Pitt coach Pat Narduzzi said Wednesday that tampering with other schools’ players — in this age of uncontested transfers — has become a serious problem in college sports.

How serious? During an interview on Sirius XM ACC Radio, he said people with connections to Notre Dame tried to get former Pitt quarterback and ACC Player of the Year Kenny Pickett to transfer there.

Pat Narduzzi joined @RoddyJones20 on ACC Radio and talked about some of the challenges facing college football coaches right now. #H2P pic.twitter.com/K3quDowd3w

— College Sports on SiriusXM (@SXMCollege) February 2, 2022

“I just found this out, you know, I’ll throw it out there,” he said, speaking with Roddy Jones. “I guess people reached out to Kenny Pickett to go to Notre Dame a year ago. I had no idea. He didn’t say anything to me, which obviously it didn’t get that serious, but Notre Dame recruited him through the back channels.

“It’s not (former Notre Dame coach) Brian Kelly but someone’s telling these guys, whoever they are, to come to Notre Dame, right?

“We’re gonna start losing more college coaches to the NFL game, so they don’t have to deal with this chaos. And I think that’s gonna be bad for college football.”

Asked about the relaxed name, image and likeness rules and the NCAA transfer portal, he said that combination makes coaching in college athletics difficult.

“I think they work hand in hand. You know, the tampering where, you know, you should not have to recruit your own team,” he said. “Nobody should be able to come in and say, ‘Hey, listen, we like that Biletnikoff (winner), that No. 3, that Jordan Addison, he’s pretty good. We think we want him to come down south and we’re gonna give you, you know, $500,000 to come down south and you’re gonna be driving a, you know, a BMW.’

“And it’s kind of like, `What are we doing? This can’t happen.’”

Narduzzi was speaking in general terms because Addison did not transfer from Pitt after winning the Biletnikoff Award last season as the nation’s best wide receiver.

Narduzzi’s comments to Jones were a contination of what he told local media earlier in the day.

At that time, he said, “There’s a lot of tampering going on.”

“I don’t know how the NCAA or the FBI (is going to check) people’s phones for the tampering that’s going on. But it’s not good for the game of college football

“That’s another reason for putting the brakes on expanding to 12 teams in the playoffs. You’re spending time doing that and that’s bad. People would like to steal your developed guys and not have to develop them themselves.

“Develop them yourselves.”

Pitt used the transfer portal to add quarterback Kedon Slovis (USC), wide receiver Konata Mumpfield (Akron) and linebacker Shayne Simon (Notre Dame). He also lost 10 players to transfers, including linebacker and co-captain Cam Bright, who ended up at Washington.

Asked if he was surprised that Bright transferred, Narduzzi said, “No.” He declined further comment.

Things have changed

The second national letter of intent day came and went without Pitt signing any additional prospects. A day that used to be highly anticipated by fans and coaches turned boring for team’s such as Pitt that sign most of their targets in December.

Which is fine with Narduzzi.

“Hopefully, for the future, we never sign anybody on this date. We’d like to be done in December,” he said.

With 18 starters returning, Narduzzi is not expecting Pitt’s 12-man class — its smallest since at least 2002 — to have a negative effect on the program. He anticipates perhaps doubling that number in 2023.

Rivals.com ranks Pitt’s class 68th in the nation, tied with San Diego State, Tulane and Utah State. It is 12th in the ACC. Rankings are largely based on the number in the class.

“Doesn’t matter the quality of them,” Narduzzi said of the rankings.

A veteran group

“What does a small class mean?” he asked, not expecting an answer.

“When I walk out onto that field, I said, `Holy cow. I have a football team that just won a championship out there.’ When you look around, everybody’s back.”

“Next year’s class is going to be big. The great thing is we’re going to have just a handful of young guys, which tells you there’s a good football team in that indoor (facility) Tuesday morning. That’s why transfers come.”

How about 95?

Narduzzi made a pitch for the NCAA increasing the scholarship limit from 85 to 95.

“If you are going to go for a 12-team playoff, don’t we deserve 95 scholarships? Let’s do it. There are things like that we’d like to get done. If you’re going to have longer seasons, you have to be able to have more players.”

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