This will be Narduzzi's last year at Pitt.
- Thread starter Las Panteras
- Start date
He just absolutely can’t stand making that 6 mill a year to coach football. I’m sure he doesn’t feel grateful and fortunate when he looks at his career and remembers that 20-25 years ago he was making like 30-50k a year, relocating his family to podunk campuses in cold weather states every year or two, and wondering how he was going to make his rent.
That’s said, he has another 3-4 season this year, which is very much in play, and he will likely be joining the ever growing list of involuntarily unemployed coaches..
If you’re saying he’s going to grow tired of the current college football landscape (e.g., Patridge), I disagree. With the recent NCAA settlement, head coaches will becomes more like NFL GMs. They’ll dictate which players they want to allocate X $$ to and have the assistant hit the recruiting trail to carry it out. I think that’s where the G4 head coaching job is headed anyways.
But I think Pat likes coaching football. He doesn't want to be a GM dealing with agents and making big money deals with players. He didnt sign up for that.
He absolutely does. I just think that an actual salary cap to work with should theoretically make recruiting simpler, allowing more time to focus on coaching.
None of this of course is based on fact. I guess i have had enough of posts discussing the Pirates....guitar licks, over 40 and glasses.
The offers our recruits have received for the most part are schools below us. We dont have the cheddar to recruit enough big time players to break through.
There clearly is evidence that college coaches are walking away from the current scenario.
And the guy has enough money...still relatively young and could easily find work that brings back his passion for coaching.
No proof of this, obviously. I am throwing it out there to discuss as the season comes and goes. But i think its more likely he leaves than stays.
This article from Pete Thamel mentions that revenue sharing- including a salary cap/floor- could come “as soon as fall of 2025.” That appears to be the consensus, judging from a few other articles I’ve read, but nothing seems to be 100% certain yet.
That’s the revenue sharing.
Assuming a cap on it would legally hold up (and it won’t the second it’s challenged), that’s not the same thing as a salary cap.
The NCAA release on the House settlement explicitly states the shared revenue will be in addition to NIL.
So the NIL pay for play won’t change. A recruit is going to say, “that’s nice coach that you’re offering me the shared revenue compensation, but so is every other team. What are you adding on to it?”
There won’t actually be a cap until the players are recognized as employees and a collective bargaining agreement is reached that regulates all areas of compensation.
And that isn’t happening in 2025 or 2026.
Yep. And we'll get there eventually. But the NCAA (and most of the schools) still want to fight it for as long as they can.
Eventually they'll realize that they've squeezed the last drop from the teat and they'll give in to the inevitable. But that's going to take longer than a year or two.
And I think players being employees with a CBA and salary cap would be a good thing for Pitt for 2 reasons
1. The Jordan Addison's would be under contract and wouldn't be free agents every year like the current system. If he wanted to go to USC while under a 3 or 4 year contract at Pitt, he would have had to demand a trade.
2. The cap wouldn't be MLB-like, I dont think, in that there really isnt a cap and you can spend whatever. I think a cap would be more NFL-like where most teams can afford to compete.
pittdan77
Athletic Director
1. Under a CBA, players wouldn't give up something they currently enjoy, like freedom to move, without compensation. Pitt couldn't afford 3 or 4 year contracts and I doubt a player like Addison would want one.
2. There won't be a real cap and who is going to enforce it? There would have to be some overarching body with real teeth that everyone is going to listen to. Would be expensive and do the schools really want to do that? Answer is no.
The "salary cap" was supposed to be part of the settlement, which goes to show the "settlement" is still in flux. He's probably saying 2025 because it will take that long to get an agreement considering it has to be approved by plaintiffs and the judge.
If schools move to paying athletes directly, he will stay. He'd be a fool not to leverage, alongside, Lyke, for one of the most competitive payout pools in the country, based on our endowment.
Jesus Christ with the endowment. The endowment can’t be used to pay athletes. Endowments need to go wherever the donor said they need to go. This never ends.
I'm not advocating the endowment be spent on athletics, but that statement isn't accurate either. There is a huge chunk of Pitt's endowment(maybe half) that is not donor restricted. They can do as they please with it.
So while it might not be a prudent use of endowment funds, it's certainly possible.
Well then I guess I stand corrected. Most of what I read here led me to believe it couldn’t be used for athletics unless that’s what it was donated for (or so I thought). So whoopsie for me.
