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Terrible time to be terrible

Pitt's assistant pool does not compete with the tops of college football
Based on what Pitt has on staff, of course it doesn't. But Pitt has also gotten and retained the assistants it has wanted for the most part, and has offered competitive salaries to those that have been gone after by other schools, like Matt Canada, whose $1.5m LSU offer was matched even though he still went to LSU. Pitt is competitive.

Pitt's problem is not its spending.

Coaching staff selection appears to be a problem. Recruiting is an issue. Recruiting, on paper, was better under predecessors with much worse budgets. The current issues are on the current HC, not budget restrictions or some structural issue within the athletic department.

What people are saying, you nitter moron, is that Pitt should be closer to a 25 program coming off a fairly successful two-year top 25 stretch and two division championships in 4 non-covid years, and after having extended the contract on a top 25 salaried HC through 2030, shouldn't be watching this defensive genius get gashed by the dregs of two different conferences while looking down the barrel of a one win campaign.
 
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Everyone knew Pitt was likely to take a step back this season with all the personnel losses, but the feeling was different heading into the season. Perhaps, just perhaps, the program was now at the point were it would reload, particularly on defense. Just plug in the next men up and Pitt would continue to be top 25ish competitive the way big boy programs do it. Perception was changing locally and nationally, evidenced by still being picked in the top 3rd of the conference, just outside the national top 25, with ticket sales and buzz climbing locally.

That hope, of course, was dead wrong. More disappointing than anything is in year 9 of this coaching regime, the defense, which is supposed to be the hero of this program, and the side of the ball which the HC admittedly spends the vast majority of his attention, looks lost and is getting shredded by, not good teams, but bad teams.

What is clear is that the program was no where near the point anyone was hoping, and for the first time in a while, it doesn't even seem like there is hope down the road. No one is saying "wait until next year" or the "future looks bright," and that type of defeatism can be a death knell for a program.

Mediocre, at best, recruiting, seems to caught up with Pitt. Most coaches will tell you, its more about the talent than the schemes. If we didn't recruit raw talent, we were supposed to develop it in house. Where is it? Is the alternative that the coaching is just that poor? Perhaps more troubling for year 9 of a regime, there just seems to be poor coaching and fundamentals all around. That is very disconcerting.

And make no mistake, all the coaches and players are professionals now. This is not your father's college football student-athletes. These are straight up professionals. And as other programs have shown, NIL and the transfer portal are tools that can afford fixes much more quickly than ever before.

It is always a lot easier to destroy a program than build one up. Major changes have to be made at the end of this season. Top 25 type of programs don't go from 11 and 9 wins down to 2-10 or 1-11, and that is were this is heading baring some unexpected miracle turnaround.

And with conference realignment swirling around every corner, this is a terrible, terrible, time to be terrible.

To save its recently new found credibility, the athletic department has to show that the type of season we are looking down the barrel of is unacceptable. Accountability is needed. It won't happen in-season...that is not realistic. But after, and again, these are professionals, so don't blow smoke up anyone ass pretending they are not. Staff changes are needed, and the new tools in college football to plug holes have to be used.
“Shredded” is funny since we were 12th in fewest yards entering today.

Our defense isn’t great, but isn’t the issue. With Kamara and danielson in we had a decent defense. Hayes is a good edge rusher but we don’t have Haba, weaver, Kancey, etc on the team and no one is up to those guys on this team but it’s not a horrible defense

If Pickett, or even savage is qb we are 4-1 now with this defense
 
“Shredded” is funny since we were 12th in fewest yards entering today.

Our defense isn’t great, but isn’t the issue. With Kamara and danielson in we had a decent defense. Hayes is a good edge rusher but we don’t have Haba, weaver, Kancey, etc on the team and no one is up to those guys on this team but it’s not a horrible defense

If Pickett, or even savage is qb we are 4-1 now with this defense
I agree it is not close to the biggest problem. Clearly. But it is supposed to be the program's strength and identity and it just gave up 38 points and 427 yards to a team that was ranked, through its first four games, 110th in total yards, 104th in scoring, and 121st in yards per rush, while missing tackles all over the field. That was not a good showing.
 
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I agree it is not close to the biggest problem. Clearly. But it is supposed to be the program's strength and identity and it just gave up 38 points and 427 yards to a team that was ranked, through its first four games, 110th in total yards, 104th in scoring, and 121st in rushing, while missing tackles all over the field. That was not a good showing.
The offense isn't helping the defense either. Narduzzi did not like an offense that scored too quickly and didn't run the clock while scoring as it put pressure on his defense by giving the ball back to the other team too quickly. So he replaced that offense with one that can't score at all and gives the ball back after three plays and a punt.
Pitt isn't even trying to play offense at all. The defense scored a third of the points today.
 
