Pat Narduzzi on Pitt’s QB Future, Transfer Impact & ACC Championship Goals | Sports Illustrated

Brian Fisher here for Sports Illustrated at ACC Media Day is joined by Pit head coach Pat Nardduzi.

That always seems like whenever we're at this event, you know, football is right around the corner.

No question about it.

You know, when we're here, it is time to roll, you know, 2 more weeks and we'll be in camp.

What are you most excited about in terms of your current team going into fall camp?

You know, I'm, I'm, you know, I think every season starts, you know, the first thing just our guys to go out and compete.

I mean, it's just exciting to get into game one, and, you know, but the first thing they do is, is, is, is make your pit football team a lot better, and our players are gonna go out and compete in camp in August and And, and really get ready for that opener against Miami of Ohio.

Everybody reflects obviously over the course of the offseason what they did well, what they did not right, um, in terms of the reflections on, on last season, what were, what were your big takeaways?

You know, um, you know, the big takeaways after game 4, you know, we had a quarterback change and, and Mason's here today , and, and, uh, we're fortunate to have him back for another season.

Um, you know, I think it all starts with that quarterback, and when you got a quarterback, you got a chance to compete for an ACC championship, and that's what we've got with Mason.

So we're excited to, To get him, you know, through his first full year of being a starter, and I think that's the most impressive thing, and I think we've got a really good football team.

When, when it comes to Mason, did you expect the kind of year, especially in that midseason, where he really took off after being a starter?

I mean, you don't like to say the expectations are up here .

I think, you know, we needed to move a quarterback and a change, and, and we made that move.

Um, we wouldn't have made the move if we didn't think he had that ability to go take over a game and, and compete and, and be a leader of our offense, um.

So I would, I would say he exceeded expectations because, you know, what kind of expectations do you have for a true freshman quarterback that hadn't had a whole lot of reps through spring ball or fall camp.

So, uh, he did an unbelievable job.

How, how have you kind of adjusted your strategy with only the, the one portal window this past year?

It's become easier.

I mean, it's, it's, you know, you have one focus for, you know, for 15 days, and we hope it moves to 10 days, but, um, you know, really the strategy hadn't changed, I think.

The strategy is be who you are every day, and it makes a portal when it opens up easier when your kids love playing where you're playing, when they love the coaches and the players love the coaches, the coaches love the players, you know, it makes that portal when it opens up a lot easier.

You're, you're literally in an NFL building.

So, so how much do you, do you see kind of the games merging in terms of the offseason?

Do you see more similarities than ever before, um.

I don't watch the NFL.

Like, I mean, just because you're in the same building, we don't, you know, we, you know, it's a big gigantic building like this room and the building's split in half, so they're on their side, we're on our side.

What you see is what they do in practice, but, you know, we're not in the meetings all day because we got our own job to do.

Um, so we're not, you know, we're not in those meetings all day finding out what they're doing.

We just don't have time to do that.

Obviously, we're busy with our college football.

You do have time though to, to look at your current roster.

Who, who's maybe, uh, caught your eye coming out of spring ball that you're excited to see in fall camp?

Well, I think, um, obviously some of the freshmen, um, you know, some young tailbacks like, uh, Sinquan Smith, a young guy that didn't play last year, that's gonna, you know, be a, a major role in our, in our backfield this year behind, uh, Jaar and Turner, but I think all of our transfers that came in.

You know, I think, you know, we brought in 15 guys, 16 guys, I think are gonna make an impact.

I think probably 90% of those guys are, are gonna come make a lot of plays for us this year.

So there'll be a lot of new faces, uh, uh, wearing that Pitt uniform.

So, we're excited about, uh, you know, uh, Lavelle, our tailback .

Who's gonna be another tailback.

So we got really 3.

He's a big 215 pound tailback.

Excited about Malik Knight, uh, a receiver.

Excited about Nitino, our left tackle.

Excited about, uh, DeMarco Ward and another, uh, linebacker called Alex named, uh, Alex Sanford , who's a tremendous football player.

Uh, you know, Jeremiah Warren, elite, um, one of our D tackles.

