Pat Narduzzi’s Notre Dame comments send wrong message for Pittsburgh

Pittsburgh’s Pat Narduzzi, who is known for wearing his emotions on his sleeve and expressing them publicly, said something that he should have kept private ahead of Saturday night’s ranked matchup with Notre Dame. The 24th-ranked Panthers, who are hoping to reach the conference championship game in their hopes to make it to the finals of the regular season, have already begun looking forward to ACC matches with Georgia Tech and Miami.”Absolutely not. “I’m glad you mentioned that it is not an ACC match,” he replied. “I’d gladly get beat 103 … or 110-10 in that game. As long as we win two more games, they’ll be able to put us 100 points behind. “Our focus is Notre Dame, and we want to win as many games as possible.”
Imagine how the leadership of Pitt’s athletic department, or the boosters who pay Narduzzi his annual salary must feel after he said that he was okay with a rout if it meant beating the Yellow Jackets or Hurricanes afterwards.

This is a stance that a leader of a team should not take before a rivalry match, especially since Narduzzi has a 0-4 record against Notre Dame in Pitt. Narduzzi is wrong to claim that the Panthers control their own destiny when it comes to the ACC championship race. They do not. Not only do they need to win their remaining two league contests, but Louisville must beat SMU on Nov. 22 to avoid a multi-team tie scenario at the end of the month since the Mustangs only have one conference loss.Five ACC teams enter Week 12 with one conference loss — Pitt, SMU, Georgia Tech, Duke and Virginia. 

If three or more teams have the same percentage of wins, or if two teams or more are tied for the second highest percentage in league play, ACC tiebreaker rules apply. For a two-team tie, head-to-head competition between the two tied teams. B. Win-percentage against all common opponents. C. Win-percentage against common opponents based upon their order of finish (overall conference win percentage with ties broken) and proceeding through other common opponents based upon their order of finish. D. Combined win-percentage of conference opponents. E. The tied team with the highest ranking by the Team Rating Score metric provided by SportSource Analytics following the conclusion of regular-season games. F. If Pitt wins over Georgia Tech and Miami then the Panthers will finish 7-1. Duke or Virginia could do the same (unless the Cavaliers fall to Boston College or the Blue Devils trip up at North Carolina or Wake Forest), along with SMU — and there’s the three-team tie for first place coming into play.Moving down to the win-percentage against common opponents metric, Virginia would get the bid over Pitt since the Cavaliers beat Louisville and the Panthers lost to the Cardinals back on Sept. 27.

Pitt’s chaotic playoff theorySay the Panthers defeat the Fighting Irish. That not only would strengthen the ACC’s playoff argument, but eliminates Notre Dame from the at-large mix and provides a new road for multi-loss options like Texas, Oklahoma, USC, Vanderbilt and others.Do you think Brent Pry at Georgia Tech will tell his team how little the rivalry clash with Georgia matters if the Yellow Jackets punch their ticket to the ACC Championship Game the week before? No, of course not. The coaches are supposed to energize their locker rooms, not destroy them. What Panthers team will be in Atlanta for the game against Georgia Tech on November 22, if they lose badly to Notre Dame? Narduzzi shouldn’t entertain that question, even though it sounds like he is.

2025-11-11 16:14:24