We don't know what will be able to be used for athletics until a definitive ruling/guidelines are given.
My point is that it's impossible to say a coach is leaving when:
1.) this is the landscape everywhere, so unless he retires he will have to manage NIL
2.) we are going off expectations of the current system which by all indicators is going to change in the next 24 months even if we don't exactly know how
Most of what you've read on hear was spread by a self proclaimed windbag of all things Pitt. He either didn't really know what he was talking about, or was simply being disingenuous. With his condescending attitude towards others and posting history over the last few years, I'm betting it was the latter.
Haha. I think I know to whom you’re referring but to be fair I don’t believe he was the only one.
I did some googling myself in the past but clearly not enough.
Well your original point stands--schools don't use endowment money for athletics outside of some construction costs related to athletics--with the exception of endowment gifts restricted to athletic use--but those are uncommon, those types of gifts are typically made directly to the schools' athletic funds for specific teams or use, and those funds are separate from endowment funds altogether.
The question everyone keeps avoiding is why has Pitt been so successful building their academic endowment and so poor at raising funds earmarked for athletics. The reasons are straightforward…they have done a much better job of and focused more on courting big ticket donors for academics : and second, they have been largely indifferent about and incompetent in managing athletics. That’s what people should be focused on and ticked off about and not the fact that academic related endowments can’t be used for athletics purposes. It’s a disgrace that the athletics coffers are empty given the the size of Pitt’s endowment.
But it can... Just need to be imaginative. And pretend we're a big ten or SEC school.
"The Dean of the Faculty of Medicine announced today the new Endowed Chair and Professor of Cardiothoracic Surgery... Jordan Addison."
Then you hire a really good Deputy Chair and you're all set. Endowment money used and player recruited or retained.
That's not the same. They are saying 30K/year paid into an educational trust fund for these amateur players. I am suggesting a fully professional league.
Uh, I am talking about a new pro league. So the players arent giving up anything. If they want to play in a new collegiate pro league for the Alabama pro team or the Ohio State pro team, they would have to accept the terms, within reason. Saying they could transfer every year when they were an amateur is irrelevant. This would be a new fully pro league. If they want to continue to be an amateur and transfer every year, they can do that in D2 or D3.
As for the Jordan Addison example, he wasnt a crazy high recruit. In this new pro league, he would have had 2 choices:
- accept a 3/4 year contract from Pitt or a school similar to Pitt
- don't play D1 football
Schools like Pitt should not offer 1 or 2 year contracts to players so they can develop them for OSU.
Athletic deficits are often covered by the general fund. Once you start using the general fund there's going to be some correlation to endowment funds. Maybe not directly, but certainly indirectly.
I don't think we can use any past precedent on how things will get funded. School funded programs are new territory and could manifest many different waysI.
If you think schools won't be working around earmarking and academic endowments to better fund their athletics, I have a bridge to sell you.
If you think schools won't be working around earmarking and academic endowments to better fund their athletics, I have a bridge to sell you.
Endowments definitely allow for financial flexibility at an institution, but they are a small % of the budget. The entire point of having them is for long term financial stability. The principal is intended to remain untouched and invested, and the annual return on those investments is intended to
1) support the designated purpose (e.g., a scholarship award)
2) earn enough to keep the principal growing at the rate of inflation so the purchasing power doesn't diminish over time.
The point is for the financial wherewithal generated by investment returns to last forever, but to achieve that you can't touch the principal. Therefore, endowments can be controversial. Is the principal put into an endowed fund the best use of money or could that money be best put to use by spending it now to hve an immediate effect on a pressing problem? or is it best to ensure there is continuing annual support for a particular cause in perpetuity?
What does it mean for Pitt's budget?
In FY 2023, Pitt, combining all schools and regional campuses, had a $3.0 billion operating budget. Pitt had a total $5.5 billion endowment plus non-endowed ($0.6 billion) investment income which generated 7.9% of that budget. Remember, Pitt has 33,771 total students and 15,450 total faculty, staff, and post-docs at four different campuses. That a $5 billion endowment sounds like a lot, but it isn't going to provide the same financial flexibility at Pitt that it would at Carnegie Mellon which has only 16,335 students and 6,304 faculty and staff.
