Pat Narduzzi went to ACC Media Days and came away with a Big Ten take that doesn’t survive a glance at the numbers.
The Pitt coach didn’t just praise his own league. He went further, saying the ACC is better than the Big Ten and backing it up with a broad claim about results.
“This conference is as good as any conference in the country,” Narduzzi said via 680 The Fan in Atlanta. “I don’t care what you make and all that.
I don’t care about how many resources you have and all that baloney. Talk about different conferences and what they make… Coming from Michigan State, spent eight seasons there.
Coming to Pitt in 2015, I said it then, I said it now. After about two years in the league, this conference is better - it’s better than the Big Ten.
It’s got more skill… I’ve said that for years and I’m going to stick to my guns.”
That’s the kind of line a coach can toss out when he’s selling confidence in his program and conference. But once Narduzzi moved from pride to comparison, the argument got flimsy fast - especially for anyone in Nebraska, where the Huskers have plenty of reasons to roll their eyes at conference chest-thumping.
Narduzzi tried to frame his point with records against the Big Ten and SEC. “You look at our record,” Narduzzi said.
“You look at our record in bowl games against the SEC and Big Ten. You look at our record in the regular season.
We don’t have a losing record; we have a winning record against those teams.”
The problem is that “our” doesn’t hold up the way he wants it to. At Pitt, Narduzzi has one win against a Big Ten opponent, a 2016 victory over Penn State.
Since then, he’s dropped six straight. His losses include Iowa in 2015 and Northwestern in 2016, along with three more defeats to Penn State.
And if he meant the ACC as a whole, the numbers still don’t help. Last season, the ACC went 2-4 against the Big Ten and 1-2 in bowl games.
The year before, it was 4-5 against the Big Ten and 1-3 in bowls. Over the 2020s, the ACC is 15-23 against the Big Ten and 3-12 in bowl games.
The last time the ACC finished with a winning record against the Big Ten was 2016, and that season stands out because it’s one of only three since 2000 in which the league finished above .500 against the B1G.
Nebraska, meanwhile, has at least had some recent success against ACC teams, going 2-1 in its last three games against the league, including the Pinstripe Bowl against Boston College.
So yes, Narduzzi made the kind of conference claim that gets attention. But the math behind it is brutal, and the history behind it is even worse.
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