Vukovcan: Pat Narduzzi Deserves Credit For Making a Change

Although it’s something that should’ve been done a couple of weeks ago, Pat Narduzzi deserves some credit.

As most people know by now, Narduzzi is a stubborn man and will continue to do something almost to the point of defiance.

A year ago, even someone without much football knowledge could see that Kedon Slovis wasn’t getting it done at quarterback and a change was needed. Despite how obvious it was to everyone, Narduzzi refused to make a change. It was almost as though; Narduzzi didn’t want to be viewed as being wrong in bringing in Slovis and was going to stick with him no matter what.

There was some deja vu in 2023.

Pitt brought in former four-star recruit, Notre Dame and Boston College quarterback Phil Jurkovec. He was viewed by most as a good, safe addition that would make the offense better and an improvement over Slovis.

Wrong.

If we’re brutally honest, Jurkovec’s five-game stretch has to be one of the worst in the 133-year history of Pitt football. His final stat line of 57-of-112 attempts for 803 yards and six touchdowns and three interceptions doesn’t accurately tell the story. Admittedly, he was far from the only issue on offense, but Jurkovec wasn’t good. He showed zero accuracy with short, intermediate or deep patterns. Countless times when not under pressure, he skipped or threw passes at receivers’ feet. Honestly, the only thing he consistently did well was run the football.

Even after the embarrassment at Virginia Tech, Narduzzi defended Jurkovec and continued to cite other issues on the offense.

“Phil was under pressure the whole game,” Narduzzi said following the loss. “He got sacked four times, even when we had a completion, he’s getting hit. Every time. That is not an easy situation to put anybody in, and I still feel that’s the guy back there making the plays. He had one ball that was not good in the flat, I don’t know if it slipped out of his hand or what, but other than that he made some nice throws. He’s under pressure all day. You can put Dan Marino in there, Dan Marino is not gonna do anything, period.”

While those comments seemed to be Narduzzi’s way of saying Phil isn’t the issue and he’d continue to be Pitt’s starting quarterback, we learned today that’s not the case. According to a report from Noah Hiles of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the team was informed today that sophomore Christian Veilleux will be starting next Saturday against Louisville.

Whatever led to this decision, and there can be many theories on what those could be, Narduzzi deserves credit for pulling the trigger with this much-talked-about move.

I’m already receiving messages that this was done three games too late, and it cost them their season, and while that probably is true, at least he recognized Jurkovec was a mistake and Veilleux will still have seven games of on-the-job experience and to showcase what he can do. Even if this season isn’t salvageable, the long-term upside of this is Pitt will get a real look at Veilleux and it works, they still have him under center for two more seasons.

A reminder though to Pitt fans: just because a quarterback change was made, that’s not going to fix all the problems.

Do I think Veilleux is a better option than Jurkovec, of course, but that doesn’t mean everything will get better, it just means they’ll have a better opportunity to succeed.

The biggest question moving forward is whether this move leads to a change in the way offensive coordinator Frank Cignetti, Jr. calls plays. If not and things stay boring, conservative and with no imagination, Pitt’s struggles will continue.

If those struggles do continue for the remainder of the season, with Jurkovec no longer an option to blame, the heat will continue to rise on both Cignetti and Narduzzi.

Come to think about it, you really have to wonder if this move was really made for long-term job security. If the losing continues, Jurkovec might not be the only person on Pitt getting canned.