Not to dismiss that 7.9%, which was a lot ($238 million), but the financial flexibility it imparts is also not straight forward: part of that $238m is going to things that would exist anyway (salary of a department chair) freeing up funds to be used elsewhere, but some of it going to things that would not otherwise exist (scholarship for whatever weird idea a donor wanted). And while the $238m total is less than that academic support Pitt received from UPMC for the year and a little bit more than it got from the state, it pales in comparison to the $693 million in tuition an fees and $1.1 billion in research grants that make up almost 2/3rds of the total budget.
Regarding restricted vs unrestricted parts of Pitt's endowment fund:
39.5% of Pitt's endowment is permanently restricted to donor intent...a small part of this is for athletics, a big part of this is for the med school. But all of this 39.5% is legally off the table for using it for anything but what the donor intended, unless you go to court and get a favorable ruling (for instance, an orphan court could rule the restricted intent on an endowed scholarship fund for the "children of farmers from Oakland" could be removed because the original donor's intent simply can no longer be fulfilled...and believe it or not, that was a real world example provided to me years ago).
0.4% is term endowment....that is, it is legally restricted in its use, usually until the donor dies.
60.1% is "unrestricted," also called a "quasi endowment", but perhaps it is best to use the other commonly used name for this type: "board-restricted." This means its use is restricted by the terms set by Pitt's board of trustees, which means any change to its use is subject to the board's approval, which is also subject to public scrutiny due to sunshine laws.
So what has Pitt's board restricted this 60% ($3.3 billion) to?
~60% is used for financial aid
~20% is for post-retirement benefits (i.e., the pension fund)
~18% is controlled by individual schools and colleges for their own uses
While theroteically, all of this could be used for whatever Pitt's board wants according to its vote, how likely would substantial changes to this occur?
The part that is coded under particular schools is going to be off the table. A lot of that is money that was given unrestricted specifically to, or earned by placing into the endowment pool, by those particular schools. Unless you want a faculty revolt and immensly bad press that makes faculty recruitment near impossible, and unrestricted donor giving to individual schools unpalatable, this is extremely unlikely to be something to tap into.
The part intended for post-retirement benefits is, well, who is going to suggest raiding what is essentially a pension fund?
And the financial aid part...just google the cost of college and contemplate the optics and political uproar of publically altering the purposed use of that portion of the endowment.
Now, there are likely some extra endowment earnings here and there that could be used for special strategic initiatives, but that also depends on how well the investments do in any particular year, but this isn't going to be a large portion of the overall endowment earnings. You may get some money from there any particular year, but probably a lot more is going to be diverted from tuition or other auxillary income sources.
1) support the designated purpose (e.g., a scholarship award)
2) earn enough to keep the principal growing at the rate of inflation so the purchasing power doesn't diminish over time.
The point is for the financial wherewithal generated by investment returns to last forever, but to achieve that you can't touch the principal. Therefore, endowments can be controversial. Is the principal put into an endowed fund the best use of money or could that money be best put to use by spending it now to hve an immediate effect on a pressing problem? or is it best to ensure there is continuing annual support for a particular cause in perpetuity?
What does it mean for Pitt's budget?
In FY 2023, Pitt, combining all schools and regional campuses, had a $3.0 billion operating budget. Pitt had a total $5.5 billion endowment plus non-endowed ($0.6 billion) investment income which generated 7.9% of that budget. Remember, Pitt has 33,771 total students and 15,450 total faculty, staff, and post-docs at four different campuses. That a $5 billion endowment sounds like a lot, but it isn't going to provide the same financial flexibility at Pitt that it would at Carnegie Mellon which has only 16,335 students and 6,304 faculty and staff.
Not to dismiss that 7.9%, which was a lot ($238 million), but the financial flexibility it imparts is also not straight forward: part of that $238m is going to things that would exist anyway (salary of a department chair) freeing up funds to be used elsewhere, but some of it going to things that would not otherwise exist (scholarship for whatever weird idea a donor wanted). And while the $238m total is less than that academic support Pitt received from UPMC for the year and a little bit more than it got from the state, it pales in comparison to the $693 million in tuition an fees and $1.1 billion in research grants that make up almost 2/3rds of the total budget.
