PITTSBURGH — We'll know by midnight on Saturday if Pitt is a championship football team. It plays Wake Forest for the ACC title.
It will take a lot longer — perhaps a few years — before we'll know if Pitt is a championship program. There is a significant difference.
Let me put that another way:
Will this 10-2 Pitt season be remembered as the start of bigger and better things for the program, or will it be remembered as a one-and-done deal because of the greatness of Kenny Pickett?
You might guess how Pat Narduzzi feels about that question.
"Things are great in Pittsburgh," he told Jim Rome on CBS Sports Radio a few days before Pitt clinched the ACC Coastal division championship with a home win against Virginia on Nov. 20. "This program is on the rise. It's real. We'll continue to do a great job recruiting players. We'll continue to do a great job developing players. It's not stopping.
"This place is a gold mine."
I want to believe that. I really do. This city would be so much better as a sports city with a championship-caliber program at Pitt — if not in every season, in most seasons.
But I'm struggling here.
Part of that is because this was such a down year for the ACC. Perennial conference power Clemson took a big step back with three losses. Pitt was favored in all eight of its league games. Pitt, at No. 15, was the highest-rated ACC team in the College Football Playoff rankings that were released Tuesday night. Wake Forest was No. 16.
Another part of it is the home loss to 15-point underdog Western Michigan on Sept. 18. That might have been the worst loss of the Narduzzi era, now finishing its seventh season. Western Michigan finished in a three-way tie for last place in the MAC's West division. Pitt also lost at home to 9 1/2 -point underdog Miami.
But the biggest part of my skepticism is the spectacular play of Pickett. He is having one of the greatest seasons not just in Pitt history, but in ACC history. He almost certainly will be a finalist for the Heisman Trophy and absolutely deserves to be invited to New York City for the trophy presentation on Dec. 11. Alabama quarterback Bryce Young is the heavy favorite to win the Heisman.
The best thing that has happened to Narduzzi was Pickett's decision to return to Pitt for a fifth season. Pickett has said he was planning on entering the NFL draft after last season but was talked into coming back to enhance his draft status by friend/mentor Peyton Manning.
Wow, did Pickett enhance it.
There has been widespread speculation Pickett will be a first-round pick in the 2022 draft.
Narduzzi should be forever grateful to Manning.
I'd feel a lot better about Pitt next season if Pickett could come back for a sixth year.
What's going to happen when Pickett is gone?
That's why I'm going to enjoy Pitt's next two games. Pickett has been such a joy to watch this season. I fully expect him to lead Pitt past Wake Forest and into a New Year's Day bowl. And it won't be surprising if it wins that bowl game, no matter the opponent. Pickett is that good. His teammates and coaches know it. They believe in him.
"We ride with Kenny," Narduzzi has said dozens of times.
Pickett is the reason the end of this season has a much different feel than the one did in 2004, the most recent time Pitt won a conference championship. It took advantage of a weak Big East that season to advance to the Fiesta Bowl where it was pounded by Urban Meyer, Alex Smith and Utah, 35-7.
Walt Harris was pushed out as Pitt coach after that season and replaced by Dave Wannstedt. In all the years since, this is just Pitt's second 10-win season.
That 2004 Pitt team might have been a championship club, but it was hardly a building block for a championship program.
We'll see about this Pitt team.