So we, we've got him all over the place.

How much does that staff continuity help, especially with, with both, both coordinators coming back?

Yeah, um, you know, it helps a bunch.

I mean, you know, we lost a couple of coaches, but our coordinators are intact, um, guys that have been on our staff for a couple of years now, our offensive coordinator for 2.

We do have a new special teams coordinator, and our, our new special, our defense coordinator is a guy that's been on our staff for 8+ years.

When it comes to the defense.

In particular, I know some new faces are gonna be there at linebacker after losing a couple, a couple of key guys for you.

Who's, who's, who are you're kind of looking to to step up and become a next All-American there?

Well, Branden Lovelace, who's here with us today.

I mean, he'd be the first one to talk about a senior linebacker who's spent his entire career here in Pittsburgh, and then we got two transfers.

We got Cam Lindsey from Aliquippa.

Uh, Jeremiah Marshson is a guy I probably don't talk enough about, but looking forward to seeing.

He's probably our 4th-best linebacker a year ago that missed the entire season.

So having him back in the lineup is gonna be huge.

What, what have you seen in terms of the, the league itself and, and how much more competitive it's been over your, your time there at Pitt?

You know, I was impressed with the ACC when I got here in 2015 , and now we're sitting going into 2026.

I think, um, you know, I think the league athletically is as good as any in the, in the country.

And, um, I think the ACC has, has, you know, proven that with some of the games we played against the Power Four a couple of years ago when you won the league, you, you finished really strong at the end of the year and even the following year after that.

Not quite the case the last couple of years.

What, what needs to adjust in terms of those November and December games that you play?

We got to stay healthy and then we got to make sure we don't schedule Miami and Notre Dame at the end of the year because, you know, there's a lot of people struggle with them at the end of the year.

So I think it depends on scheduling, who's on your, on your, you know, on your schedule, where, where the place on your schedule, but, uh.

You know, typically through, you know, going through 11 seasons so far, we've typically finished pretty strong.

One of the more consistent programs certainly in the, in the country is yours, and, and a lot of that is certainly down to your presence.

But, uh, when, when you're telling guys, uh, you know, coming into the program, what, what's the one thing that you tell them about Pitt, Pitt football?

Um, you know, I, I think the number one thing is development.

I think if you come to Pitt, I mean, you know, if I asked 100 guys in a room like, hey, what do you want to do in 4 years, I'm gonna go to the NFL.

So I think the number one thing is development and And the only way you develop is if you're around a bunch of teammates and coaches that you love.

And I think when the players love the coaches and the coaches love the player, you can do anything you want in the world.

And, um, you know, we've got a good culture.

The players love the coaches, the coaches love the players.

And when you got talent, and then you know how to develop, I think we've got great teachers.

And, Besides great people, I think we know how to teach the game of football.

We're gonna put our players in position to make plays.

As one of those developmental programs, how does the eligibility changes moving to, you know, the 5 and 5?

How, how does that impact you guys?

It doesn't really impact us, you know, I guess the biggest thing is, you know, those freshmen that you're not worried about how many games you played.

Usually that's a thing that we talk about every Monday about how many games has he played, what do we want to do?

We want to keep playing them now.

It's, it's wide open.

They can play as many games as they want to, so we're not worried about, you know, hey, play them in this game.

Let's not play them in this game.

So I think just, you know, the 5 years of eligibility really help, you know, I think that where it hurts is guys that might get injured and, and they're gonna lose that medical red shirt year when it's a legitimate injury.

Um, and we've, you know, we've benefited from several of those through the years.

So that'll be something that, you know, guys will come back from injuries.

If a guy gets hurt game 4 and he's gonna be out for 3 weeks, he may want a red shirt.

Now there's, you know, you better get back because there is no red shirt.

Yeah, uh, when it comes to defining success going into the season, how, how, how would you do it?

Championships and being in, you know, being back here in Charlotte in December is, is the number one goal every year for our guys.

So, you know, it starts with getting to that championship game.

Well, we hope to see you there in Charlotte.

Pat, thank you so much for joining us here at ACC Media Days.