It’s never a good time to be this bad - but I don’t fully agree with the premise that this year (or this month) would determine our conference future.

Just can’t let it snowball and be who the program is. Urgency has to be great to turn it around.
 
Pat Narduzzi is a good man. An honorable man. Maybe he will agree to do the right thing and maybe agree to a lower buyout figure and he can make up the difference coordinating defenses. He must know he royally effed up and he must know how hard its going to be fix.
Sure. Fired coaches give back money all the time.

He wouldn't be honorable if he did that. He'd be certifiably insane.
 
but I will say about "investing in football", if they made winning a priority, there is no way they would have an OOC schedule every year that always ranks as the most difficult in P5. Absolutely no one does that who wants to win, Inexcusable.
The OOC has NOTHING to do with our issues or if we are serious about winning.
We had no choice but to play ND this year, so that cuts it down to 3 games that we control. I haven’t heard any Pitt fans that don’t want WV on the schedule every year so that cuts it to 2 games we control.
We scheduled Wofford and a below average P5 team at home in the other two. We could have scheduled Kent St instead of Cincy, but that would have been a toss up this year.
So if we scheduled the way you prefer, we might have 1 more win this year.
Next I’m expecting you or JoeyD to say that the reason we’re so bad this year is because we’re so beat up and just couldn’t recover from playing those two juggernauts Cincinnati and WV back to back early in the season.
 
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I think this is the only way he can come back. Fire Cignetti, Salem, Borbley, etc. Cut 20-30 players and give it one last shot, hoping to luck out in the portal. He cant roll with this roster next year. They are bad at football.
His recruiting is why Pitt is where it is. And you think he’s magically gonna go into the portal and rectify it with 20-30 players?

With 7 years left he’s not likely to be fired so who the hell knows where this is going.
 
Based on what Pitt has on staff, of course it doesn't. But Pitt has also gotten and retained the assistants it has wanted for the most part, and has offered competitive salaries to those that have been gone after by other schools, like Matt Canada, whose $1.5m LSU offer was matched even though he still went to LSU. Pitt is competitive.

Pitt's problem is not its spending.

Coaching staff selection appears to be a problem. Recruiting is an issue. Recruiting, on paper, was better under predecessors with much worse budgets. The current issues are on the current HC, not budget restrictions or some structural issue within the athletic department.

What people are saying, you nitter moron, is that Pitt should be closer to a 25 program coming off a fairly successful two-year top 25 stretch and two division championships in 4 non-covid years, and after having extended the contract on a top 25 salaried HC through 2030, shouldn't be watching this defensive genius get gashed by the dregs of two different conferences while looking down the barrel of a one win campaign.
So now you come out with this post blaming everything on the HC.

This after going bezerk on a poster questioning your credibility if you wouldn’t fire the HC.

Me thinks something more than just your credibility is in question.
 
Unless Narduzzi for some reason gets selected by MSU, he will need to fire Cignetti and clean house on the offense side. The OC stinks. The OL stinks. The WRs stinks. Too many stupid mistakes, players being in the wrong spot, stupid penalties, SHOULD show any rational.pwrson that the offensive coaches need to be replaced.

Pitt needs to pay for solid coaches on the offense side and needs to increase the recruiting budget. The OC should be out the recruiting. Sounds like that was something Whipple was ok with riding. Does Cignetti see himself as above it all?
You are missing 1 big point. Not only does Narduzzi need to effectively clean house with his assistants but most of the players are not upper tier kids either. Recruiting you would have thought would have been given a big boost after 2021. It got nothing. In fact I'd say it got worse. Hard to win many games with bad coaches, coaching and meh players.

Pitt will go 1-11 or 2-10 season and because of the extension Heather gave Pat he will definitely be back next season. However if he goes 3-9, 4-8 next season you'd have to think Lyke would cut ties with him.
 
You are missing 1 big point. Not only does Narduzzi need to effectively clean house with his assistants but most of the players are not upper tier kids either. Recruiting you would have thought would have been given a big boost after 2021. It got nothing. In fact I'd say it got worse. Hard to win many games with bad coaches, coaching and meh players.

