In the seconds after his team improved to 5-0 with a road win against a previously undefeated Virginia Tech squad, Pittsburgh coach Pat Narduzzi put college football poll voters on blast, telling ESPN in a post-game interview that voters would learn that the Panthers had a great team if “they wake their asses up.”
Three days later, he took aim at a different target.
Even after No. 24 Pitt broke into the top 25 of the US LBM Coaches Poll and AP Top 25, Narduzzi was asked during his regularly scheduled Monday news conference about rankings. While chiding the methodology that often goes into compiling them, he may have taken aim at an old rival in Penn
State — or, as Narduzzi termed it, “the school down the road.”
“I think it’s all the brands,” he said. “Everybody wants to look at the logo and gets all infatuated with logos and all that stuff. You look at the school down the road — gets in the top 25 and what did they really do to get in the top 25?”
What did ‘the school down the road’ do to get ranked #Pitt head coach Pat Narduzzi says ranking don’t matter but are a sign of respect pic.twitter.com/1lpvMDZ3D0
— 93.7 The Fan (@937theFan) October 5, 2026
Though Narduzzi kept his comments intentionally vague, and declined to specify what program he was referring to, the Nittany Lions are the only FBS school in the region that has spent time in the top 25 this season before falling out.
It’s been a challenging season for Penn State under first-year coach Matt Campbell.
With a relatively soft schedule and a roster featuring many key players from what was an eight-win Iowa State team last season, the Nittany Lions began the season at No. 17 in the Coaches Poll and rose as high as No. 14. Since a 3-0 start, though, they’ve lost back-to-back games, squandering a 10-point lead in the final four minutes in a 24-20 home loss to Wisconsin and getting bulldozed by Northwestern the following week, 34-13, in a road game in which they were outgained on the ground by a 413-48 margin.
Though they haven’t played since a four-game series from 2016-19, Pitt and Penn State are longtime rivals. The two schools, whose campuses are separated by about 130 miles, have played 100 times dating back to 1893. The Nittany Lions lead the all-time series, 53-43-4.
While Penn State has been struggling, the Panthers have been one of the pleasant surprises through the first five full weeks of the season. A team picked to finish ninth in the 17-member ACC in the league’s preseason poll is 5-0 for the second time in three seasons after last Friday’s win at Virginia Tech.
Though Pitt lost star quarterback Mason Heintschel to a torn ACL in the victory against the Hokies, backup Holden Greiner helped his team secure the win and will look to pilot the Panthers the rest of the season against a manageable schedule that includes only one game against a ranked opponent — an Oct. 24 game at No. 4 Miami.
Then again, what are rankings but a bunch of familiar logos, right?
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Did Pat Narduzzi call out Penn State while chiding college poll voting?
