Narduzzi’s intense style paying off for Pittsburgh

Associated Press

PITTSBURGH

The scoreboard said Pittsburgh was up 18. Coach Pat Narduzzi offered a starkly different take when his borderline giddy team walked into the locker room for halftime on Saturday against Louisville.

“He came in tripping, ‘The game ain’t over, it’s still 0-0,”’ wide receiver Tyler Boyd said.

And for the next two quarters, Narduzzi coached like it. Rather than sitting back and passively protecting their advantage, the Panthers went all-in instead. It’s what they do under Narduzzi, whose relentlessly aggressive approach has Pitt surging into Friday’s regular-season finale against Miami.

“I don’t sit back and wait for people to come back to me,” Narduzzi said Monday. “I want to throw some punches, not dance around the ring. Our kids take on that as well.”

Narduzzi is an Ursuline High graduate who began his own college football career playing for his father Bill at Youngstown State.

The Panthers (8-3, 6-1 ACC) began the year picked to finish sixth in the ACC Coast Division. They’ll end it no worse than second behind No. 11 North Carolina. At win over the struggling Hurricanes and in whatever bowl game they might find themselves in would give Pitt only its second 10-win season since 1982.

“It’s what we came here to do is finally get a chance to set a legacy and get Pitt back to where it should be,” defensive end Daryl Render said.

Narduzzi is hardly ready to look that far down the road — it’s simply not his style — the fact it’s even on the table is remarkable considering the Panthers lost reigning ACC Player of the Year James Conner in the second quarter of the opener against YSU.

Pitt has done more than survived.

Freshman Qadree Ollison went over 1,000 yards on the season when he mashed the Cardinals for 152, many of them coming in the second half as the Panthers held off a late rally for a convincing 45-34 win and junior quarterback Nathan Peterman is becoming less a caretaker and more of a difference maker, throwing for four touchdowns in the second quarter alone on Saturday.

Yet the hallmark of Pitt’s transformation is on the other side of the ball, where Narduzzi and defensive coordinator Josh Conklin have turned the Panthers into a freewheeling unit bent on creating chaos in the pocket.

Pitt is fifth in the nation in sacks per game (3.36) and spent most of last Saturday afternoon in the face of Louisville quarterbacks Kyle Bolin and Lamar Jackson.

Defensive end Ejuan Price set a school record with five sacks alone, a couple of them coming so easy he almost had to apologize after the quarterbacks basically ran into him trying to escape one of his teammates.

“That’s the plan every week (to attack),” Price said. “Sometimes it just don’t go.”