Nov 17, 2018 5 min read

Who’s laughing at Pat Narduzzi now?

Lots of people were laughing last summer at the ACC preseason media day when he told everybody that he’d see them at the ACC championship game. After a win over Wake Forest, he’ll see them in Charlotte in two weeks when Pitt plays Clemson for the title. Pitt was 2-3 at the end of September and one of those losses was a 51-6 embarrassment to Penn State at Heinz Field.

One of those two wins was over Albany, a team that doesn’t belong on the schedule. Since then Pitt has won five out of six and the only loss was 19-14 to Notre Dame on the road.

And included in those wins were two games with more than 50 points and one with more than 40.

That’s good coaching.

There were serious discussions about Narduzzi losing his job at the end of September, but that talk stops now.

Yeah, it’s only the ACC and it’s only the Coastal Division, but that’s where Pitt lives. Beating Penn State would have been nice, but when you play in a conference, the idea is to win your conference.

Ask Penn State.

Pitt won five straight conference games. And how about Pitt having a better record than Miami, who’s next on the schedule? Everybody who cares about Pitt football likes to talk about the national championships and competing with Penn State. Those days are long over. It could happen again, but it will have to begin with Pitt becoming a perennial contender in the ACC. That’s still a lofty goal for a program that has been stuck in mediocrity for more than 30 years, but playing in a championship game will do wonders for Narduzzi’s credibility with recruits. And winning an ACC championship is a much more realistic goal than returning to the days of Tony Dorsett and Dan Marino, not to mention Marshall Goldberg.

Stopping the laughter was huge.

• Pitt has a chance to be the best city school in college football when the season is over. In past years, Miami was the only team identified with a city that had much success. Louisville has had some good teams recently, but is going nowhere this season and just fired its coach. The University of Houston has developed a program that has been ranked in the Top 25 and won its eighth game Thursday night.

The on-campus stadium seats 40,000, by the way. It cost $125 million.

• Aaron Rodgers and Drew Brees have combined for 40 touchdown passes and two interceptions this year. Did you get that? Two NFL quarterbacks have gone 10 games into the season with one interception.

One!

What’s going on in the NFL? Rodgers’ was on a pass that bounced off a receiver’s hands. Imagine if he had made it to Thanksgiving without throwing an interception? Rodgers has done this before. He threw 318 passes without an interception in 2016 when he finished with 40 touchdown passes.

He once went 1,043 days, from 2012 to 2015, and threw 587 passes without an interception in a home game at Lambeau Field.

Rodgers has 332 TDs and 79 interceptions in his career. That’s 1.8 percent of his passes being picked off. Brees is 509-229 for 2.4 percent. Tom Brady is 505-167, 1.8 percent.

Would you like some perspective on those numbers?

How about Dan Marino, 420-252, 3 percent?

Joe Montana, 273-139, 2.6 percent.

Let’s go back to Terry Bradshaw, who played when the forward pass was much more of a dangerous proposition. He threw 212 touchdown passes and had 210 intercepted, for 5.4 percent.

Joe Namath is a Hall of Famer. He threw 173 touchdown passes and had 220 intercepted for 5.8 percent. What does Namath think when he sees that two NFL quarterbacks have combined for two interceptions in 20 games this season?

My favorite is Johnny Unitas, who had four seasons with more interceptions than touchdown passes. And there are people who will tell you that he’s still the greatest of all-time.

It’s a different game.

• If those numbers don’t have your head spinning, try these: This season, Ben Roethlisberger has thrown 205 passes that traveled five yards or less in the air and he leads the league in screen passes attempted with 54. The last Steelers Hall of Fame and Super Bowl-winning quarterback, Terry Bradshaw, had nine seasons in which he completed a total of fewer than 205 passes.

Did I mention that they’re playing a different game in 2018?

• Back in 2017, when the Penguins made the decision to keep Matt Murray and let Marc-Andre Fleury go in the expansion draft, I said that I would have kept Fleury, traded Murray for a package of a high No. 1 draft pick and a prospect or two and figured out the salary cap later. I was told by multiple people that no general manager in the NHL would trade Murrray in that situation. It was nothing against Murray, who will probably play in the league for another 12 to 15 years. I thought that Fleury, over the next three or four years, would prove to be a better goalie.

Still do.