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.
The one thing about Narduzzi is that he doesn’t hold much in when his mouth gets on a roll… and that isn’t necessarily a bad way for a HC to be I suppose. But it does make some of the more sensitive issues somewhat less than opaque when he does it.
Here is his statement from this morning:
“On behalf of our entire program, I would like to thank Jim for his contributions to Pitt. His work was very important as we established our program in this first year. In addition to being an excellent football coach, he is a tremendous person and we wish him and his family the very best.”
Compare that to his curt and pointed answer (below) when asked where RB Qadree Ollison was during the key parts of the loss to North Carolina:
Pitt ignored running back Qadree Ollison on the sneak that was called for Peterman and for most of the game after he gained 39 yards on seven carries in the first quarter. He finished with 54 yards on 10 carries, his lightest workload since the Iowa game Sept. 19. He carried twice for 14 yards after halftime, including a 4-yard touchdown.
Asked why Ollison was not a big part of the second-half game plan, coach Pat Narduzzi said, “I don’t know. You have to ask Coach Chaney that. (Backup) Chris James was good. I think (Ollison) had a couple (missed assignments) in protection. That’s not good. There are always answers.” James had a season-high 12 carries for 44 yards.
Chaney was not available for comment after the game.
Of course not – he was probably licking the wounds Narduzzi inflicted on him back in the clubhouse. Narduzzi didn’t say all that with a smile on his face. . (Did you hear the wheels of a bus going flip-flop over Chaney here?)
That building tension between the two principals might have been the worse kept secret in Pitt football this year. Maybe Chaney wouldn’t have been fired had he not gotten the UGA offer, who really knows, but you can be sure that Pitt did everything but call him a limousine and escorted him off the Southside once he did.
I don’t believe in coincidences much and for Chaney to get a new job at almost the exact same time the HC gets a contract extension seems sort of strange to me.
With that, there is also another possible angle to this that I haven’t heard discussed yet. Narduzzi has come out and said that he had been in discussions with Barnes about a possible contract extension ‘about a month ago’… That conversation would have been soon after the debacles of the North Carolina game took place. Could that extension been contingent on making sure Jim Chaney wasn’t on the staff roster any longer?
That last paragraph is speculation on my part but one thing I’ve come to understand about Pitt football over the years is that nothing, nothing at all, is ‘too far out there’ to happen. I’m not saying it went down that way but stranger things have happened in our program over the last decade.
Something interesting that Narduzzi stated in his video yesterday when he was being asked about Pat Amara’s impending transfer really caught my ear. Starting at the 50s mark he says that (to paraphrase) “it was disappointing… that Amara was looking at “#9 playing in front of him and that he (meaning Jordan Whitehead) was just going to keep getting better in the future”.
Two things about that statement.
First, I can’t remember a HC every stating so specifically the reason he though a player was transferring and then inferring the thought that Amara didn’t think he could handle the competition… and his own disappointment in that.
Second – and for all the fans who are clamoring for Whitehead to be moved to offense on a permanent basis – it sounds like Narduzzi plans to keep him at Safety for Whitehead’s time at Pitt.
Again, Narduzzi shoots from the hip and that can be refreshing sometimes. He certainly is a no-bullshit kind of guy and it would be unusual to see him change his ways just to appease the media – which he obviously doesn’t do. But I just had to scratch my head over that bit about Amara, While the basis of the situation as described is true he could have handled that a little better I think.
On other notes.
Navy won their ballgame against Army today to advance to 10-2 which makes a win over them, if we can pull it out, even better for Pitt’s reputation. I’ve stated before that I think Navy is a better team than a lot of Pitt fans are giving them credit for and I just hope the staff and the players don’t look at the match the way the Pitt fans are.
I’m not at all sure that we can go into Navy-Marines Memorial Stadium, our opponent’s home turf, and come out with a win. Everything has to go pretty perfectly for that to happen.
If we pull another crappy and low energy first half like we have done in our last three losses then we will have a very steep uphill battle.
For all the talk about how Pat Narduzzi has infused this program and team with new found drive and purpose you sure can’t tell by the way we played football over the last month in losing three of our last five games. And it is the way we lost those games – digging ourselves into holes that we couldn’t scramble out of.
We are more talented than Navy, I do believe that. What I worry about is the intangibles needed to go the victor’s way in games like this. That is what I fear we’ll fall short in.
