Expectations for Pitt D under Narduzzi

The Panther defensive scheme is essentially the same as what Narduzzi was running in Lansing with just a few adjustments to their trips defenses similar to what's going on elsewhere around the country. Unlike at Michigan State, where a lack of developed athletes at corner forced the Spartans to play more off coverage, the Panthers were still playing a lot of press coverage on the boundary.

Narduzzi and his staff also mixed in some "three-deep/three-under" blitzes to go along with his patented "three-deep/2-under" zone blitzes that caused so much destruction in the Big 10 over the last several years. The benefit here is that teams who want to attack the stress points in the more aggressive "three-deep/two-under" coverages have to be much more cautious if the defense is frequently dropping an extra defender into the hot route zones.

The upshot of all this is that this is still the same basic defense that is an absolute nightmare for the run game and drop back passing game but is sometimes vulnerable against play-action and RPOs, particularly from smashmouth spread teams, of which there is one or two on the schedule in 2016.

If you want to throw the ball on the Panthers from a drop back passing set you have to deal with a crew that is supremely well versed in pattern-matching from their cover 4 base and mixing in blitzes that can get home in an awful hurry. The leading DE (Ejuan Price) and both inside linebackers (Matt Galambos and Mike Cabrara) for the Panthers in 2015 were terrors last year with Price totaling 11.5 sacks and each of the two backers chipping in another five apiece.

It's still a 4-3 Over defense with the Panthers looking for traditional linebackers to play the "mike" and "money" positions (middle and weakside linebacker) and utilizing a space-backer to play the "star" position who aligns to the field and is either crashing the edge or roving underneath.

In the secondary Narduzzi is still hoping to play great press-corners, particularly on the boundary, while he seems to be adjusting his approach somewhat to feature smaller and rangier options back at safety.

Ian Boyd is a history major who graduated from the University of Texas and has relocated to Ann Arbor, Michigan. He's now a student of football's history, strategy, and important figures. His musings can be found on SB Nation, at InsideTexas.com, and on Twitter @Ian_A_Boyd.

Turtleneck wrote:

Ian Boyd is a history major who graduated from the University of Texas and has relocated to Ann Arbor, Michigan. He's now a student of football's history, strategy, and important figures. His musings can be found on SB Nation, at InsideTexas.com, and on Twitter @Ian_A_Boyd.

A while back he wrote an article claiming MSU plays gimmick D.

DWags wrote:Think Narduzzi will ever be our head coach?  Or by then will there be bigger fish to fry on his plate?