For a coach with defensive roots like Pat Narduzzi, getting burned by the triple option offense is not something he can just let go with ease. It clearly bothered him that Pitt struggled to contain GT last year and then Navy decimated Pitt in the bowl game.

To that end, he’s had the team practice for it since August.

Pitt wanted to leave nothing to chance this year and gathered data from coaches around the country who have successfully defended the triple-option. Then they set out to get better at it.

“I think for them, and I think even for the coaching staff, there’s a bad taste in our mouths,” said Conklin. “I think we feel like we can defend it better than we have. We thought going into the Navy game we were going to defend it well and did not.”

On run plays, the quarterback can hand-off to his fullback, pitch it to the slotback, or keep it himself — which leaves little time for defenders to react.

A year ago, the Yellow Jackets amassed 482 yards of total offense, including 376 rushing yards, but lost to Pitt, 31-28, on a last-minute 56-yard field goal.

“The run part of it is so different than anything else you faced during the course of the year,” said Conklin. “Our run fits, that we’ve seen against the previous teams, it’s just different. I don’t know if it carries over as much. The assignments are going to be different, there’s different keys and reads and the scheme is a little bit different.”

So Pitt practiced against the option. A lot.

Narduzzi said the time the team spent on the offense during two-a-days in August had clearly paid off when Georgia Tech rolled up on the schedule. A year ago, coaches were more concerned with installing the base defense.

“When could you really tell? On Tuesday,” said Narduzzi. “It wasn’t ‘What are we doing?’ … On Tuesday you really noticed [the option] wasn’t foreign to them. They understood exactly what they were going to do. It was just really polishing things up through the week.”

Not much to say about this other than, we’ll find out just how well tomorrow.

GT HC Paul Johnson has been running this offense for decades. He does know what he’s doing.

A couple other things, to toss in the notes for a light day.

Good piece from Ryan Bertonaschi on Narduzzi’s views towards the ACC staying at 8 games (spoiler alert: he’s happy about it), and proposed early signing period in college football.

The NCAA Division I council announced Wednesday that it is considering a proposal that would add two 72-hour signing periods, and, some hours later, ACC athletic directors voted to continue playing an eight-game league schedule with at least one Power Five nonconference game as opposed to increasing each team’s yearly conference schedule to nine games.

The NCAA proposal also includes an article that would allow each program to carry a 10th assistant coach and a separate one that would limit satellite camps to 10 days.

Pitt coach Pat Narduzzi was asked about the early signing period Thursday after his team wrapped up practice in anticipation of a matchup with Georgia Tech Saturday.

“I think it benefits the schools more,” Narduzzi said. “I don’t think it’s in the best interests of our student athletes. I think it just benefits us to lock them up and worry about the next one. I’m not a proponent of the early signing period. I like the process we have right now.”

“It allows [teams] that have 20 scholarships to lock down 15 of them and then take their 10 assistant coaches and go focus on those five and love them up in a way that just isn’t fair or real,” Narduzzi added. “There are so many kids transferring nowadays. You read the transactions, kids are transferring all over the country. Kids are making bad decisions, and I think that, the faster we make them make decisions, the worse it’s going to get.”

Given that Narduzzi does not like to rush evaluations and push for early commits, it’s small wonder he’s not in favor of it. Definitely a topic for more examination at a later date.

FSU is not really hitting the panic button, but it is interesting to see them start to worry about slipping and that Jimbo Fisher WON’T go to LSU if it is happening. Again, Noles fans can worry the coach is having some issues, but if they think they will get as lucky as they got with nailing the Jimbo Fisher hire after Bowden; well they should just look at the misses suffered by their in-state rival — twice.