PITTSBURGH (93.7 The Fan) – In this ‘what have you done for me lately world’, now what for Pitt football? How do they build on their ACC Championship?
First off, you ignore an 11-win 2021 season.
“What happened last year, I don’t remember,” Pitt Head Coach Pat Narduzzi quipped on the first day of Spring practice.
“This is 2022. It’s a different team, we are going to prepare the same way. That’s the name of the game, get better every day and have fun. What we did last year doesn’t really matter, it won’t help us win a game this year. The confidence will be high, but it doesn’t matter.”
“Those were great times, but those are behind us,” said senior Deslin Alexandre. “Now we are up to a new season, we are trying to fine tune little details that got us there.”
The Blue-Gold Spring game is Saturday at Heinz Field. How will we know from that or how does Narduzzi know from practice they are approaching it the correct way?
“The only way you gage that is how they practice,” Narduzzi said. “Do they think they are too good to practice? Do we have a different attitude?”
“The attitude has been let’s go to work. We don’t talk about it at all.”
“I think every year your goal is to win a championship,” said sophomore tight end Gavin Bartholomew. “I don’t think it’s anything special coming off of it. I think it should be the goal every year. We are ready to go back.”
“Same mentality as last year, give it all we got,” said tackle Carter Warren. “Bring that dog play-by-play and at the end, we will be on top.”
“The goal for us is national champions. We are working so hard, coming in every day, putting in that extra film, extra time just to get there. I think the goal this year is national champions.”
He’s not the only one talking about that goal. Sophomore Rodney Hammond, Jr. discussing ‘winning a natty’. How do they take that step from ACC Champs to the best team in the country?
“Detail and discipline, attention to detail in everything we do,” Alexandre said. “A little step, a little strike that you don’t really see on film but go a long way to make a play.”
“We can take it further schematically from an understanding standpoint and build on what we’ve done here for the last three years with these kids,” said offensive line coach Dave Borbely. “I think we can improve all of them fundamentally, technique-wise. I think we still have a long way to go. I really do. It’s not a bad thing, it’s a good thing. I think we can take it a long way yet.”
Here’s a shorter version from Bartholomew.
“We need to work our asses off and don’t stop.”