I learned two, often painful lessons about sports gambling over the years:
One, never think you are smarter than the wise guys and have a sure bet.
And two, overestimate Pitt football at your own peril.
I am struggling with both tried-and-true concepts today.
Vegas has the over/under total of Pitt wins this season at 6½. That strikes me as an absurdly low number. Pitt’s schedule is relatively easy and doesn’t include Notre Dame. Pitt also has perhaps the most experienced quarterback in college football: Kenny Pickett, a redshirt senior, has made 36 starts.
Do you see my dilemma?
I can’t believe I am going to write this next sentence:
I don’t think 10 wins are out of the question for Pitt.
I really am sober, hard as that might be to believe.
Pitt’s schedule really is easy. North Carolina State and Boston College also aren’t on it. Both beat Pitt in close games last season. Notre Dame beat Pitt, 45-3, a year ago.
Pitt’s nonconference games are against Massachusetts, Western Michigan and New Hampshire at home and at Tennessee. A 4-0 start seems likely. That game against Tennessee on what figures to be a hot, steamy Sept. 11 in Knoxville might seem tougher than it should be. But this isn’t the Tennessee of Peyton Manning and Reggie White and, for that matter, Johnny Majors. It went 3-7, 8-5, 5-7 and 4-8 the past four seasons. It is rebuilding with a new coach, Josh Heupel, previously of Central Florida.
Next up for Pitt are games at Georgia Tech and Virginia Tech. Pitt beat Georgia Tech by two touchdowns last season and Virginia Tech by 33 points.
You should be at least mildly disappointed if Pitt doesn’t take a 6-0 record into its home game against Clemson on Oct. 23.
You’ll gladly take 6-1, right?
Home games against Miami, North Carolina and Virginia and road games at Duke and Syracuse complete Pitt’s schedule. Duke and Syracuse were picked to finish last in their ACC division in the league’s preseason poll. I’m counting those games as two wins. Just one home win against Miami, North Carolina and Virginia — probably Virginia — would make 9. A win in a bowl game is 10.
Should be easy, right?
Especially with Pickett, an accomplished, proven veteran at the sport’s most important position?
But we’re talking Pitt.
Nothing is ever easy.
A refresher course, in case you don’t remember Pitt’s bleak history since Ronald Reagan was president of the United States:
— It has had just one 10-win season — 2009, when it was 10-3 — in the past 40 years.
— It has lost at least three games in every season since 1981.
— It has finished a season ranked in the final Associated Press poll just three times in this century — No. 15 in 2009, No. 25 in 2004 and No. 19 in 2002.
— Going back even further, back two decades, Pitt was ranked at the end of a season just three times, its best finish No. 10 in 1982.
— It has been remarkably consistent under Pat Narduzzi, going 8-5, 8-5, 5-7, 7-7 and 8-5 since 2015.
That’s not just consistency.
That’s a lot of mediocrity.
Ordinarily, I would think Narduzzi would be in trouble if Pitt doesn’t go over those 6½ wins this season.
Well over the number, actually.
But there is something else I’ve learned: Narduzzi, who is signed through the 2024 season, has what seems to be close to a lifetime contract. The last thing Pitt wants to do is fire him and start over with another coach. The sting from changing coaches the way most men change socks still hurts the school. Pitt went from Dave Wannstedt to interim Phil Bennett to Michael (We Hardly Knew You) Haywood to Todd Graham to interim Keith Patterson to Paul Chryst to interim Joe Rudolph to Narduzzi in roughly a four-year period.
Let me put it another way:
I wouldn’t bet against Narduzzi being back for an eighth year even if Pitt fails short of a those 6½ wins.
