Sunday started badly for Pat Narduzzi.

“I didn’t get to Mass,” Pitt’s coach said. “Sunday, I like to get to 7:30 (a.m.) Mass. That’s the first bad part of the day because we were in the office before that.”

The day did get better, however, as soon as Pitt associate athletic director Chris LaSala arrived with doughnuts from Mac’s in Aliquippa. Then, it was time to get to work, cramming two days into one as the Panthers started preparing for their Thursday night ESPN game against North Carolina at Heinz Field.

By the time Narduzzi met reporters Monday for his regular noon chat, he had run his team through two practices, including one under the lights Sunday night to get used to the nocturnal atmosphere. Normally, full-blown practice doesn’t get started until Tuesday.

Narduzzi did not appear sleep-deprived — although coaches were at the practice facility longer than usual Sunday night — and he said players are handling the situation in a “mature” manner.

Still, Narduzzi is no fan of Thursday night games.

“It was the worst Sunday ever, a miserable Sunday,” he said. “This is not fun.”

Of course, it might be a bit worse for the Tar Heels because they must travel from Chapel Hill, N.C., on Wednesday while Pitt has a short bus ride to Heinz Field late Thursday afternoon.

The game will be North Carolina’s third in a row against a team ranked in the Associated Press Top 25, starting with a 44-34 loss to now-No. 7 Notre Dame in South Bend. Last week, the Tar Heels rallied to defeat previously undefeated No. 13 Wake Forest, 58-55.

“That’s a load,” coach Mack Brown said. “I told our guys it’s time to grow up.”

This game will mark the second time in Narduzzi’s seven seasons that Pitt must play five days after the previous game. In 2015, Pitt won at Syracuse, 23-20, before losing on a Thursday night to North Carolina, 26-19, at home.

“We got a better plan than we had in 2015,” he said, declining to cite details. “You’re trying to close the chapter on Duke and at the same time, you have to be game-planned and ready (for North Carolina),” he said. “Usually, for a Tuesday practice, we have half the day on Sunday and all day Monday to prepare. Sunday, we had to close the book on Duke, make the corrections and then we had to flip it around. You weren’t spending time on North Carolina (last week). You had to focus on Duke.”

The quirk in the schedule appears at the most crucial — some might say inopportune — point in the season. Pitt (7-2, 4-1 ACC) is clinging to a half-game lead in the Coastal Division over Virginia (6-3, 4-2) and is only one game ahead of Miami (5-4, 3-2).

While Pitt has a 68.2% chance to win the Coastal, according to ESPN’s Football Power Index, North Carolina (5-4, 3-3) is given only a .9% chance. That might bolster the perception that Pitt has more to lose and, thus, more pressure to bear.

If Pitt loses just one of its final three games and Miami wins all three, the Panthers lose the tiebreaker to the Hurricanes based on that 38-34 loss Oct. 30.

That creates nearly a must-win situation for the Panthers, who are 1-6 against North Carolina since joining the ACC in 2013. The average margin in the seven games is 4.7 points.

Aside from the national television exposure, Narduzzi said the game is expected to attract 36 NFL scouts and executives eager to watch Pitt quarterback Kenny Pickett and North Carolina’s Sam Howell.

Without a lot of time to prepare, Narduzzi said he plans to “keep it simple.”

“We don’t have the time to add a ton of offense, a ton of defense. We’re going to do what we do and try to do it better than they do.”

NOTES: Pickett and John Petrishen were named ACC quarterback and linebacker of the week. … The ACC will not announce a start time or TV network for Pitt’s game Nov. 20 against Virginia at Heinz Field until after this weekend’s games.

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