Duzz lost the team?
- Thread starter steelcurtain55.
- Start date
I get your point, but the ultimate test is how well they perform on Saturday.
That doesn’t mean win, but it does require a level of discipline I have only seen for a few quarters of football this year.
That doesn’t mean win, but it does require a level of discipline I have only seen for a few quarters of football this year.
Oh, boy. Love is nice but W’s are better. I hope the love is flowing Saturday.
You're cheering for the wrong school if you think the people in charge think that way.
Maybe so….but no FB program is going to survive at ANY division 1 school where winning is subordinated to any number of other “ nice yo have” cultural attributes. This is a business and you’re paying a HC $5.7 M per year to run a successful program. Let me know the next time Lyke steps on a dais before s large group of Pitt supporters and tells them winning isn’t important but open you wallet and give me your cash because the players love the coach who just cratered the most recent season. You are whistling in the wind.
The football program is on solid ground with Coach Duzz. The players love the coach and they have played hard for him in the past. This is a down year but with the youing players getting experience and some help from the portal they can improve next season This is a business but you can't ignore the past few decades when the Pitt Administration/donors did not step up for the football program.
Pitt has been exactly as you write since the 1980s and has gotten along (though at the precipice of dropping the program in the late 1990s). It’s just a means for a big conference check because success hasn’t mattered, the checks keep coming … Up to now. With the business changing rapidly and the conference gravy train possibly in danger towards decade end, it is going to be interesting (in a bad way) to see where things go.
The players are also getting paid decent money and are professionals. They are also accountable for cratering the season. In the real world if they don't win, they should be fired and replaced. But college isn't the real world in most ways, so this is what we have.
No FB program outside of the Bluebloods will thrive without a culture of family and team togetherness, be sure, without a great culture any outside the top will be a bottom feeder.
What do you think the Pitt administration will say and do when donations drop off, fans in the stands disappear, and Pitt football is relegated to bottom feeder status in the national landscape? Maybe this season is an anomaly and we'll get back on track next year. But you need quality players and a competent coaching staff to do that. I'm not sure either of those will be here next year.
You have no idea what they want from him, and if he's meeting their expectations. It's a down year. It's not going well at all, we all know this.
His win/loss performance prior to this season was clearly acceptable to his superiors, even if it wasn't to fans. Successful businesses don't make rash decisions based on short term variations in results.
They got a $1m donation last week to the Pitt Football Championship Fund and the Student Athlete Success Fund. Some people have longer term vision than message board fans.
Well you’re wrong unless the people in the ADs department who contact me fairly regularly for monetary support are fabricating their expectations for the program as conveyed to supporters like myself.
The discussion was about the importance of winning in the whole scheme of things and not Narduzzi’s future or this year in particular. Having said that, if he duplicates His coaching performance of this year next year, he will be canned…bank on it.
And by the way, are you another one of these guys who badmouths Pitt supporters, views Pitt ‘s ceiling as mediocrity and whose support consists , in large part, in posting on this board? That’s not supporting the program!
Or, more realistically, far more complex tax planning needs and strategies.
Eastern Michigan football received a $1 mill donation last week too. I doubt the donor was fulfilling his long term vision for turning EMU into the next mid-major football powerhouse.
Let's check back in on this love thread Sunday morning.
I understand the importance of the other stuff but if it doesn’t contribute to winning, it’s a minor consideration. I’m not buying, however, that somehow togetherness takes on some special importance at Pitt because they’re not a blue blood…that’s a back door argument for subordinating winning to cultural attributes which are nice to haves. You don’5 win and the stands will be empty..simple as that. By the way, I’ll be at the game Saturday and if Pitt gets their head handed to them I won’t give a hoot about the team loving the HC.
I believe your quote earlier in this thread was "W’s Are all that count."
I'm telling you that you have no idea what Narduzzi is evaluated on, and what the W number needs to be in conjunction with the other metrics he's evaluated on. It's clearly not inline with your expectations. What someone says to pull a few shekels out of your pocket is irrelevant.
HL doesn't care if you like the guy or not. Get over it.
What do you suppose that is going to prove? That a 2-6 team losing to the #4 team in the country somehow proves you right?
