ADVERTISEMENT

Lack of talent don't blame PN yet

That's right. NORVELL and he was not really on most radar few years back. He is doing good
He should be on everyone's radar. He coached at Pitt.

MA is at Houston , another good example anyhow
That isn't a good example. Neither is. Those are both coaches who took over good situations where the winning was the best it has been in a long time. They are continuing the success, not initiating it.
 
I don't necessarily agree that a lot of teams play so many young guys especially if they want to be good. Yes the blue blood programs who get their pick of kids certainly do but programs like Pitt need to get kids they can develop over a 2-3 year period to have them be good contributors on the back end.

But they do. What separates the blue bloods from the rest of college football isn't really the experience. It's the talent level of the experience. An upper tier team plays a lot of players, and maybe it costs them when they go against another upper tier team. But their young guys are so good that they beat everybody else, and you don't see large dips in the record from year to year. The rest of college football plays young guys and you see a dip in the record. Which is why a few teams are always near the top, and the rest wait for a window.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Jpripper88
Lots of posters getting on PN because there is so little talent on the roster but PN has only had two full classes unless you want to judge him based on the one 6 week class.

I'm going to boil this down to two simple questions:
1. Can PN recruit?
2. Can PN (and his staff) coach up the kids he does recruit?

We can throw the "6 week class" out of the equation.
The first full-year class sets the baseline. Not awful, but nobody would say "He must be a great recruiter."
Most AD's would hope their relatively new coach steps it up quite a bit in the second full class after two seasons of play. I haven't seen that, especially on the top edge of the recruiting class.
The current recruiting cycle is far from over, but nobody is saying "wow" about where Pitt sits right now. And the second straight grad-transfer QB puts a spotlight on PN's failure to bring in a competitive QB recruit.

As for Question 2, Pitt was good offensively last season with a lot of players PN inherited. There has been a significant drop off so far this year with the staff playing more of the players they have recruited. I'll give the benefit of the doubt because there are some young kids on the field. We'll see what improvement they show in the next couple weeks.

The defensive side of the ball was supposed to be PN's strong suit. I don't think anybody is impressed. I'm not going to buy the CEO crap and allow the blame to filter down to the defensive staff. PN didn't roll up his sleeves and fix it last season when the defense cost the team wins. In my opinion, a lot of that is on him.

I guess it all depends upon what the administration wants. PN has the look (right now) of a coach who will win 7 or so games most years and get a low-level bowl berth. He's going to have to step his game up quite a bit for Pitt to become an ACC contender with any regularity.
 
Look, here is my issue when I see people talking about how PN, or DW, or hell, KevIn stallings needs time to build their program.

The fact of the matter is, those guys were not coming into terrible situations, where the program had been obliterated. Were they too of the line programs, no...but the cupboard was not bare.

First off, wanny was a disaster the first three years. Walt had the program at a point it had won 25 games over the previous three years. The competition, especially in the last year, was suspect, but Dave went up against the same, if not worse competition, and promptly had the only 3 non bowl seasons pitt has had since 2001 I believe.

Narduzzi came in, and went 8-4 each year. I was very happy with that. My concern always was though that as a defensive coach, those two years really happened because of a good offense, and not the defense, using the players that Chryst brought in outside of peterman. Now, in year 3, now that most of those chryst players are gone, the offense has looked brutAl. More alarmingly the defense keeps getting worse. I'm not one to talk schemes generally, but I can see damn well our corners cannot stay in man coverage with any receivers, but yet we keep running press man coverage and get burnt over and over again.

Also, if you want to use the argument NOW that narduzzi needs more time to build his program because of poor talent left by chryst, you also have to at the same time admit that a large portion of the credit last year goes to chryst players, again with the exception of peterman.

So while I do think he needs at least this year and next, the fact that the defense continues to be an absolute disaster in year 3 is alarming, and the lack of defensive adjustments is mind numbing.

I know people blasted graham for not adjusting his offense for Tino, and they had a fair point, but an entire offensive scheme from spread to a pro set is MUCH harder to adjust than having safeties help corners or running zones on occasion.
 
Coaching styles, situations and coaching ability and being able to adjust to the talent you inherit matters significantly. Meyer and Saban for example. Walt's offense was pitch-and-catch with emphasis on skill positions. Wanny liked ball control and defense. Once Wanny got his players he fared better. Took him a while. This could well be the case with Narduzzi although as a defensive-minded coach, where's the defense?

In '62 Hugh Devore went 2-7 at Notre Dame. The next year Ara Parseghian went 9-1. Two years later Notre Dame won a national championship.

