Is anyone all that surprised Jim Chaney took off (or was helped on his way) this morning? I wasn’t. I had the following Facebook private message conversation with another Pitt football fan at 8:41 am on Friday morning:
Jeff, the real point was what I’ve heard about Narduzzi and Chaney. I just wouldn’t be surprised if Chaney was gone in a year or two. Narduzzi took a big gamble on letting Chaney run with Peterman and it just worked out toward the end of the year.
However, to fire an Ass’t Coach means buying out their contract and that is big $$$. But we saw publicly some tension between Narduzzi and Chaney on the sideline (and with Narduzzi’s rather snide “You’ll have to ask Chaney that” and I’ve been told it was worse in the locker room and clubhouse.
I didn’t write about it on the Blather because I don’t do that unless it this type of information is made public in another forum first. But there were signs of discontent with the coaches both on and off the field.
Last month the fine sports blog Cardiac Hill had a good take on what transpired between Narduzzi and Jim Chaney at the end of the 1st half against North Carolina:
…Even the coaches had serious issues. Major miscommunication cost the team approximately ten crucial seconds at the end of the first half when driving to potentially score some points. Pat Narduzzi appeared livid with offensive coordinator John Chaney as Nathan Peterman looked to the sidelines for a play call. Pitt was forced to use a timeout. That proved costly as the Panthers needed another timeout as they simply ran out of time and weren’t able to get the ball into the end zone or spike it for a field goal attempt.
