Pat Narduzzi got exactly what he asked for, and it lasted exactly one week.
After Pitt escaped Virginia Tech with a 35-33 comeback win on Oct. 2, Narduzzi stood in front of cameras and told AP voters to wake up and rank his 5-0 team. They did. Pitt came into Saturday's game against North Carolina ranked No. 25, one of the last unbeaten teams left in the ACC. Then his offense couldn't finish a drive when it mattered, Pitt lost at home to a North Carolina team that had just lost to Notre Dame, and the ranking Narduzzi lobbied for evaporated in the time it took to go 0-for-3 on fourth down at the end of the game.
Holden Geriner isn't the problem here. The fifth-year backup, making his first career start in relief of Mason Heintschel (who tore his ACL against Virginia Tech and was done for the season before this game even kicked off), had a wide-open receiver drop a fourth-down pass, a short-yardage run get stuffed and reviewed, and two incompletions on the last gasp as the clock ran out. Geriner had a rough final few minutes as a first-time starter. North Carolina still earned the win.
The real referendum is on Pat Narduzzi, who had two separate fourth-down decisions late in that game while Pitt was within field goal range, and instead sent his offense back out to go for it both times. Both failed, and Pitt lost by less than two field goals. This was a head coach who talked himself into believing his team could go win a football game on fourth-and-short against a defense that had just spent the previous two weeks hanging in with Notre Dame and nearly knocking off Clemson. He got proven wrong by his own play calls, in front of the home crowd he'd spent a week whipping into a frenzy about respect.
North Carolina's win doesn't need Pitt's injury to be real. Beating an undefeated, ranked team on the road means something no matter who's missing from the other sideline. Bill Belichick hadn't beaten a ranked opponent before Saturday. His team had just lost to Notre Dame and had already shown it could hang with Clemson's defense, even in a loss. A group that had been getting its teeth kicked in by playoff-caliber competition for two straight weeks went on the road, took a fourth-quarter lead, and held three separate times when Pitt had the ball with a chance to answer. That defense played with real poise when it mattered, no matter who lined up across from it.
Heintschel's injury explains why Pitt was ranked in the first place. Before he went down, he'd been one of the most productive passers in the country through five games, the reason a team that hadn't separated itself any other way was sitting at 5-0 and talking like a contender. Strip him out, and what's left is a program that survived a shaky escape against Virginia Tech and folded the moment adversity showed up without its best player, after spending a week insisting it deserved a ranking it hadn't really earned on the field. Pitt was a team built entirely around one quarterback, coached by a man who couldn't stop bragging about the record that quarterback built. Without him, this is exactly how good Pitt is. Narduzzi wanted the respect. He got the exposure instead, and he brought it on himself.
