Pat Narduzzi interviewed Western Michigan coach Tim Lester for Pitt offensive coordinator job in 2017

The conversation started as a job interview, but it ended with two coaches “talking ball,” according to Western Michigan coach Tim Lester.

Pitt was looking for an offensive coordinator when Matt Canada left after the 2016 season, and one of the candidates to replace him was Lester, then the quarterbacks coach at Purdue.

“I got the opportunity to interview with him for three, four hours, talking ball,” Lester told reporters in Kalamazoo, Mich., while preparing for Saturday’s game against Pitt at Heinz Field.

“I think the interview ended in an hour or two and I said, ‘Can I pick your brain?’ And we just started talking ball for a long time.”

As it turned out, Lester was hired as Western Michigan’s coach three weeks before Narduzzi named Shawn Watson as his offensive coordinator.

“I was in that interview process when (the Western Michigan job) happened, and it was back and forth. We actually spent a lot of time during that whole process.”

Narduzzi said he was far from making a decision when he spoke to Lester.

“That was early. He never came on campus. It was at a convention, ‘How do you do?’ “

But they did talk a lot of football.

“That’s what you do, talk ball,” Narduzzi said, “especially at a convention.”

Narduzzi said he respects Lester, a four-year starting quarterback at Western Michigan (1996-99) and a member of the school’s Hall of Fame.

“He’s a super coach, really smart,” Narduzzi said. “You can see that by the way they play. I know how detailed he is. He’s a guy that’s an offensive guy that’s spent a lot of time on defense in the offseason, so I know he’s focused on what the defense is doing.”

Narduzzi and Lester were no strangers before that interview. They most recently competed against each other in 2015 when Lester was quarterbacks coach and offensive coordinator at Syracuse under Narduzzi’s pal, Scott Shafer. So Narduzzi went to the archives and brought out video of Pitt’s 23-20 victory at the Carrier Dome.

“I look at how similar they (were) to what they’re doing now,” he said. But he said he expects to see “a lot of different stuff.”

“We’re prepared for a lot of everything.”

Laster said: “Through ‘Shaf,’ we got to know each other and got to hang out a little bit. We’ve crossed paths a lot. He’s a guy I trust to call when they’re changing rules and just asking him how he’s handling it.

“His defense, tried and true, and it works. Third down, it’s a very complicated thing. First and second down, you know what they’re doing. They’re just really good at it.

“It puts a lot of pressure on you. You have to make contested catches, and you have to find ways to run the ball. They’re going to be physical and aggressive. Just like they did at (Michigan State) for a long time, they’re doing it in Pittsburgh now.”

Narduzzi also will have a brief reunion with Western Michigan special teams coach Joe Palcic, who was an assistant at Miami (Ohio) when Pitt’s coach was the defensive coordinator there in 2003. The following year, Palcic replaced Narduzzi, who was off to Cincinnati.

“It will be good to see him Saturday afternoon,” Narduzzi said.