Regarding restricted vs unrestricted parts of Pitt's endowment fund:
39.5% of Pitt's endowment is permanently restricted to donor intent...a small part of this is for athletics, a big part of this is for the med school. But all of this 39.5% is legally off the table for using it for anything but what the donor intended, unless you go to court and get a favorable ruling (for instance, an orphan court could rule the restricted intent on an endowed scholarship fund for the "children of farmers from Oakland" could be removed because the original donor's intent simply can no longer be fulfilled...and believe it or not, that was a real world example provided to me years ago).
0.4% is term endowment....that is, it is legally restricted in its use, usually until the donor dies.
60.1% is "unrestricted," also called a "quasi endowment", but perhaps it is best to use the other commonly used name for this type: "board-restricted." This means its use is restricted by the terms set by Pitt's board of trustees, which means any change to its use is subject to the board's approval, which is also subject to public scrutiny due to sunshine laws.
So what has Pitt's board restricted this 60% ($3.3 billion) to?
~60% is used for financial aid
~20% is for post-retirement benefits (i.e., the pension fund)
~18% is controlled by individual schools and colleges for their own uses
While theroteically, all of this could be used for whatever Pitt's board wants according to its vote, how likely would substantial changes to this occur?
The part that is coded under particular schools is going to be off the table. A lot of that is money that was given unrestricted specifically to, or earned by placing into the endowment pool, by those particular schools. Unless you want a faculty revolt and immensly bad press that makes faculty recruitment near impossible, and unrestricted donor giving to individual schools unpalatable, this is extremely unlikely to be something to tap into.
The part intended for post-retirement benefits is, well, who is going to suggest raiding what is essentially a pension fund?
And the financial aid part...just google the cost of college and contemplate the optics and political uproar of publically altering the purposed use of that portion of the endowment.
Now, there are likely some extra endowment earnings here and there that could be used for special strategic initiatives, but that also depends on how well the investments do in any particular year, but this isn't going to be a large portion of the overall endowment earnings. You may get some money from there any particular year, but probably a lot more is going to be diverted from tuition or other auxillary income sources.
Last edited:
This is going to be a throwback to the dark years of football...how much talent does Narduzzi still have left after players fled the program. Pitt could have and probably will have a losing season. Lyke, being the fearful non-leader she is, will do nothing.
What is going to ruin Pitt football is already happending. It's the Lyke-Narduzzi connection,
Because over 200 years, there have been a lot more Mellons, Scaifes, Heinzes, Clapps, Fricks, Katzes, Barcos, Swansons, and Dietrichs than Petersens, Pelusis, Duratzes, and Bickels. And foundations and companies tend to give more to causes like education and medicine.
Also, similar to how athletics has its own fundraising arm (like the Panther Club), the Med School does as well (Medial and Health Sciences Foundation shared with UPMC). It is just easier to sell big donations for medical causes.
I believe athletic endowments are a fairly recent phenomena, historically. You really didn't hear about them 50 years ago, or at least they weren't being pushed like they are now by schools. Heck, I'm not sure "donating" to an athletic department was even much of a thing 50 years ago.
And bottom line, you can't cultivate what doesn't exist in the first place. Pitt is doing just about everything it can at this point. Complaining about what wasn't done 30, 20, 10, or 5 years ago doesn't help today's situation.
Last edited:
pittdan77
Athletic Director
Moving the goal posts? We were talking about this settlement and it's implications. Regardless, there isn't anyone interested in a "new pro league", least of all the universities. They have it way too good just the way things are. That's why they settled.
No. I was assuming college football becomes fully professional. In that case, players cant argue that they want the same freedom of movement as when they were amateurs. As soon as these players become employees, and they will within 5 years, its a pro league. Then you get your CBA and salary cap.
pittdan77
Athletic Director
But a pro league isn't happening so it doesn't matter. You're arguing away in another thread about conference valuations and then sitting here saying a pro league is evolving from this? Come on.
Something I'm curious about..... if the players are eventually declared to be employees of the University, do they still have to go to class? Obviously, the University has thousands of employees who do not have to go to class as a requirement for their job. And if the players no longer have to go to class are they really even students? The NCAA morphs into a semi-pro league owned by the University. Which then raises the question of why the University is running a semi-pro football league at all? How is that even part of an educational mission?
Latest posts
-
Article Tight End Week: Five questions on the tight ends- Latest: JimHammett
-
Recruiting Update A pair of potential official visitors for this weekend?
- Latest: Islanderpanther
-
-
