24
:06
:08
:02

(They also had the play clock down to :16 when UNC called its timeout, so they might have been running the clock there.)

Obviously, there were some considerably early snaps in there, like those at :31, :27 and :24. Incidentally, those were all first down plays, so I wonder if some of the "rules" of the offense - going tempo after getting a first down - caused the players to get up and snap it quickly.

But even the snaps at :16 (twice) and :18 were too soon. My only thought on those plays is that Pitt's offense saw UNC's defense aligned a certain way and didn't want to give them time to adjust pre-snap.

I won't haggle too much over the :06 and :08 snaps; that's just a matter of seconds. But if all of the :16+ were run down to :10, you're looking at an additional 1:12, give or take. UNC got the ball back with 1:54 on the clock, so if we allow for the two-minute stoppage to take at least a few seconds off Pitt's possession time, you're probably looking at shaving a minute or so off the time that UNC had the ball. If you really milk it to :02 or :01 every time, perhaps you get the Tar Heels down under :30 or so.

Ultimately, it worked out: a 73-yard drive that took 7+ minutes and resulted in points was exactly what Pitt needed at that stage of the game. And I thought it was encouraging to see that they could build a drive like that. But next time, they could probably be a little more intentional with the clock.

Gasparilla and Fenway. A little disappointing but hey at least they’re slowly starting to buy in

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HAIL TO PITT!

It always seemed like every other damn program had a year they started 5-0 or better….and I vocally crucified Pat for it, especially the WMU year.

Now we are here. A win away from being undefeated in late October and two wins away from making it to November undefeated.

Even if we finish 8-4 this is way better to
Me than the 2022 team that made the season feel pretty irrelevant and lost after early October

Anybody know this guy?

96 year old Pitt fan keeping fit

Pretty amazing.

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Jaland Lowe and Ishmael Leggett will be joining Jeff Capel for the ACC Basketball Tip-Off in Charlotte next week.

Seems like the two obvious options.

It was after the Reid TD where he stretched the ball into the end zone, then they reviewed it. For a split second they showed Bell yelling at Holsty. Holsty had a little shocked look on his face… Then the camera switched away….

Pitt RBs with 20 catches, 300 receiving yards in a season since 1980:

2024 Desmond Reid 24-322-4
2016 James Conner 21-302-4
2012 Ray Graham 36-340-2
2008 LeSean McCoy 32-305-0
1992 Curtis Martin 33-317-1
1986 Craig Heyward 29-361-1
1982 Bryan Thomas 49-366-1
1981 Bryan Thomas 39-406-0

Pitt's defense gave up more than 400 yards but only 17 points in Saturday's 34-24 win at North Carolina. Here's a closer look at which defensive players saw the field, how much they played and what they contributed.

Down goes Alabama. Vandy rules.

They haven’t been huge names so far. 2 of them haven’t played much. 1 not at all until today. The other one has been (mostly deservedly) much maligned.

Sean Fitzsimmons. Had an OUTSTANDING game. The 4th down play to slow Hampton in the 4Q. Then George finished him off.

DaeDae Reynolds. HUGE 1st down catch. Comes in cold and makes a play that a winner makes.

Caleb Junko. 3 punts. 50.3 avg. 59 yd long. Nice job.

Just came out. AP poll will be close I think.

Overjoyed to be 5-0, but if we’re going to talk about the problems (which we are anyway), we have to talk about clock management at the end of the game.

Up by seven points with less than three minutes to go, and inside the 30 yard line, there is absolutely no reason to throw a pass. No reason at all. Run three times, make North Carolina burn all their timeouts, and kick the automatic field goal with a minute and change left to play, making it a two score game.

It was a miracle that horrendous and ill advised pass by Eli wasn’t intercepted. We were up by seven, not down by seven. Just run the clock out, let $auls do his job and spare us the drama.

Great to get the Chapel Hill monkey off our back. We will definitely be ranked, especially with some top 25 losses ahead of us. H2P!

Not great tackling so far.

On the Monday after Pitt's first win in Chapel Hill ever, we've got a lot to say about how the Panthers finally beat North Carolina and what it means for the team going forward.

👀

Said Eli is a special qb. Came out of nowhere and was fifth string at Bama. Said that tells you how good Bama is

He said the reason they went for all those fourth downs is because they didn’t think they could stop Pitts offense because Eli is that good. They made that decision coming into the game

Said Pitt is the best team they played by far

As an aside my wife got to know Mac when he was at ESPN. She said he’s a really good guy. You can see it in this interview.

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Brother of Kade. Ranked 42nd in class by Willie

I mean it just can’t match the drama of what happened yesterday. It also helps that on a Saturday I have nearly 100’s of games to watch with 6-7 on cable tv plus all the streaming games at one time.

But there is just nothing the nfl can do to replicate vandy vs bama, or when Pitt beat Clemson or 13-9. You just can’t. Plus it feels like everyone in the nfl runs a variation of similar offenses,..nothing at all like this Kade bell offense.

I know it’s personal opinion, but I just find the whole thing bland