…hello, Shawn Watson.
Shawn Watson, a 35-year coaching veteran who owns an extensive and accomplished record overseeing offenses on the collegiate level, has been named offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at Pitt by Pat Narduzzi.
Watson previously served as offensive coordinator at Texas (2014-15), Louisville (2012-13), Nebraska (2007-10) and Colorado (2000-05). He also has head coaching experience on his résumé, serving in that capacity at his alma mater, Southern Illinois, from 1994-96.
Watson joins the Panthers from Indiana, where he spent the 2016 season as an offensive quality control assistant before being named the Hoosiers’ quarterback coach. His Pitt appointment serves as a reunion with Narduzzi. The pair previously worked together on the late Randy Walker’s staff at Miami (Ohio) from 1990-92.
“Shawn Watson was one of my first mentors in this business,” Narduzzi said. “He sat me down as a young coach and taught me how to work with wide receivers in my first full-time job at Miami in the early 1990s. Ever since that time, we have always talked about being able to reunite on the same staff again. I’m really thrilled that the time has finally arrived and he’ll be joining us at Pitt as our new offensive coordinator.
“Shawn is, first and foremost, a wonderful person and father,” Narduzzi added. “As a football coach, he is extremely knowledgeable, an excellent recruiter and will be a tremendous strength in the quarterback room and offensive staff room. I’m really looking forward to having Shawn and his wife Anita join us in Pittsburgh.”
I think most Pitt fans will concede that their first reaction to the name, was hardly, “Oh, hell yes!”
But it shouldn’t have been, “Oh, shit!” Either.
The latter would have been reasonable only if the name had been Scott Loeffler.
As expected, Head Coach Pat Narduzzi went with both an experienced OC and a guy that can coach QBs. That has been consistent.
Watson brings a solid if mixed resume to Pitt.
The obvious highlight is his time at Louisville with Teddy Bridgewater. Watson is a solid hand at handling and developing quarterbacks. He likes running the ball and is a proponent of (geez, it really is a sign I’m old; why I remember when this was the new-fangled thing…) a more traditional West Coast style offense using the short pass and running backs in the receiving game.
The obvious lowlight was the time in Texas. DO NOT ask Shawn Watson to implement a spread offense.
He isn’t a young, hot name in the offensive ranks, but Narduzzi was never going that direction.
Obviously Texas fans dislike him. Louisville fans have mixed feelings, as did Nebraska fans.
If you are basing your reactions on how the fans of former teams are reacting, you might be slightly panicked. It is also fair to point out that Illinois fans scoffed at Tim Salem being hired — after he was scapegoated as a bad recruiter. And NC State fans hardly shed a tear when Matt Canada was fired.
The toughest thing for Watson will be the inevitable comparisons to this past season’s offense. It’s not completely fair when you look at the returning experience at every position but WR that Canada inherited, but…
At the same time he is harldy walking into an empty shell. A (likely) graduate transfer, former 5-star recruit at QB. More experience, size and depth at WR. Talent (albeit, kind of raw) but lots of depth at RB. A still rather stout O-line. If not ready made for success, there is a feeling that this is more sous vide cooking rather than requiring precise baking.
We got to ONE freaking Elite 8 game.
in the 13 years Dixon was HC
and in that ONE Elite 8 game…. Dixon coached into a loss with 2 NBA players on the team.
For the $200 Million investment Pitt made in the Bball program.
ePIC fAIL
Epic …cut and run.
We average 48K per game attendance at an off campus football stadium in a Pro Football/Pro Baseball/Pro hockey town and this is after having 5 head coaches in 6 years…one of the top average attendance figures in the land.
Even after 4 or 5 pretty mediocre mens basketball seasons 10,000 of us still pay upwards of a $1000 per seat to watch more crappy basketball…
And we still post incessantly on blogs because we care.
It is all the fans fault.
Sheesh.
H2P
Drat
Maybe Stallings can recruit. Raw but athletic.
Why not one for a player’s speed dribbling up and down the court?
Just what we needed, another instructor.
Which brings me to the point I am trying to make:
Bo Schlembechler, of Michigan fame, predicted the current state of collegiate athletics many years ago when he lobbied AGAINST a national football playoff. He strongly believed that conference championships should be the goal. He worried that football would go down the same path basketball was heading with emphasis on ONE national champion versus multiple geographically regional basked conference championships. He feared this would lead to the ultimate disintegration of conference affliations themselves and collegiate athletics would become a moneygrabbing free for all which would favor a select few premier universities. Thus, in turn, would focus on the select group of outstanding athletes at the expense of the larger pool of recruits who were, indeed, at universities playing sports to pay for an education, not viewing the college experience as a prep course for the pros.
How prescient Bo was.
I understand we all have evolved to the point where March Madness is a part of our spring ritual now and, the only people who care about the Sun Bowl are loser alumni from a university somewhere who think heart transplants and a cure for cancer trump beating a reprobate like Rick Pitino in a game that ESPN markets as the next Ali-Fraiser.
But, at the end of the day what this has lead to is the woman’s tennis team in Morgantown, West Virginia getting on a plane to Lubbock, Texas to compete in their sport of choice instead of taking a bus to Oakland.
Jamie could promise you that you would compete year in and year out for the Big East championship. But in today’s times, that wasn’t good enough. And so he’s gone.
A sign of the times for sure. Most probably think it is the price you pay for progress. Old timers like me think the halcyon days of Bo vs Woody and Johnny finally giving Joe what he deserved was as good as it gets.
Whatever little amateurism, integrity and tradition that existed back then, has been totally tossed out the door in college sports 2 big money making sports.
I find myself watching very little of it anymore, even at a time when it seemingly on non-stop.
They are killing the Golden Goose. At least for me.
Part of the much larger and tragic story of America’s inner cities and how the Gov’t created them, and nurtured them into the crime ridden gang infested hellholes they have been for a couple decades or more.
I hope the young man is able to straighten out his life.
It is indeed very sad….
Wow struck a nerve when I blamed the fans for Pitt’s failure. I see Emel’s working on his post count again and doing very well.
Not arguing on any of the posts about how the higher ups at Pitt screw things up…mostly because they don’t want to pay the big bucks to keep coaches or hire top assistants.
But why would they pay big bucks when the fans don’t pay.
I don’t donate a lot to Pitt Athletics but do enough to keep 8 club seats for football and seats for hoops. They give you a ranking each year and I am surprised how high I rank….meaning there aren’t many donating…I am sure they have a few really big donors but not enough to compare with all the programs everyone on this board wants Pitt to be. (We needed Mark Cuban to finish at Pitt and he could of donated his millions).
I know it’s a chicken egg thing..those on this board will say put a winner on the field and I’ll pay…but maybe needs to be fans need to show real interest and start paying and then Pitt will do the same for athletics.
And those that support them and their ineptitude.