Pat Narduzzi On Teams Fourth Quarter Celebration: 'It Looked Like A High School Keg Party'
PITTSBURGH (93-7 The FAN) - Coming off his teams blowout victory at Duke this past week, Pitt football head coach Pat Narduzzi joined Starkey and Mueller to talk about the progress his program is making.
One of the reasons this Pitt team is different from the team that went 6-7 last year is that they're able to finish games in the second half and Narduzzi talked about how that has happened.
"I guess that takes into the coaching and our kids just kind of buying into what we're doing," Narduzzi said. "Also, we're going to see if we can petition the NCAA just to see if we can just play the second halves. We might be undefeated if we just played second halves. We are trying to get that 60 minutes out of them guys and it's a work in progress."
One of the more pronounced features of his team is the fourth quarter celebration they throw on the sidelines and Narduzzi joked that his creation may have gotten a bit out of control.
"It was getting to be too much. I sat back, at first I enjoyed it, then I started going, 'What are we doing here?' But the kids are excited so what are you supposed to do? Then finally I was like, 'Come on guys, we got to clean this up a little bit.' It looked like a high school keg party."
Perhaps the most impressive part of the Panthers 7-3 record so far this year is that they're doing it without the reigning ACC Player of the Year in James Conner and Narduzzi updates us on his current status and if we may still see him play at some point this season.
"It's a hard question to answer," Narduzzi told us. "I think it's a day-by-day thing and he's got to feel right...but I think he's also looking at his future and you know, he's heard me say it too, so he's saying, 'Shoot, if coach feels I should worry about my future, then I should too.' But the first thing is getting him to 100%, he's not quite there yet. So I guess he doesn't have a decision to make until he gets to that point where he says, "Ok, I could play now, what do I do?"
Click the audio link below to hear more from Narduzzi as he talks about the season Nate Peterman is having and the goal he set for this team at the beginning of the year.