Pittsburgh coach Pat Narduzzi isn’t buying the idea that the Big Ten sits alone at the top of college football.
During ACC Media Days, Narduzzi made his case plainly: he believes the ACC is the stronger league. The comments came as the Big Ten has spent plenty of time basking in the glow of a three-peat of national championship victories, with three different member programs delivering the titles.
Narduzzi, who is heading into his 12th season at Pitt in 2026, is now the third-longest tenured head coach in the ACC. Only Clemson’s Dabo Swinney, at 19 years, and NC State’s Dave Doeren, at 14, have been in place longer.
His run with the Panthers has produced an 80-61 record, and eight of his 11 seasons have ended with a winning mark. The biggest moment of his Pitt tenure remains the 2021 ACC Championship Game win over Wake Forest.
Before becoming a head coach, Narduzzi spent eight years as Mark Dantonio’s defensive coordinator at Michigan State, where the Spartans reached 11 or more wins in 2010, 2011, 2013 and 2014.
Speaking with 680 the Fan in Atlanta, Georgia, Narduzzi said his belief in the ACC has only grown over time.
"After about two years in the league, I said, 'This conference is better,'" Narduzzi said. "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. You look at our record in bowl games in the SEC and the 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."
Even with that confidence, the numbers under his watch at Pitt against current Big Ten members are not on his side. The Panthers are 2-6 in those games.
One of those wins came in a wild 42-39 shootout against Penn State in 2016, a little more than a month before the Nittany Lions shocked Ohio State in Beaver Stadium and rolled to a Big Ten championship. Penn State then beat Pitt in each of the next three seasons, and only one of those games was decided by a single score.
The other Pitt win came in the 2022 Sun Bowl, a 37-35 escape against Chip Kelly’s penultimate UCLA team. UCLA was still in the Pac-12 then, though the Bruins had already announced that summer their plan to join the Big Ten.
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