Pitt will go 1-11 or 2-10 season and because of the extension Heather gave Pat he will definitely be back next season. However if he goes 3-9, 4-8 next season you'd have to think Lyke would cut ties with him.
The programs that want to win are jettisoning their non-performers to open up space for new players who either will or may perform. Some of these guys being jettisoned can play some, but not at the level needed to compete in say, the SEC. See what Pitt added in the offseason-Reynolds, Mcmillon and Davis. Florida and LSU needed room for better players.
So the top teams are going to get better HS recruits, and they're going to add even more talent through the portal. Pitt in the current situation isn't going to add top talent from the portal. They will get lower tier players who may be better than the HS players they recruit, but weren't good enough to play at their original school. Or Pitt might add MAC level players who excelled and want to see how they fare in P4/5 or whatever it is today.
 
The programs that want to win are jettisoning their non-performers to open up space for new players who either will or may perform. Some of these guys being jettisoned can play some, but not at the level needed to compete in say, the SEC. See what Pitt added in the offseason-Reynolds, Mcmillon and Davis. Florida and LSU needed room for better players.
So the top teams are going to get better HS recruits, and they're going to add even more talent through the portal. Pitt in the current situation isn't going to add top talent from the portal. They will get lower tier players who may be better than the HS players they recruit, but weren't good enough to play at their original school. Or Pitt might add MAC level players who excelled and want to see how they fare in P4/5 or whatever it is today.
Excellent post spot on.
 
Conference realignment has nothing to do with win loss record based on some of the recent moves. If the ACC breaks apart and the Big XII sees how a combo of Pitt with WVU adds a rivalry plus a little better travel combo then it doesn’t matter what our record is or was. We are never going to SEC and even if Pitt made some sense in Big Ten it would have to be at Penn State’s request which seems unlikely.

Where the record might matter is when college football goes to become a TV a league of 48 teams.
 
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Pat Narduzzi is a good man. An honorable man. Maybe he will agree to do the right thing and maybe agree to a lower buyout figure and he can make up the difference coordinating defenses. He must know he royally effed up and he must know how hard it’s going to be fix.
This again? Get it through your head. There is ZERO chance. None. A coach isn’t ever going to agree to a lower buyout. You suggested this for Capel as well and you sound foolish. It will never happen. Not here, not anywhere.

Watch Calhoun on a loop saying not a dime back until it sinks in.
 
The era of recruit middle of the road guys and patiently coach them up so they can contribute by their redshirt junior years is long gone. You need to bring in high end talent in recruiting and the transfer portal. Look at pitt’s recruiting and look at Pitt in the transfer portal. It explains their struggles. They need dynamic coaches and recruiters. It’s been 9 years of the same with the exception of the 2021 miracle (2016 was ok too). Duzz and staff have taken Pitt as far as they will ever take the program. Losing always sucks, but with these guys it’s boring too.
 
I don't think MSU is as far-fetched as many people think.. Too much crap there lately and they may be like Wisky and look for the "safe" or "stable" hire for a few years. Heck they hired Tucker who didn't have that much better of a resume.
Perhaps he's doing a Ben Howland on us? The MSU job is already his, the players know it and have quit on him
 
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Pitt invests plenty into its athletics. But we don’t have the mega donors or hard core fan base to keep up with the top tier. It’s just reality.

He’ll look at vt. They have sucked for a while now, yet still pack in 70k. Same with a Nebraska, nc state, or most other big 10 or sec programs. That’s why they will be fine in the next round of realignment.

We had fans complaining in 2021 ticket prices were too high for the Clemson game and had 10k empty seats. The price of the ticket for that game was probably half of what most big or sec schools pay for wofford
 
Anyone who thought Pitt would just reload was not paying attention to recruiting rankings and just forgot about how much Pitt actually invests in football.
Seems all I’ve been reading in this board the past few years is how much better recruiting has been under Duzzi. Even though the national rankings haven’t changed, these are better 3 stars than we used to get, etc etc.
 
It’s never a good time to be this bad - but I don’t fully agree with the premise that this year (or this month) would determine our conference future.

Just can’t let it snowball and be who the program is. Urgency has to be great to turn it around.
Urgency is in short supply for most coaches that get massive, undeserved contract extensions, which obviously is the industry standard now especially with private donor money comprising a huge percentage of the deals. Highly incentivized contracts might help get the max out of coaches but the trend has been to back up the brinks truck and give them long terms for fear that someone else will poach them with the no conditions, guaranteed money gravy train deal.
 
Urgency is in short supply for most coaches that get massive, undeserved contract extensions.
Yeah and the majority of the time the knee jerk reaction doesn’t work out either, and the school is stuck with multiple bad contracts. Fortunately they have a donor base willing to bail them out. Pitt and other schools do not have that luxury.
 
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Yeah and the majority of the time the knee jerk reaction doesn’t work out either, and the school is stuck with multiple bad contracts. Fortunately they have a donor base willing to bail them out. Pitt and other schools do not have that luxury.
Yep. What a great time to be a coach. You get paid massive sums of money without having to earn it.
 