Here is Tim Salem’s Bio – he’ll be the Interim OC for the Military Bowl.
Navy will be sky high for that bowl game, the Academy is asking its cadets to come back for the game – and a lot will – and east coast active duty alumni will get at up to 72 hrs “special Liberty” to attend the game also I’m sure.
I was singing praises of Chris James when I watched him in the Chryst practices his FR year in 2014. He really was head and shoulders above any other RB not named Conners. Fast, strong but with an excellent lateral move. I was really surprised when Chaney started highlighting Ollison as the featured RB early on this season because I firmly believe that had James gotten 100% support and 20+ carries a game he’d have been our next superstar RB – he is really that good.
We forget that he had 437 yards (5.0 ypc) and 4 TDs in very spot duty last season. Good RBs need to gather momentum during a game and getting the ball 2-3 times a half isn’t going to cut it. Chaney wanted a more smash mouth running game and that did OK but it was inconsistent and underperformed thus they had to run Boyd 35 times. I would have much rather preferred that Boyd get 20 of those carries as receptions and gained more yardage and more tDs as a WR.
Chaney way underperformed as a OC in my opinion. It wasn’t just the number of points scored although we dropped a bunch in that area – from 31.8 to 28.2 overall… but in how he used his personnel, their talents and his gameplan. His in-game decision making was poor and the NC game referenced above was only part of it.
I think he bungled the use of Nate Peterman’s talent also. Peterman has an accurate and strong arm and he should have been called to throw deep at least five times a game. Instead Chaney insisted NP stick with his progressions in the play that was sent in and Chaney rarely called for deep shots. Chaney had a different type of talent at QB than Rudolph had the year before and he didn’t capitalize on the real strengths.
When you have a Tyler Boyd and, in what was a nice surprise, Dontez Ford with the ability to catch balls thrown deep you use that as a starting point – not an afterthought.
It was as if the OC felt he needed to shorten up all of the offense and play only ball control. Which, I guess you could say worked if you look at the 8 wins we have so far.
Also, and to be fair to Chaney – it may well have been Narduzzi putting the brakes on a more ‘open’ offense as former DCs are wont to do. But I suspect it was more like Chaney getting gun shy as the season went on.
Lest anyone think I am 100% down on Jim Chaney I’ll say this – I though his bringing in Nate Peterman to compete for that starting QB job was stoke of genius and was one of the best personnel moves I’ve seen at Pitt in a long time. It paid off dividends this season and I believe that it will really show how good a move it was next year. IMO Peterman is going to have a very good rsSR year with his 1st year as a starter behind him… especially if we get a more aggressive OC.
However the situation with Chaney leaving unfolded, and I do believe it went down as described as above, I like the fact that Narduzzi will have more time to get the OC he really wants to have running the offense in his 2nd year as a HC. Hiring Chaney always felt like a stop-gap measure to me as I wasn’t real impressed with his resume’ in the first place.
Now that PN has some experience AND a decent track record (with an extension of his contract) the OC job at Pitt has more luster than it did in Jan and more people will be wanting to coach here.
Note that recruits can commit in dead period; the coaches just cannot initiate any contact
Hopefully he is just waiting to see who OC is. I got a bad feeling the visit didn’t go to well. He had said it was very possible he would be committing. Aaron Matthews is still on the table. Pitt seems to want him at safety. I don’t get that and think it may cost us landing him. He has said he prefers WR.
Savannah paper this morning has a big article about the hiring of Slim Jim. They (UGA) also hired JC’s OL coach from Arkansas. He and JC were together from Tenn and Ark. Interesting quote, “Pitt is 8-4 this season with an offense that ranks 76th nationally in total offense, 70th in scoring, 49th in rushing, and 95th in passing. Those numbers are down from a year ago in the first three categories.”
Those numbers NEED to change -for the good – next year!
In terms of what I saw, my guess is the Navy QB accounts for 3 TD’s – 2 running and one of those in excess of 40 yards and one passing. But, I don’t see how we don’t outscore them. Run downhill against smaller players and you have Boyd, Ford, Holtz, Chally, etc. Army had one guy and Navy knew it and still left him wide open all game playing Cover 2. I’m thinking 38-21 Pitt. Can’t wait to get down there.
Army’s play calling makes Chaney look like a World Beater.