In '85 Gerry Faust at Notre Dame the Irish went 5-6 and lost three games by 18 or more points. The next year, even though Lou Holtz had the same record as Faust the year before, the Irish lost only one game by six points or more. Two years later Notre Dame won a natty.

Some coaches know how to win with their system. Some coaches are better than others tailoring their system to the talent they have. Fans aren't very patient waiting for improved results.
 
I

The defensive side of the ball was supposed to be PN's strong suit. I don't think anybody is impressed. I'm not going to buy the CEO crap and allow the blame to filter down to the defensive staff. PN didn't roll up his sleeves and fix it last season when the defense cost the team wins. In my opinion, a lot of that is on him.

I guess it all depends upon what the administration wants. PN has the look (right now) of a coach who will win 7 or so games most years and get a low-level bowl berth. He's going to have to step his game up quite a bit for Pitt to become an ACC contender with any regularity.

For the defense, I think it's been kind of damning that players like Galambos, Webb, and Lewis played so poorly under Narduzzi and his staff. Yet turned it around within months of leaving and performed well enough under different coaches to make NFL practice squads. That reflects very poorly on Narduzzi and staff Imo.

As far as what the Pitt leadership wants: Frankly I think they'd want rid of the program entirely! But apparently believe they need to offer it to check some box next to "amenity offered". Last weekend should be embarrassing to them but I bet they didn't even notice the terrible national publicity. It sounds like a rather arrogant and insular leadership (people who post here that seem like Pitt employees do nothing but bolster that impression... proclaiming the fault is with the customers). Doesn't bode well for future success. :(
 
Ok. This is HCPNs 3rd year. Who are the 2nd and 3rd year players who look very good?

I am mostly agreeing with you. So either you are not reading what I am writing or you are simply looking to argue to argue.

I said the issues around this team right now are a combination of things including Coaching, Lack of Development, Mediocre Recruiting etc... Lack of Development and Mediocre recruiting is stating there are too few young players that look to be future stars.

I am just making the overall point that Programs such as Pitt that need to rely on so many Freshmen and Sophmores are going to take some lumps. We are not getting 5 star after 5 star that can come in and play at a high level from the start.

Development of players in this program is so huge and so important. Will that be done at a high enough level for them to take the next step? I don't know but questions if they will are certainly realistic. It's time for the program, the defense to start showing more signs of an upward trajectory. I expected a step back this season with the loss of so much talent. But next year is year 4 for Narduzzi so that is a year they need to show they are making much better strides in my opinion.
 
But they do. What separates the blue bloods from the rest of college football isn't really the experience. It's the talent level of the experience. An upper tier team plays a lot of players, and maybe it costs them when they go against another upper tier team. But their young guys are so good that they beat everybody else, and you don't see large dips in the record from year to year. The rest of college football plays young guys and you see a dip in the record. Which is why a few teams are always near the top, and the rest wait for a window.

Right, that is basically what I said. The bolded underlined part is where Pitt is. My post stated programs playing so many young players and expecting to be good are few and far between.
 
I am mostly agreeing with you. So either you are not reading what I am writing or you are simply looking to argue to argue.

I said the issues around this team right now are a combination of things including Coaching, Lack of Development, Mediocre Recruiting etc... Lack of Development and Mediocre recruiting is stating there are too few young players that look to be future stars.

I am just making the overall point that Programs such as Pitt that need to rely on so many Freshmen and Sophmores are going to take some lumps. We are not getting 5 star after 5 star that can come in and play at a high level from the start.

Development of players in this program is so huge and so important. Will that be done at a high enough level for them to take the next step? I don't know but questions if they will are certainly realistic. It's time for the program, the defense to start showing more signs of an upward trajectory. I expected a step back this season with the loss of so much talent. But next year is year 4 for Narduzzi so that is a year they need to show they are making much better strides in my opinion.
Gotcha. I think we agree that if "player development" is one of their calling cards, we better start seeing a lot more players developing at a lot higher level. So far, I've seen the offensive players Chryst left (save Nathan Peterman) carry the load for the 1st 2 seasons and nothing else really develop. That is very worrisome.
 
Gotcha. I think we agree that if "player development" is one of their calling cards, we better start seeing a lot more players developing at a lot higher level. So far, I've seen the offensive players Chryst left (save Nathan Peterman) carry the load for the 1st 2 seasons and nothing else really develop. That is very worrisome.

I think player development is definitely supposed to be one of their calling cards. At Mich St that is how they built that program. They did not get the 5 star kids on a regular basis. They developed kids into big time players.
 
ADVERTISEMENT