In the wake of the resignation of another high-profile ACC basketball coach Friday, Pitt football coach Pat Narduzzi said college athletics will survive.

“It’s never going to go anywhere,” he said Friday. “It’s who’s going to hang in there long enough to continue to ride the waves, right?”

The waves became too choppy for Virginia basketball coach Tony Bennett, who suddenly resigned Friday 19 days before the Cavaliers’ first game. Bennett joins North Carolina’s Roy Williams, Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski, Syracuse’s Jim Boeheim, along with Villanova’s Jay Wright and Alabama football coach Nick Saban as coaches who have stepped aside in recent years.

At 55 years old, Bennett is the youngest of that group to resign.

Former Pitt defensive line coach Charlie Partridge and former Boston College coach Jeff Hafley left for jobs in the NFL.

Narduzzi said he still embraces the challenge of college coaching. He has proven that by accepting the new reality of college the athletics that includes:

• Name, image and likeness contracts for players.

• The transfer portal that brings free agency into the sport.

• Upcoming revenue sharing with student-athletes that, essentially, will usher in an era of players getting paid for doing things they used to do for free.

“I mean, to me, you have to change with the times, and it’s part of the job,” Narduzzi said. “That’s what we do. It’s why we do what we do. You gotta embrace change, I guess. I mean, some people want to embrace it. Some people are, like, I don’t need it, right?

“So, I just think it’s what you want to put up with, you know. And (Bennett) decided he didn’t want to put up with any more. He was going to probably sit on a beach somewhere and enjoy himself. God bless him.”

Narduzzi, who has a contract that runs through the 2030 season (just like Bennett did), said he has remained in the game for two simple reasons: the competition and being with and working with his young players.

“You love to compete,” he said. “You love to play this game, and you love to coach these kids. Just the interaction with our guys in the team meeting in the mornings. That’s why you do it.

“If you’re just doing it for other reasons, like if you’re just doing it for Saturdays and the joy of a Saturday afternoon, you’re struggling. You’re out the door as soon as you can. You better be doing it for more than just a couple reasons. Better have a lot of reasons. It’s the love of the game.”

At the ACC Tipoff event last week, Bennett said, “The days of amateur athletics are gone.”

Bennett won a national championship at Virginia in 2019 but had not been victorious in an NCAA Tournament game since then. He compiled a record of 364-136, with two ACC Tournament championships, six regular-season titles and 10 NCAA Tournament berths in 15 seasons.

He was ACC Coach of the Year in 2014, 2015, 2018 and 2019.

In a tearful news conference Friday that even had Virginia athletic director Carla Williams’ cheeks stained with tears, Bennett said he no longer believed he’s the best person to lead the program.

“If you’re going to do it, you’ve got to be all in. You’ve got to have everything. And if you do it half-hearted, it’s not fair to the university and those young men. That’s what made me step down.”

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