Pat Narduzzi isn’t backing off his opinion on conference supremacy.
During ACC Media Days, the Pittsburgh coach made it clear he believes the ACC is stronger than the Big Ten, even with the Big Ten’s recent run of three straight national championships coming from three different programs. Narduzzi said the league he coaches in has more skill and pointed to results against Big Ten and SEC opponents as part of his case.
“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."
Narduzzi is heading into his 12th season at Pittsburgh in 2026, making him the third-longest tenured head coach in the ACC. Only Clemson’s Dabo Swinney, in his 19th year, and NC State’s Dave Doeren, in his 14th, have been in place longer.
His run with the Panthers has produced an 80-61 record, with eight winning seasons in his first 11 years. His biggest accomplishment at Pitt remains the 2021 ACC Championship Game win over Wake Forest.
Before taking over as a head coach, Narduzzi spent eight seasons as Mark Dantonio’s defensive coordinator at Michigan State, where the Spartans reached 11 or more wins in 2010, 2011, 2013 and 2014.
Still, the numbers against current Big Ten programs don’t exactly strengthen his argument. Pittsburgh is 2-6 against those teams under Narduzzi.
One of those wins came in a wild 42-39 victory over Penn State in 2016, a little more than a month before the Nittany Lions beat Ohio State in Beaver Stadium and rolled to a Big Ten Championship. Penn State then beat Pittsburgh in each of the next three seasons, with only one of those games decided by a single score.
The other Pitt win was a 37-35 escape against Chip Kelly’s final UCLA team in the 2022 Sun Bowl. UCLA was still in the Pac-12 at the time, though the Bruins announced that summer they would be joining the Big Ten.
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For UCLA, the value goes beyond one summer tournament run. Jovanovics profile helps the Bruins stay in the conversation with international prospects, especially in Serbia, where the program has already been linked with players such as Nikola Kusturica, Filip Jovic and Sergej Macura. A coach who can build trust abroad while working inside the college game is a real asset, and UCLA appears to be leaning into that advantage more than ever. [Read more 🡒]