Dunlap: Narduzzi Won PR Game; Now Comes The Real Ones
First-year Pitt football coach Pat Narduzzi has won me over with his words off the field.
But let's see what happens on Saturday when Youngstown State comes to town.
And then the Saturday after that.
And then the Saturday after that.
And then so on.
And let's see what happens when October rolls into November.
And then let's see what happens when the 2015 season makes way for the 2016 season.
But for now, Narduzzi, 49, can only control the situation he's in; and that situation is creating a buzz and jolt about this Panthers program that has had double-digit wins once since 1982. To be fair, looking at this thing objectively, the guy has done about as good a job as one can do before he so much as coaches one down leading a program.
If Narduzzi's main duty from the time he was named head coach through the time the Panthers kick off on Saturday against YSU was to drum up support and rally some encouragement for a program that has been an utter disappointment for much of the past few decades, he has overwhelmingly succeeded.
Pitt football, right now, is far from the talk of the town.
Pitt football, right now, does have some semblance of noise around it, even if that noise is mostly nebby curiosity to see what this next coach is going to do.
That, in and of itself, is a victory of sorts.
Through the end of the Dave Wannstedt tenure and then whatever in the world happened with Michael Haywood and onto the used car salesman, fast-talking Todd Graham (who was never going to stay very long) and then Paul Chryst (who was going to jump to Wisconsin at his first opportunity), this has been a Pitt program with the one constant being inconsistency at the top.
The fact that Pitt fans persevered through that and many seem to be clinging to Narduzzi's off-season, tough-nosed, knock-your-facemask-in approach and are excited about this season is in many ways a victory. Pitt fans, the ones that will make their way into Heinz Field on Saturday, have to be about the most resilient fan base in all of college football.
So how does Narduzzi, who will stride out onto that playing surface on Saturday for the first time as a head coach, view what is about to happen?
"You're nervous for every game," Narduzzi said as he joined "The Fan Morning Show" earlier this week. "I was nervous when I was a Canfield Little Cardinal playing my first game when I was eight years old. You're nervous as a coach, whether it be the Cotton Bowl or the first game of the season, as an assistant coach, a linebacker coach, or a head coach. There's nerves out there, and near game time when you prepare, they're all good nerves."
There's no question Narduzzi has won all the PR stuff leading up to the season.
Let's see what happens when the real games start.
Colin Dunlap is a featured columnist at CBSPittsburgh.com. He can also be heard weekdays from 5:40 a.m. to 10 a.m. on Sports Radio 93-7 "The Fan." You can e-mail him at colin.dunlap@cbsradio.com. Check out his bio here.
