Circumstances are different now, but Pitt history says it’s possible to recover from 1-4 start
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At the dawn of the 21st century, the blame for Pitt’s 1-5 start in 2001 was pinned on an inability to immediately adapt to a new offensive scheme.
Four years after that, in 2005, Pitt had parted company with Walt Harris, a coach who led the program out of the darkness of the mid-1990s and earned a share of the Big East championship and a Fiesta Bowl berth in 2004.
“We were rockin’ and rollin’,” quarterback Tyler Palko said.
New coach (Dave Wannstedt), new everything, and Pitt started 1-4 in ’05.
The ’01 and ’05 seasons are the only two of 26, dating to 1997, that Pitt won only one of its first five games.
Until now.
Tied with Virginia for last place in the ACC and off since the 38-21 loss to Virginia Tech on Sept. 30, Pitt (1-4) next will confront Louisville — one of the ACC’s best teams — Oct. 14 at Acrisure Stadium.
The Panthers of Pat Narduzzi don’t have the same problems that plagued his 2001 and 2005 predecessors.
The offensive scheme is the same as previous years, in fact so familiar to former quarterback Phil Jurkovec that he followed offensive coordinator Frank Cignetti Jr. to Pitt after they spent two seasons together at Boston College.
With Narduzzi in his ninth season — the longest tenure by a Pitt coach since 1965 — the program is more stable than it has been since the Harris days, winning 21 games in the past 2½ seasons and an ACC championship two years ago. That’s why the 1-4 start is so vexing.
“As is always the case, there are a handful of factors that go into (losing),” said Latrobe graduate Chad Reed, the ’01 center, speaking specifically about his team.
For Narduzzi, a difficult remaining schedule and upheaval at the game’s most important position may hinder his efforts. Harris and Wannstedt had established quarterbacks David Priestley and Palko. Both played almost the entire season. But Narduzzi has moved the ineffective Jurkovec to tight end and inserted inexperienced Christian Veilleux under center.
The trick for Narduzzi is to match the recovery efforts of the ’01 and ’05 teams. It wasn’t easy then, and it won’t be easy now. Here are their stories:
2001 (7-5)
Wide receiver Antonio Bryant was coming off a Biletnikoff Award-winning season in 2000.
“There was some hype going into the season,” Reed said.
“But we changed the offense to a spread offense. It just didn’t work for us for one reason or another. The shotgun wasn’t probably ideal for (quarterback David Priestley). He was more of a traditional, drop-back West Coast kind of guy. We couldn’t find any cohesion. We had some shuffling in the offensive line.”
That’s one problem shared by the current team that has been missing three injured starters.
After losses to USF and eventual national champion Miami early in the ’01 season, Pitt scored seven, 10 and seven points in consecutive losses to Notre Dame, Syracuse and Boston College.
“We were running, very poorly, an install of a spread, non-huddle offense that coach Harris was trying to call from the sideline,” Priestley said, “because that was kind of the in-vogue thing to do.
“We couldn’t figure it out. I was begging him to just give me the huddle and give me some check-with-me’s. ‘I’m a senior. I know what I’m doing. Let me run the show.’
“Our biggest issue with that shaky start was we were beating ourselves with penalties. We couldn’t get plays off. We were killing drives. We’d line up in a formation and stand there and stare at the sideline. It was really bad. It was the worst experience of my college career, by far. That was the year we probably should have contended for the Big East championship.”
Finally, Harris gave Priestley the ability to call plays at the line of scrimmage.
“I called run/pass checks, basically, 85-95% of the time,” he said.
Priestley said that season “haunted me for years.”
But he added, “It’s not easy to run a team. It’s not easy to be a head coach. It’s not easy to try and change things and get it right the first time. It just wasn’t the right time to do it with the seniors and the leadership we had. I think he was trying to put it in for (quarterback) Rod (Rutherford) and the group after me. It was a little bit more that style.”
Harris, who declined comment for this story, led Pitt on a remarkable reversal of fortune, winning 17 of the next 21 games, stretching to the start of the 2003 season.
Pitt finished the ’01 season on a six-game winning streak, including a 34-19 defeat of Philip Rivers-led N.C. State in the Tangerine Bowl, the program’s first victory in the postseason in 12 years.
“We had talent. The O-line started to come together,” Reed said. “We went back under center and got away from the spread. I’m not blaming any coaches. We just started to jell and started to really reach our potential. (The spread) just was so different. Maybe it did, maybe it didn’t fit our skill set.
“Antonio Bryant got hurt at the beginning of the season. That was certainly part of it. He came back, we went back under center — what we had been doing for years — and things started falling back into place.
“As depressing as the 1-5 start was, it was unbelievably rewarding to finish with six straight wins.”
There was one aspect of the ‘01 team that offers hope that a similar outcome is possible at Pitt this season.
“I do believe there were a lot of good guys in that (2001) locker room,” Reed said.
“Teams get lost all the time. I don’t know if that’s something about having your recruiting base being blue-collar, Western Pennsylvania kids that helped that. But I think morale was higher than it would be in most 1-5 teams. We knew we had something there. We felt good about the changes that were being made. We felt good about Antonio Bryant being back and healthy.”
Reed credited Priestley for playing a significant role in the reversal by not “acting like (the losing) is the end of the world.”
“He’s a football guy through and through. (The team had) a number of good, solid character guys who weren’t going to let the season end that way.”
2005 (5-6)
Palko had thrown for 3,067 yards and 24 touchdowns during the Fiesta Bowl season of 2004. Again, hopes were high in 2005, just as they were at the start of 2001 and, of course, 2023.
“Coach Wanny came in and had to rattle the cages a little bit,” Palko said. “No excuses, but I think that slow start was more or less attributed to a change of scenery.”
Wannstedt’s first game was a highly anticipated encounter with Notre Dame at Heinz Field. Pitt lost 42-21. Then, an embarrassing road loss in overtime to Ohio University preceded the Panthers falling short at Nebraska and Rutgers.
Finally, the coaching staff and players got in sync and Pitt won four of its last six games before starting 6-1 in 2006.
“We knew we had some talented guys. We knew we could make things work,” Palko said. “It was more or less getting used to the new coaching staff. We had a couple guys get kicked off the team that year.
“That’s when the leaders on the team have to lead. Coaches can only do so much. The locker room has to change it. The coaches can’t catch. They can’t tackle. Locker rooms win games.”