The discussion isn’t about whether culture supersedes results. (It doesn’t.) This is a rebuttal to the ancillary chatter this week over Narduzzi’s post game comments and people citing player retweets as evidence that he lost the respect of the locker room.
Pitt won't tolerate a lot of seasons like this from anyone but your point is correct. The school just isn't going to sell its soul for football.
And then we'll check the portal activity and early signing day faxes. A tweet proves absolutely nothing.
And I'm not assuming the position that he has lost the team; I sure hope he hasn't. But to pretend like a tweet confirms anything is swimming in an ocean of Kool-Aid.
Nor should it. That's what places like PissU and wvu do.
There has to be a balance of winning and a productive culture. If the wins don't happen for a few years no matter what the culture is, I think Pitt will say to Pat: "Pat, you're a good ambassador for the university and have developed a great culture with Pitt football. But we need that AND winning, and you're just not doing the second part. Thank you for your service and here's your severance."
College is about turning adolescents into adults. That is just as true in football as it is in academics. Yes, it is important to strive to win but a "win-at-all-costs" attitude is not appropriate for student-athletes.
He's won the conference and is pretty easily the best coach in the last 40 years. Let's not act like he's only here because he's Mr. Rodgers.
Walt's the best coach we've had in the past 40 years. He took a disaster of a program and raised the bar to where we're at today, which is a 7-5 bowl team, basically. He's the reason, after 13 years of mostly garbage, we're not Illinois or Rutgers today.
The funny thing is that Walt's best years as a head coach were by far at Pitt, so the feeling has to be mutual one would think.
Actions speak louder than tweets. After that Veilleux slide call, they completely quit. They might not have “quit on the coach”, but definitely quit. Wake scored ridiculously easily after that play to win the game (with a QB possibly even worse than Jurkovec). And then ND had their way 100% from start to finish. That was easily the worst loss since 1996 (when the team also quit). So I admire those who think there’s fight left in this squad but it sure doesn’t seem possible.
FIVE: In my opinion here is the problem with your thought process. A team gets better or gets worse. Being status quo is not going forward.
The thing that bothers me is that the program needs changes and some of us doubt the Narduzzi will make them. If he does make changes, will it be more of the same?
As for the players love for Narduzzi, That’s nice. But it’s better for a coach to be respected. Have they lost respect?
Depends on whether the 2-6 team puts up some kind of fight, or whether they have mailed it in.
The second half of the ND game, not to mention the post-game stuff, didn't look like any kind of lovefest to me. I'm pretty sure guys like Hammond and Bart weren't feeling real lovey after hardly being involved in a game where the best players were badly needed.
I think Peak had the most level headed view (paraphrase)
Winning 11 games doesn’t mean you going to continue winning 11 games from that point on and winning 2,3,4 doesn’t mean you’ll stay on that trajectory either.
Pitt has led the ACC in NFL draft picks for 3 years now.. I think it’s taking its toll but Narduzzi has done a lot to elevate the program
Winning 11 games doesn’t mean you going to continue winning 11 games from that point on and winning 2,3,4 doesn’t mean you’ll stay on that trajectory either.
Pitt has led the ACC in NFL draft picks for 3 years now.. I think it’s taking its toll but Narduzzi has done a lot to elevate the program
Look all of us, including the players, know that Narduzzi is not the most verbally facile guy. He made a comment after ND that was blown up out of context by a dickhead reporter trying to start a brush fire. Duzz owned up to his comments and did his best to explain what he meant. I will add that what he said was based in truth. The guys who replaced the guys drafted into the NFL haven't been able to replace them effectively.
The program was worse in 92 than 96.
Heck, buyout the road games at tOSU & Notre Dame, schedule 2 cupcakes and the 96 team would have qualified for a bowl game.
Duzz is head and shoulders above Walt. He has a better resume and better wins.
You know it's 2023 not 1923 right? What you're saying may be true in the idealized state of college athletics, but nobody can look at the state of college athletics over the past 20 years and think it's anything but a big business driven by Ws.
Pitt Football has been irrelevant in the national landscape for over 40 years.
Donations and attendance aren't the barometers they once were. TV money pays the bills.