Cincinnati obviously isn’t all that good this year but they have the better formula. Identify the hottest young innovative fanatical up and coming coaches from lower ranks, give them manageable deals, let them do their thing with the clear and common knowledge that they will leave for better jobs, but in that short time, reap the benefits of their success. If they stink and fail, dump them quickly and start over.“Continuity” gives nothing but complacency and acceptance of mediocrity.
 
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It is very hard to lose a 1st round quarterback and just replace them. Alabama has had a great run at quarterbacks but even they have been hit with average QB play this year. I have been covering college and high school football now for over 20 years. The toughest thing in college football is fan bases known their ceilings. Pitt can probably win 8-9 wins consistently if everything is going right. The same thing is to be said at a school like Minnesota where PJ Fleck is at. Winning 10-11 games every year is unrealistic at Pitt. In todays college landscape it is almost impossible. What Narduzzi did in 2021 probably wont be duplicated again. Could he win 10 every 4-5 years...Sure. Can you do it every year.NO...Not unless Pitt invested in football like the top programs have. It is a very difficult situation because fans want to win and make the playoffs now and win National Titles. The reality is there are probably only 10-12 programs which have a shot....

Take SMU for example...They just joined the ACC and won't take TV money as their boosters have decided to put that money up for them....Yes you read that correctly. SMU is joining the ACC and told the heads of the conference we don't need your TV market because our program has so much damn money we can do without. Pitt could not do that.

Could he use some changes on the staff...Those who cover the team would know best but the results on the field this year are not shocking...Eventually you will have down years...unless you are one of those programs who can recruit at an elite level each year. There is a reason why Iowa never fires their coach....Because their adminsitration knows there are dips in the road.

I looked up caches salary...Your coach may be the lowest paid coach in the conference.
 
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I agree, but we aren't LSU or Auburn that pull the plug at the first sign of trouble. Staff overhaul worked for Kelly after a crap season at ND. Franklin shook things up after some bad season. It can happen but odds are against it. He deserves the chance to try it first before moving on.
I’m not saying I have the answer or that there’s one easy solution. All I’m saying is this program ain’t going anywhere fast with the current head coach in charge. It’s amazing to me that some posters feel otherwise, and strongly. The way he’s handled certain program situations and decisions that have come up over his tenure should have caused the powers that be to start making their replacement plans a long time ago. Instead he got a massive extension.

How can anyone get past the moronic trashing of Whipple and the passing offense after they just delivered the best season in several decades, followed up with the hiring of the bum and the mess we have now?

“Kenny Pickett got hit too much” because Whipple was pass heavy. Guess what Pat, KP came back Pitt for the 2021 season and was also the first QB picked in the NFL draft solely because of the offense Whipple ran that year. And KP knows it, even if you’re too dumb to know it yourself.
 
I’m not saying I have the answer or that there’s one easy solution. All I’m saying is this program ain’t going anywhere fast with the current head coach in charge. It’s amazing to me that some posters feel otherwise, and strongly. The way he’s handled certain program situations and decisions that have come up over his tenure should have caused the powers that be to start making their replacement plans a long time ago. Instead he got a massive extension.

How can anyone get past the moronic trashing of Whipple and the passing offense after they just delivered the best season in several decades, followed up with the hiring of the bum and the mess we have now?

“Kenny Pickett got hit too much” because Whipple was pass heavy. Guess what Pat, KP came back Pitt for the 2021 season and was also the first QB picked in the NFL draft solely because of the offense Whipple ran that year. And KP knows it, even if you’re too dumb to know it yourself.
I like the guy overall, much like Wanny he’sa good persona to be “Pitt’s coach”. But it’s true. He’s had two good seasons. 2016 and 2021. Both of those were the result of explosive offensives. And he hated both of them. He’s not a coach for these times, not any longer anyway.
 
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The era of recruit middle of the road guys and patiently coach them up so they can contribute by their redshirt junior years is long gone. You need to bring in high end talent in recruiting and the transfer portal. Look at pitt’s recruiting and look at Pitt in the transfer portal. It explains their struggles. They need dynamic coaches and recruiters. It’s been 9 years of the same with the exception of the 2021 miracle (2016 was ok too). Duzz and staff have taken Pitt as far as they will ever take the program. Losing always sucks, but with these guys it’s boring too.

As I keep saying, with these guys, they're getting paid. At least many of them. They're expected to win and win big. They aren't delivering. It's time to cut them loose and get the guys who can win.

