Pat Narduzzi shoulders bulk of blame after Pitt's 1st loss of the season to SMU

If you paid attention to Pat Narduzzi’s news conference after Pitt’s miserable performance Saturday night against SMU, you should have spotted a trend.

Narduzzi willingly exposed himself to his critics while discussing SMU’s 48-25 victory, taking blame for everything that led to Pitt’s first loss of the season. In a seven-minute question-and-answer session with reporters at Gerald J. Ford Stadium in Dallas, he blamed himself on 10 different occasions. He even apologized to the fans.

“It starts with me and it ends with me,” he said. “I take full responsibility for the loss. I, obviously, didn’t have our football team ready to go. We didn’t do good enough job coaching, period.”

Yes, he mentioned poor tackling, an inability to protect quarterback Eli Holstein or stop SMU running back Brashard Smith and the dropped passes, all of which he had nothing to do with, at least physically.

But his intent was to deflect criticism from his players, who appeared slower than the Mustangs on many occasions on both sides of the line of scrimmage and didn’t come close to establishing a rhythm on offense until long after SMU had built its 31-3 halftime lead.

There are four weeks left in the regular season, and Pitt can climb out of fourth place in the conference by defeating Virginia (8 p.m. next Saturday) and Clemson (Nov. 16) at Acrisure Stadium.

“The message is it’s one game,” he said when asked what he said to his players after the game in the locker room. “It’s hard to win every week. It’s hard to be on every week. It’s harder on the road.”

But the reality is Pitt was never competitive in a game that was considered the Panthers’ most significant in the regular season since the 2021 run to the ACC championship.

“It was not the football game we all expected,” the coach said.

The loss was Pitt’s worst since Oct. 28, 2023, when the Panthers lost at Notre Dame, 56-7. Of course, there’s a big difference. That team ventured into South Bend, Ind., with a 2-5 record. Before the disaster in Dallas on Saturday, Pitt was 7-0, ranked No. 18 in the nation and pondering thoughts — even if they were largely unspoken — about a possible ACC championship and a berth in the 12-team College Football Playoff.

Those things are still mathematically possible, but the margin for error has disappeared. No. 20 SMU (8-1, 5-0) is tied with Miami (9-0, 5-0) for first place in the ACC. Clemson (6-2, 5-1) is two victories in front of Pitt (7-1, 3-1).

What’s unclear is whether Pitt can handle adversity any better than it mishandled success.

“Maybe as a team and as a staff, we didn’t handle success,” Narduzzi said. “The hardest thing is to handle success.”

Yet he claimed, “Our guys will bounce back.”

“If you see that locker room, they are not discouraged. I told them I loved them. I loved them as much or more than I did in game 1 and game 7. We’ll be fine. We’ll bounce back and be ready to roll.”

First on Narduzzi’s to-do list is finding a way to protect Holstein, who was sacked three times among SMU’s nine tackles for a loss. Terrence Enos made his third career start in place of offensive left tackle Branson Taylor, who is lost for the season with an injury.

The Mustangs recorded 10 pass breakups, three quarterback hurries and two forced fumbles while holding running back Desmond Reid to 49 yards on 13 carries.

After throwing three touchdown passes in each of the first five games, Holstein threw none Saturday, the second time that’s happened in the past three. Overall, he completed 29 of 48 passes for 248 yards and an interception that looked like a touchdown until it bounced off Reid’s hands.

“We have to protect him better. And, then, we have to catch the ball,” Narduzzi said, not speaking specifically about Reid.

An even greater disappointment were the missed tackles that started with SMU’s first possession.

On the second snap of the game. SMU quarterback Kevin Jennings flipped a 5-yard pass to wide receiver Key’Shawn Smith on the sideline. Pitt cornerback Rashad Battle covered Smith and thought he threw him to the turf, but Smith kept his balance and raced to the Pitt 32 for a 43-yard gain.

“We think he’s down. Finish the tackle,” Narduzzi said. “They know how to do it. We haven’t tackled that bad (previously).”

Five plays later, SMU grabbed a 7-0 lead on a 2-yard touchdown run by L.J. Johnson with only 2 minutes, 41 seconds ticked off the clock.

On SMU’s next possession, Pitt appeared to have the Mustangs stopped near midfield on third down, but tight end Matthew Hibner broke a tackle try by cornerback Tamon Lynum and turned the play into a 22-yard gain to the Pitt 30-yard line. Instead of an SMU punt, the Mustangs retained the football and took a 14-3 lead 45 seconds into the second quarter on a 3-yard reverse run by Roderick Daniels, who hurdled into the end zone over safety Donovan McMillon. That score followed a 23-yard completion from Jennings to Kelvontay Dixon on third-and-18.

Jennings ended up throwing for 306 yards and Brashard Smith gashed Pitt for 161 yards on the ground.

“We didn’t tackle well. It’s frustrating,” Narduzzi said. “That was the most disappointing thing. Going underneath blocks (were) things we’ve been pretty good at doing. We didn’t do that (Saturday).”

The other issue was the 80-yard touchdown run-and-catch by Hibner in the fourth quarter.

“We practiced it all week and we did not execute,” Narduzzi said. “Obviously, we have to do a better job as coaches.”

SMU amassed 467 yards of total offense against a Pitt defense that likes to call itself sharks. But there were multiple times during the game when Mustangs players mocked the Panthers by flashing a “shark” hand signal.

Bottom line: Pitt took enough physical and mental abuse from the newest member of the ACC to give everyone plenty to think about while preparing for the rest of the season.