Although seven players were kept out of Pitt’s opening game Saturday for what the university called “covid-related protocols,” Pitt coach Pat Narduzzi said he feels safe in the team’s training facility on the South Side.

“I feel safe as I can be in this building and with the people that I’m surrounding myself with, staff and players,” he said. “I trust our players when they walk down the hallway are doing the right things, when us old people are walking through the facility.”

Narduzzi doesn’t plan any adjustments to how Pitt is handling its covid-19 protocols.

“There’s nothing I can control unless they come sleep in my house,” he said. “Things happen. You don’t know how they happen.

“I feel good when they’re here. I can’t babysit them every minute of the day.”

Pitt has not identified the seven players who did not play Saturday, although a tweet from defensive end Rashad Weaver indicated he was one of them.

Players who test positive are quarantined for 10 days after the test. Narduzzi declined to reveal when the tests on those players occurred. It’s unclear if any of them will be available Saturday when Pitt meets Syracuse at Heinz Field.

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