I used to just want to watch the kids play for the love of the game as student athletes. Those days are gone with NIL. I don't want to hear any of their flimsy, weak excuses about being student athletes. They aren't any longer. They're just paid, professional athletes. They brought this on themselves. Either win or suffer the consequences. This isn't college football any longer.
 
As I keep saying, with these guys, they're getting paid. At least many of them. They're expected to win and win big. They aren't delivering. It's time to cut them loose and get the guys who can win.

I used to just want to watch the kids play for the love of the game as student athletes. Those days are gone with NIL. I don't want to hear any of their flimsy, weak excuses about being student athletes. They aren't any longer. They're just paid, professional athletes. They brought this on themselves. Either win or suffer the consequences. This isn't college football any longer.
Does this mean we can freely boooo them?
 
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Is there ever a good time to totally crap the bed ? This team is competing to be one of the worst Pitt teams in decades
 
His recruiting is why Pitt is where it is. And you think he’s magically gonna go into the portal and rectify it with 20-30 players?

With 7 years left he’s not likely to be fired so who the hell knows where this is going.
Recruiting got harder with the inclusion of some teams to the big conferences. Central Florida and southern Ohio aren’t hotbeds for Pitt to take good leftovers anymore.
 
Does this mean we can freely boooo them?

You know it! Boo them, give them obscene gestures. The best thing is just don't show up for their games. When a product isn't any good and people quit buying it, things change. And this Pitt football team, from the coaches to the players, has to change. One win all year and that one against an FCS team isn't going to sit well with true fans. We beat a team called the Terriers!! How scary is that?
 
“Shredded” is funny since we were 12th in fewest yards entering today.

Our defense isn’t great, but isn’t the issue. With Kamara and danielson in we had a decent defense. Hayes is a good edge rusher but we don’t have Haba, weaver, Kancey, etc on the team and no one is up to those guys on this team but it’s not a horrible defense

If Pickett, or even savage is qb we are 4-1 now with this defense

But what QB has been on the schedule that was even capable of “shredding” them in the stat line sense? Outside of Maye.

But relative to what those teams do against defenses outside of Pitt’s? Kinda shredded.

Pitt is 56th in P5 I’m opponent adjusted passing defense going into last night. Not 56th in the country. 56th amongst just the P5.



So while the stats aren’t horrible, that’s more because the passing attacks have been largely horrible. So the stats can only get so bad.
 
The OOC has NOTHING to do with our issues or if we are serious about winning.
We had no choice but to play ND this year, so that cuts it down to 3 games that we control. I haven’t heard any Pitt fans that don’t want WV on the schedule every year so that cuts it to 2 games we control.
We scheduled Wofford and a below average P5 team at home in the other two. We could have scheduled Kent St instead of Cincy, but that would have been a toss up this year.
So if we scheduled the way you prefer, we might have 1 more win this year.
Next I’m expecting you or JoeyD to say that the reason we’re so bad this year is because we’re so beat up and just couldn’t recover from playing those two juggernauts Cincinnati and WV back to back early in the season.

If we opened the season with Wofford, UMASS and UCONN, we would be 3-0. No one in the national media has ever criticized or held against a P5 team for playing an OOC schedule full of jobbers. Heck Michigan did that last year and they were rewarded with a second consecutive playoff spot.

They are serious about winning in that they dropped UCLA, which while a small chance, still provided a chance for losing. Lloyd Carr whined for years about having to play ND and now they don't

What part aren't you getting on this?
 
If we opened the season with Wofford, UMASS and UCONN, we would be 3-0. No one in the national media has ever criticized or held against a P5 team for playing an OOC schedule full of jobbers. Heck Michigan did that last year and they were rewarded with a second consecutive playoff spot.

They are serious about winning in that they dropped UCLA, which while a small chance, still provided a chance for losing. Lloyd Carr whined for years about having to play ND and now they don't

What part aren't you getting on this?
and what good would that do other than mask how bad we are for the first 3 weeks? Do you think scheduling 3 FCS tomato cans for the first 3 weeks would have given us a Michigan 2022-like season?

What about 2021, when we put the 9th best team in the MAC on the schedule for a sure win one week after Tennessee?

Lipstick on a pig is still a pig.
 
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and what good would that do other than mask how bad we are for the first 3 weeks? Do you think scheduling 3 FCS tomato cans for the first 3 weeks would have given us a Michigan 2022-like season?

What about 2021, when we put the 9th best team in the MAC on the schedule for a sure win one week after Tennessee?

Lipstick on a pig is still a pig.

3-2 heading into a bye week sure we be a lot better than 1-4.

And what about 2021? Easiest OOC in Narduzzi era resulted in best season in Narduzzi era.
 
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