Rivals has it with two 4*, 10 3*s, one 2* and one NR – I like Rivals the most of all the recruiting sites.
Scouts has it all 3*s and one NR
ESPN has it all 3* and one NR (those 3* kids equal out to a 75 avg on a scale of 70-79)
24/7 has it all 3*s and one 2*
So, color me not excited in the least.
We can always drag in the argument for and against the star system… or the old saw that the staff is targeting and getting ‘only the guys they really want’ (hogwash! as the esteemed Dr. Tom has been known to mutter under his breath) but to me that’s what we can say about every recruiting class with every coaching staff.
Here is another scary thing with this subject – Pitt doesn’t get many 4* kids but of the ones we have got lately three of them – Voytik, Jennings and now Chris James have transferred out under Narduzzi.
Those are some talented kids to try to replace and the time is running short to do so. I figured that we’d be ahead of where we are at this point and with Chaney leaving, then the dead period… and especially if we don’t win the bowl game, we’ll be disappointed when the dust settles on this class.
We do opinions on here, along with speculations and sometimes (but not often) passing along things that ‘little birdies told us’.
OK then… just so you know what you are getting into here.
More on the way – no guarantee, but the feeling is they are coming.
Chyrst et al were risk adverse and went “safe”. I for one am glad to see some of that staff’s recruits transfer out. Good luck to them but it’s a new regime.
The New York Times? All the Times does are opinions, speculations and passing on things the little birdies told them.
The Blather is way more informative than the NY Times. (smile)
I hate to say this but gc and Bj you guys may wanna prepare to be disappointed. Sanders mom apparently loves PSU and I think he is a long shot. Pitt has had very little success with McKeesport in the past, so I’m not holding out much hope for Hudson.
Hamlin is hosting Pitt coaches at his house tonight. They are saving the best for last, as the dead period starts tomorrow. Hope Narduzzi lays on the charm or has the kavorka(any Seinfeld fans will get that). I thought at one time Pitt was a lock for Hamlin. Mike Vukovan has said he has been less than impressed with crowds at Heinz. With Pitts graduating after starting the last 27 years, Hamlin has a chance to start from day one. Hopefully they sell him on that…
Contrary to the article, not only do I think we can win at Navy, I expect us to win.
At least 7,298 other Panther fans agree with me.
Had offers from.. Rutgers, Purdue, WVCC, Boston College, and a few others.
Sorry, James transferring no big deal, we have a bunch of running backs and frankly they aren’t as important as they use to be to an offense being productive.
I will take flack for these statements.
Voytik- 176/287 61.3 pct 2233 yds 16 TD 7 int 171.8 qbr 108 rushes for 466, 3td total yds 2,699 19 TD’s total
Let’s not get to carried away with Peterman. Last year there was plenty of talk about yards per attempt and yards per catch when comparing CV to previous QB’s. This year as THE STATS prove that doesn’t seem to matter when talking about Nate. Peterman like Savage is great when he has plenty of time to throw and his first target is open. Nate locks on to his
receivers, he doesn’t throw on the run very well at all and he’s got a hitch in his throwing motion. His comp pct was very good but as many drops that people complain about remember the first half at GT when there were several great catches including Boyd’s TD that was tipped first. I have no problem with Peterman. When the QB competition began people took sides and after the dust has setteled the people in the Peterman camp just refuse to admit that he is equal to or not much better than CV. He also performed poorly in all the biggest games, all the games we lost. I hope whoever becomes OC is a great teacher because whether you want to admit it or not Nate has some big deficiencies to over come.
Losing Conner was big of course but this offense still had enough talent to do much better than it did and I don’t mean numbers-wise.
Stats are one thing, but what really gets me about our offense this year was how so very inconsistent it was. Had we been able to have even decent, or average, showings in the 1st half of a few games we’d have two more wins.
7 points in the 1st half against Iowa cost us that game. We held Iowa to a total of 10 2nd half points.
3 points in the 1st half against NC cost us that game. We held NC to a total of 6 2nd half points.
3 points in the 1st half against ND gave them a ton of momentum going into the half with a 21-3 halftime lead. If we could have scored at least one TD in that half a 21-10 score is a lot different coming out of the clubhouse for the 2nd half. We scored 27 points in that 2nd half and while I think we would have still lost that game there is a big difference between just being behind at the half as opposed to being blown out.
