Pitt notebook: Pat Narduzzi claims his team is undefeated, and here's why

Finally after nearly nine weeks, the truth about the 2022 Pitt football team surfaced Thursday afternoon.

Or, a version of it did.

It was revealed shortly after 1 p.m. in the conference room with the long, wooden table and pictures of the city of Pittsburgh on the wall. It’s where Pat Narduzzi holds his really important meetings and also once a week during football season sits down with reporters.

When asked about the critical nature of Saturday night’s game at ACC Coastal leader North Carolina, Pitt’s coach declared with a straight face, “We’re undefeated, really. That’s how I look at it.”

Huh?

Although the NCAA has placed a three in the loss column next to Pitt’s name, the coach sees this season differently.

“We beat ourselves,” he said. “Nobody’s beat us.”

Narduzzi is referring to his team committing a total of seven turnovers that ultimately led to defeats against Georgia Tech and Louisville. Plus, there were two others in the overtime loss to undefeated (really) and No. 3 Tennessee.

“You can say Tennessee beat us,” Narduzzi said, “but if we were healthy at quarterback, even with our backup quarterback (Nick Patti was injured in that game after replacing Kedon Slovis), I believe we win that football game, too.”

Narduzzi’s point is, yes, Pitt has lost three times, but self-inflicted mistakes were largely responsible. The injury to Slovis occurred late in the first half when he fumbled, setting up Tennessee for a field goal that could have been avoided.

The reality is that Pitt (4-3, 1-2 ACC) can’t afford to lose to No. 21 North Carolina (6-1, 3-0) and maintain legitimate hope of winning the Coastal Division.

If the Tar Heels win — they are three-point favorites — Pitt would need to win its last four games and hope North Carolina go 0-4 the remainder of the season. And that doesn’t take into account the other three Coastal teams with two conference losses: Georgia Tech, Duke and Miami.

Pitt will get its first look Saturday at the latest ACC quarterback sensation, redshirt freshman Drake Maye, who leads the conference in passing yards per game (326.1), completion percentage (70.1%) touchdowns (24) and fewest interceptions (three, tied with three others). And he didn’t turn 19 until three days after the Tar Heels’ first game.

“He’s a first-round quarterback,” Narduzzi said. “You can mark that down now, redshirt freshman. I have no doubt about it. He’s got the size (6-foot-4½, 220 pounds). He’s got the athletic ability. He’s got the great vision. He’s calm in the pocket. He can scramble. He can do it all.

“When I watched last year, as good as their quarterback (Sam Howell) was, if he didn’t feel good, he would just tuck it and run or get hit and sacked. (Maye) is not like this. This guy’s elusive. He’s really smooth in the pocket.”

When Narduzzi was trying to identify a quarterback Maye most closely resembles, he came up with Trevor Lawrence, the No. 1 overall NFL draft choice in 2021.

Maye also comes from an athletic family. His brother, Luke, played on North Carolina’s 2017 national championship basketball team.

For all the praise Narduzzi heaped upon Maye, he said he doesn’t plan any exotic blitzes or defensive alignments. He said he learned that lesson 20 years ago as the linebackers coach at Northern Illinois.

One day, Northern Illinois played Miami (Ohio) and its quarterback, Ben Roethlisberger.

“I wasn’t the coordinator, thank God,” Narduzzi said.

He said talk among the staff was, “We can’t defend this guy. He’s too good.” So coaches decided to confuse him. Or try.

“We changed the coverage up so many times,” Narduzzi said. “All we did was confuse ourselves.”

Roethlisberger threw for 525 yards.

The next year, when Narduzzi was hired as Miami’s defensive coordinator, he changed tactics during spring drills.

“We went out and played our base defense against him and played really, really good against him every day,” he said. “To the point that the head coach, Terry Hoeppner, wasn’t very happy.

“That’s an old-school story. Keep it simple. The NCAA will not let us play with 12 guys. We have to go do what we do.”

Narduzzi said wide receiver Jaylon Baden will make his first start of the season, and Cam Guess, who has replaced freshman Sam Vander Haar, will be the No. 1 punter.