Shady on DW
- Thread starter steelcurtain55.
- Start date
That is so friggin awesome!! I got friggin tears!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Talk about a recruiting tool. But is Duzz, Wanny???
"It's Pitt.... I mean it's Pitt" is unfortunately a moniker we will never lose. Top recruits thought that and still think that and we no longer have Wanny to be a colorful personality to attract top players.
Right - you need the color of $ now.
You don't. But you do need an administration and fan base that demands success and doesn't settle.
The margin for error is slim but it's doable. You also need luck and highly competent people.
Unfortunately we don't have any of that going right now.
If you want to DEMAND success as a fan base today, then you better be willing to put up a lot of NIL $.
Nah man, you need money. Fans can “demand success” all they want. It doesn’t mean jack squat if they don’t pony up money and do their part. I hate that this is the current system, but it is what it is. We’re getting lapped by bum programs like IU not because Cigs is a wiz coach, but because they get way more cash than us.
And as organization you better inspire people put up $$$. We aren't doing that.
We're here. I'm sure Kodak blamed people and the situation. Now they make speciality film.
Survive and adapt.
Well I do think coaching does matter still. Alot of programs awash in cash still can't get out of their own way.
That's what these Pollyannas are missing. You need an engaging coach who galvanizes fans and donors into donating.
Cignetti didn't just take a Scrooge McDuck swan dive into a vaulted money room at Indiana. They have their chicken or the egg story mixed up (if I may stick with the fowl theme).
Also, decent 3-star high school recruits (which we can be pretty decent with) are not that expensive. Find a way to get them here, because they'll stick around for a discount. Narduzzi is on a path back to the 90s when it comes to high school recruiting; he absolutely sucks at it.
Lastly, get me a coach who can identify/recruit/develop quarterbacks above all else, because a good quarterback can cover up a lot of warts. Coordinators and position coaches will come and go, but I'll take a coach who understands the most important position on the field. Instead, we have a glorified DC who all but runs away from it. The fact that, 8+ years into the job, he thought Jurkovec was an adequate solution... I mean, come on. He can blame the OC all he wants, but he signed off on that.
At the end of the day, we are paying $6.7M/year to get similar results to what we could achieve if we paid a guy about 1/3 of that. Not exactly a ringing endorsement, as we approach the salary cap era where every dollar will matter for a school like Pitt.
This is how NIL is working...
Low and Mid Level Programs are the current JUCO's of the college world. They're recruiting that way. They're telling kids to come to there school, perform well and get a $$$ deal at a blue blood within 2 years.
The concentration of elite players in the Power 2 is only going to get further and further away from the rest of the pack unless some type of legislation is passed in the form of a salary cap.
Low and Mid Level Programs are the current JUCO's of the college world. They're recruiting that way. They're telling kids to come to there school, perform well and get a $$$ deal at a blue blood within 2 years.
The concentration of elite players in the Power 2 is only going to get further and further away from the rest of the pack unless some type of legislation is passed in the form of a salary cap.
These days, more than ever, it's not the Xs and Os, it is the Jimmy and the Joes.
Put up, or $hut up.
Put up, or $hut up.
It doesn't work that way. Programs that want to win consistently, put up money consistently.
And here's the kicker - Once a program tastes success, it becomes a lot more expensive to maintain.
There is a vast cultural difference between Pitt and large state schools. It's a badge of honor in some of their big donor circles to brag about being the person to pay X amount of dollars to get some stud player on the roster. They get off on that sort of thing.
The last time Pitt had a highly competent head football coach was almost 45 years ago.
Here's what you are missing. Narduzzi gives donors pretty much exactly what they want. - a respectable product that wins more than they lose, represents the school well, and does those things on the lower end of the NIL spectrum. Big picture here - if your program can't compete for national championships, you're basically asking donors to throw their money away.
Are we seriously expecting donors & fans to be galvanized by the prospects of winning 8 or 9 regular season games & going to the Pop-Tart bowl in Florida as opposed to the GameAbove or Pinstripe Bowl? Or maybe, if the breaks fall Pitt's way, they could sneak in the playoffs and get curb-stomped by the Big 10 or SEC? It's a money pit and a horrible investment.
Which is amazing, considering that's also the last time Pitt had a really talented roster.
Funny thing about him saying that is that at least he was honest, but then he mentioned that once he went on a visit, he loved it. I think if we had a charismatic coach who could get the recruits in for visits I think we could pull a couple top-tier recruits, but we haven’t had a charismatic recruiter like that since Dave Wandstedt. It might’ve been a few other guys the receivers coach here are there and a positional coach, but the head coach hasn’t been like that in quite a while..
It's also the last time that Pitt was spending as much money on the roster as just about anyone else.
Yet, we have numerous similar examples of collectives rallying around a new coach. Colorado, Louisville, Indiana, UNC, Georgia Tech, Syracuse, SMU, etc. Do we honestly think they all had national championship or bust aspirations? Are we saying the collective of every fan base not named Pitt is delusional and we're the only sane ones? I hardly think so. Bickell gave $20M to a Pitt program that hadn't won more than ten games in 40 years.
I think most people are pretty realistic. No one is expecting national championships for their investments.
100%. I wouldn't want these guys in my company or my program. We're losing and it's getting worse and they blame the game. It's a loser mentality.
And Pitt being in Pittsburgh is different from those schools aside from GT (but Atlanta is much bigger) that you need a PR savvy coach (like a Wanny) who can get out there and drum up support.
Most schools are actually doing away with their collectives now.
Sure. Let's look at those. Louisville, Indiana, and UNC have much larger and much more rabid fan bases than Pitt.
