We may be getting our first taste of beef during the Coach Prime, as the Colorado Buffaloes head coach shot back at Pittsburgh Panthers head coach Pat Narduzzi — who publicly critiqued Coach Prime during ACC spring meetings in March.
“I grew up in a profession that you can’t tell a guy that he has to leave based on athletic ability,” Narduzzi said. “I think he’ll be shocked that he probably had some pretty good football players in that room. When I got to Pitt back in 2015, I didn’t kick anybody off. Zero. Those are your guys. When you become a head coach you inherit that team and you coach that team. If someone wants to leave, that’s great. You don’t kick them out. I disagree with that whole process. That’s not why I got in the game.”
During a Q&A session with 247Sports on Thursday, Coach Prime responded to Coach Narduzzi’s comments.
“What was his situation when he came to Pitt,” Coach Prime asked rhetorically. “He had a different situation than me. He is not mad at me, he is mad at the situation in football now that allowed his best player to leave a year ago. He’s not mad at me, he’s using me to shoot bullets at another coach who he has an issue with. I don’t know who he is; if he walked in here right now I wouldn’t know him.”
Coach Prime makes some solid points when he discusses the difference in the coaching situations.
For starters, the rules literally wouldn’t have allowed Narduzzi to attempt the dramatic overhaul that Prime initiated. Also, a dramatic overhaul wasn’t necessary in Pittsburgh. In 2022, the Colorado Buffaloes were arguably the worst FBS football team, went 1-11, and were six seasons removed from the last time they had won more than five games. Meanwhile, the Panthers won six games the season before Narduzzi took over, and were on a 17-year streak of winning at least five games.
Prime’s reference to the Jordan Addison situation also seems to have some merit. Addison was Pitt’s star wide receiver and even won the Fred Biletnikoff Award (given to the nation’s best wide receiver) in 2021. After the season, he promptly decided to enter the transfer portal and chose USC as his landing spot. Last offseason, USC became one of the first universities to take advantage of the transfer portal rules that Coach Prime is currently using to rebuild CU’s football program.
If Narduzzi was still upset about losing Addison — who could blame him after Addison was selected in the first round of this year’s draft — it’s not hard to imagine why Prime’s rebuild strategy could trigger him.
Hopefully, CU can schedule a matchup with Pitt, and we’ll get to see the two respected coaches battle it out on the gridiron.
