Final Thoughts and Impressions against UVA
- Thread starter the_insider_
- Start date
That's true. Stallings was way below mediocre. Narduzzi and the Pitt football program are mired in mediocrity. Stallings was looking up at mediocrity and it was not within his reach.
But Pitt fans seem to be content with Pitt football mediocrity for this long. May as well keep going.
I wouldn't let the guys that are trolls or the ones that seem to think winning seven games is cool because you can claim a meaningless division title every once in a while sway you. This board loses its mind every week during the season. Good, bad, and ugly.
Eh. The losses are actually more fun to dish on. Usually when we do win, its an unimpressive squeaker over a crappy team (I can't take credit for this observation, someone else noted it on the Night Game thread, but it's true). So even with most victories, there are still loads of flaws and mistakes and shortcomings to be frustrated by, that we all know will bite the team in the ass down the line (and invariably do). Yet it seems shallow to complain about after technically having won a game. At least aftera particularly ugly loss, we can let loose our intestines without feeling bad for the mess.
Last year actually provided a couple bonafide solid wins...VT and Wake. Some may say Cuse or UVA as well given how they finished (but I'm not one of them ... those teams stank). Nice to win and feel good about it .... but the boards were pretty boring afterward! However we also knew in our hearts it couldn't last. But what do you bitch about after a game that essentially ended Budd Fosters storied but way overhyped career, or the game that gives us the de facto division title? Even Souf isn't that petty. Or maybe he was, I've had him on ignore for years.
Last year actually provided a couple bonafide solid wins...VT and Wake. Some may say Cuse or UVA as well given how they finished (but I'm not one of them ... those teams stank). Nice to win and feel good about it .... but the boards were pretty boring afterward! However we also knew in our hearts it couldn't last. But what do you bitch about after a game that essentially ended Budd Fosters storied but way overhyped career, or the game that gives us the de facto division title? Even Souf isn't that petty. Or maybe he was, I've had him on ignore for years.
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Careful what you wish for? We have been wishing for 40 years for a competent HC but Pitt is too cheap to hire one.
There’s little evidence to support the assertion Narduzzi is a good HC. What’s his strength? He came in with the reputation as a defensive oriented hire. His defenses have been lousy. The strength of this year’s defense was supposed to be the secondary... they were average at best Saturday.... there were receivers open all evening. Is he a great recruiter- little evidence of that. In year 5, he has no QB, no TE and he’s still filling holes at positions in the OL and LB with grad transfers, some of whom are sub average. Where are the play makers on either side of the ball producing big plays? Is he a great game day tactician? I saw Va. blitz Pitt for 4 quarters without a single attempt to thwart that strategy with plays like screens/ slants etc. I have seen him stubbornly cling to an out dated pass defensive strategy which produced disastrous results over the course of at least 2 seasons. Is he attentive to details and is this reflected in his teams’ play? We played Penn St last year without a placeholder on kicks with disastrous results. We get a kick blocked Saturday night...all examples of sloppy play which is a symptom of poor coaching.
With little tangible evidence that he deserved it, Pitt extended his contract...Here’s the bottom line. Pitt is stuck with him! He’s offered little evidence that he’s not cut from the same bolt of cloth as the last several HCs who were fired. You can keep giving him all the passes you want but until he puts a team on the field that can win 9-10 games, he’s nothing more than a mediocre commodity .... another in a long line of coordinators who couldn’t make the leap to HC.
We would win more with a sensible OC schedule. Everyone else plays 3 Patsies and 1 competitive game.
Well I’m not one supportive for dumbing down the schedule long term but perhaps we should do so for a time. Look at some of the div 1 teams that have beat Pitt over the past 15 years....hardly powerhouses as a whole. Iowa, Mich St, Nebraska when they were crap, T A & M when they were lousy, UCF, a frickin directional school who started playing f div 1 FB a decade ago....let’s just play Duquesne, Bobby Morris, W&J, win and trumpet the achievement like we did with the coastal division championship .
Look at it from their point of view. Kinda like the Pirates. On the surface they are paying a fair amount for Duz and the staff. More or less market value I'd say. And similar to the Pirates beating their chest over some camp in the Dominican, Pitt always has that reliable chestnut that "the scholarships come from the generall fund". That allows the sycophants here, planted by the admin (that or they're mentally challenged, so I hope it's the former) to post repeated gibberish that "Pitt spends'. Throwing in donation "stats" for good measure.
When we know, like the Pirates, where the REAL spending needs to be done: On the player acquisition.
The Pirates have less excuse there because there are legal on the books means to buy better players and they gleefully resist. In college, technically, those means are still kept "unlawful" on the books, to give the BS impression of amateurism. Meanwhile though, all the top teams rigorously engage, and the 'governing' body just as gleefully condones it. Championship teams exposed for cheating haven't been touched for decades. North Carolina anyone? Biggest academic fraud ever in athletics? During the midst of championship hoops run? Resulting discipline? None. Zero. Glory, revenue, donations that resulted? Untold. School still ranked much higher academically than Pitt? Hell yes.
The really sad thing is that Pitt wouldn't even have to spend university money to engage in it; boosters have and would be been happy to oblige (and Pitt hypocritically has turned to them when it's stupid admin have put them in pickles through mismanagement... such as to pay for the Haywood and Stallings debacles).
But the deep pocket guys understandably want the regular 'contributions' to go for great players and ruthless coaches. Of the FOOTBALL (basketball too) variety to be precise, not for soccer or lacrosse or for embossed wallpaper and granite countertops in the AD suites.
But that is anathema to the MeToo'ers running the show.
I know nothing will ever change this despite it being a trillion percent fact. But like with the claims of Penn State rapes never having happened or that the lack of punishment was somehow just, and the absurd claims that dumbing down the schedule is easy, immediate, and cheap, I can't resist pointing it out at times. Y'know what, the Holocaust happened; Hillary lost on her own for running a terrible campaign in 4 key states, nothing to do with "Russia" or "white supremacists"; and cheating is rampant (and highly effective!) in major college sports. All universal truths, friends.
Yes, I realize they were mediocre last year under Narduzzi. Excuses and rationalizations about schedules are irrelevant. You play the teams in front of you.
Given the schedule this year and by your reasoning, we should win at least 8 games this year because the schedule is easier, right? But as I said, that is irrelevant. To me, anything less than 8 wins this year and we're regressing.
Consider the coaches in that time period: Fazio, Gottfried, Hackett, Majors, Harris, Wannstedt, Graham, and Chryst. How big an accomplish is getting more wins in a longer season than the above group? Don't forget Majors and Harris inherited teams with losing records as well.
You are making my point for me. 8 coaches before Narduzzi who did not do as well in their first 4 years as Narduzzi has. Yet you want to toss Narduzzi aside while he continues to build the program and make progress to hire some jabroni that will fit in with those 8 prior coaches.
Urban Myer and his corp of bagmen isn't coming to coach the Panthers.
Narduzzi is at best a fractional improvement over most of the previous 8 coaches. Harris is the best of the bunch. All of them are replaceable. The fact that none of the big schools wants to poach our coach is a clear sign of how replaceable he is.
There is little risk to letting Narduzzi go.
Wrong, lots of risk in letting Narduzzi go
1. As noted, he has done better that the previous 8 coaches in his first 4 years. His successor is likely to do worse given the history
2. Blowing up a program time and time again is a recipe for failure. Coaches recruit players to their style. You lose recruiting classes in the transition, etc
But ok, since you think you know it all and there is little risk, who realistically would Pitt hire to replace Narduzzi that would be better?