I don't know if delusional is the right word for SMU, but their donors are forking over $200 million of their own money to play in a second rate conference where they are forfeiting media rights for a lengthy time period. I think bat-shit crazy is better term than delusional. David Miller LOLs at Bickell's $20 mil.
Colorado is a unique case. There's only one Coach Prime, who already has a celebrity persona, lots of wealthy friends, and talented son with a talented best friend. So far, their payoff has been 13-12 overall, 8-10 in the Big 12 and a drubbing in the Alamo Bowl. Let's see where it goes from here.
Georgia Tech and Syracuse aren't rallying around a new coach. A more appropriate term would be pissing in the wind. Brent Key is the poster guy for 7-6 football.
Only Wanny failed to drum up support. His recruiting classes were mediocre at best. I think he had maybe ONE top 25 class in six years. You can't compete at a very high level like that.
I don't know if "rabid" is an adjective often used to describe Indiana and UNC football fans. The joke among UNC fans for years has been that football season ends the moment the first basketball is tipped off.
GT dropped $1M on a a local lineman. Would anybody do that for Narduzzi? He seems to alienate everyone associated with this program. Hell, he still only lets Chris and Jim see, like, the stretching portion of the practices. As if they're going to leak something major that turns his 6-6 season into 5-7. "Ohhhh, snap! Jacoby might be playing this week instead of Collier!"
Half-joking about the practice access, because I'm not sure how uncommon it is to see more than that. But it's just a combination of many things that make him a tough coach to really get behind the second things go sour.
It doesn't matter how good of a salesman you are, if you're going door to door selling encyclopedias, you are doomed to fail. You're trying to put lipstick on a pig.
Pitt football will never have the donors to win big in college football. No coach or AD is going to change that.
Pitt football will never consistently draw 68,000 fans to Acrisure Stadium (which is really small for most serious programs) No coach or AD is going to change that.
Pitt football is never going to be an attractive choice for the Big 10 or SEC. No coach or AD is going to change that.
Hell, as a football conference, the ACC is never going to be an attractive choice for TV viewership. No Commissioner is going to change that.
That's just reality.
Indiana at least had over 20,000 fans show up at the TaxSlayer Bowl in 2020. UNC cared enough to set up fraudulent, no-show classes to keep football players eligible, while paying them thousands in illegal benefits. I can't see Pitt caring enough to do either.
Maybe Narduzzi isn't begging for $1M to spend on a local lineman just so he can go 7-6. Maybe boosters funding the program think that's actually a good thing.
I mean…I don’t think I’m talking crap on Pitt when I say this. But pre-injury, LeSean McCoy was probably going to end up at Pete Carroll’s USC, at the peak of the Reggie Bush era. I don’t remember his pre-injury ranking, but he was a top five overall recruit in his class. He was not going to come to Pitt if he hadn’t gotten hurt, and I think Shady and Wanny would be the first to agree with that.
To go from that level of superstardom, then the injury, all the offers dry up and he ends up flunking out of McDevitt…we all love Pitt here, but it’s not Pete Carroll-era USC.
UNC has never - not once - taken football seriously. This Belichick thing is the closest thing that approaches that neighborhood. Chip Patterson, who hosts the Cover 3 Podcast, is a UNC grad and he has outlined this topic. It's a basketball school, and it always has been.
The best thing Indiana has going for it is, like many Big Ten schools, it has one of the largest living alumni bases. But they're hardly known for their football fan loyalty. When you're a doormat for 121 years, getting 20,000 at a decent bowl game barely feels like an achievement. They probably thought it was a once in a lifetime thing. Pitt brought more than that to Charlotte.
Okay - UNC has never taken football seriously. Yet they have done a lot more in the last 30 years to attempt to win than Pitt. That includes paying players, academic fraud, and NIL, and now Belichick.
Huge difference between a Conference Championship game and a TaxSlayer Bowl.
How many seasons has UNC won 10 or more games in football this century? How many ACC championships in football have they won this century?
2005 Rivals 38 (transition class)
2006 Rivals 21
2007 Rivals 26
2008 Rvials 28 (smaller class)
2009 Rivals 47
2010 Rivals 33 (including some dude named Aaron Donald)
Guys like Revis, Donald, Shady (rerank) were criminally underranked.
His 2011 class that was blown up after his firing was blown up and likely was top 20.
Revis signed with the Harris regime.
Most Pitt coaches hit on a few guys who are underrated. Lewis, Conner, Pickett, Addision, Kacey.
But the recruiting classes you cited aren't good. Any fan that followed Pitt from 1973 through the mid-80s know what solid recruiting looks like. This ain't it.
That’s Exactly my point. The return on investment at Pitt isn't bad. UNC has bent the rules more and threw more money at football than Pitt has in the last 20 years, but Pitt still had better results.
But it isn't reality. It's some anonymous dipshits opinion on an internet message board.
If that charismatic recruiter met with Shady prior to the ankle and MRob incident, he probably wouldn't have made it past his HS coach.
It all boils down to the product you're selling and what perks come with it.
Case in point - JoePa rarely went out to recruit except in rare occurrences. Who was charismatic on that staff - Sandusky, Ganter, Anderson, Bradley? They were the salesman.
Charismatic guys are only as effective as the product they're selling.
Not happy to have given away our old 1960s World Book Encyclopedia set to my cousins many years ago. Well, at the time it was great for us and them, but I want them back now. Would take them back in a heartbeat. Maybe they still have them, I'll have to check.
If you went door to door I'd want the old ones. New would be full of crap like Wikipedia.
Dude....don't compare Pitt with back then. That was otherwordly. I mean even like mid 1980's they had top 10 classes.