3 Points in the first half of the Miami game set up much the same situat at half as in the ND game. Had we one TD in that half it is 23-10 and we scored 21 points in the 2nd half and could have won that game.
It seemed to me that not only didn’t Chaney have his weekly gameplan ready to go against those team he also didn’t get the players confidence that they could go out and score points early in those games. That is the mark of a poor OC IMO. It isn’t enough to score X amount of points – it is how and when you score points that controls the game and its outcome.
You might be right on the money with your prediction for CV in the bowl game. I always got the impression that early in the season when Chad was still getting playing time that the plays drawn up for him had little chance to succeed. With Chaney gone that should change. Nate had a slightly stronger arm but not significantly better than Chad . But Chad had the ability to throw on the run and run better than Nate.
but you are correct that the ypc/ypa stats are close. To me though it was the way Peterman played in the clutch that separated the two.
He was the QB in three come from behind or take the lead wins.
In five of our Six ACC wins Peterman did this:
VT – W 17-3; 2 TDs, 143.6 QB Rating, NP = 14 points of a 14 point difference
VA – W 26-19; 2 TDs, 176.0 QB Rating, NP = 14 points of a five point difference
GT – W 31-28; 3 TDs, 178.6 QB Rating; NP = 21 points of a three point difference
DK – W 31-13; 3 TDs, 165.5 QB Rating, NP = 21 points of a 18 point difference
UL – W 45-34, 4 TDs, 160.9 QB Rating, NP = 28 points of a nine point difference
That is damn good football for a first year starter and is exactly why he is considered a better QB than Voytik in most people’s minds. Peterman certainly produced when needed and got those six ACC wins as the starting QB enroute to a 8-4 regular season. Last year Voytik had four ACC wins going 6-6 in the regular season
Was he a superstar or a ton better than Voytik? No and no. But the results the team had when he was under center and his production (three 3+ TD games when Voytik had none) tells a pretty clear story of an effective and winning QB.
If we do not beat the Midshipmen, then this season, despite the record, will truly be no better than any of the last four.
Also took Giants to just win against Dolphins.
“**Looks like Miles Sanders is going to stick with his commitment to Penn State. Brad Everett of the Post-Gazette talked to Sanders and just tweeted this out:
Woodland Hills’ Miles Sanders says he will be taking no other visits: “I’m sticking with Penn State.” Pitt’s OC leaving “made choice easier”
As I wrote yesterday, Sanders was a big fan of former Pitt OC Jim Chaney. His departure ruined an chance of Pitt getting him to flip. Pitt will try real hard to land NC RB Robert Washington.”
Probably miss on Hamlin and Hudson as well.
Meanwhile, here is story on new commit from NJ paper
My gut says that Pitt is # 4 on his list.
I was hoping we’d get verbals from both WR Winfree and Ath Hill today. If they both left without either committing – ugh!
Hoping for at least one more Pat Signal tonight.
Not concerned about Hamlin visit. He is burned out on the process. Everybody is promising him the world to matriculate to their school. The only thing they can’t promise is that he can be home in 25 minutes when he misses his family.
Let’s not understate that. Staying close to home is really important to some of these kids. Look at his twitter and his other stuff and you see a little baby in his arms. He loses that if he goes to psu, nd or osu. Again, all these coaches promise the kids the same thing, except they all can’t relocate their campus.
There is only one school that provides these kids a chance to see their families on a whim! All the other coaches will beat their ears saying “make your own trail in life son, don’t follow others”. Be your own man! yadda yadda, heard that, didn’t do that! Urb only cares about kids from ohio and making ohio proud! Franklin will be gone next year if they go 7-5. This year it was him or his OC. Next year, no excuses. Barclay starts for next 2-3 years. PSU will never win the big10 because they can’t beat osu, msu or michigan each year. Pitt is the easiest way to the national championship.
ND may be more prestigious than Pitt academically, but it is just in the middle of nowhere. Can’t fault a kid for going there, but don’t expect to see your family when you want. Just sayin!
My gut says that Pitt is # 4 on his list.
Comment by Erie Express 12.13.15 @ 5:01 pm
Not particularly sure what one has to do with the other. Hamlin is a cornerback.
I’d think this staff will find room for Hamlin in this class regardless. My point was – does Hamlin think the roster is getting crowded.
Hamlin has always been the top choice that I have seen this staff pursue. He has the best chance of starting right away.