Best / Worst Case Record for :
Louisville | Virginia | Miami | Duke | Georgia Tech | SMU | Boston College | Florida State | Virginia Tech | Cal | NC State | Clemson | Syracuse | North Carolina | Stanford| Wake Forest
Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh is arguably the most difficult team to predict in the ACC year after year. They can be great one game, awful the next. They can be great for 2 months, then awful. What defines Pitt football is their wild inconsistency. For a two-year period in 2021 and 2022 it looked like Pitt had turned the corner, winning 20 games and an ACC title, but of course that was followed by a 3-9 2023. Pat Narduzzi is a good coach in my opinion, but how can he build the winning consistency Pitt fans are so desperate for? Being good at QB is a start, and in Mason Heintschel they have one with a ton of potential.
Will Go 10-2 (7-2) if:
QB Mason Heintschel takes another step in his sophomore year. Last year Heintschel was really good, but prone to forcing passes when things broke down. He’s a confident QB, though, that you can build a team around. If he plays well in Pitt’s first 4 winnable games against Miami (Ohio), UCF, Syracuse and Bucknell, he could right that the rest of the way. Pitt plays at Miami and at Louisville, but the rest of the schedule is quite manageable. There’s a real chance for Pitt to be 6-1, or 7-0 before playing at Miami. If an offense that was in the 60s last year has more balance, where the running game was 114th last year, then I could see Pitt having a big season.
Will Go 7-5 (4-5) if:
Pitt has a kind of typical Pitt season. 9 of 11 seasons in Narduzzi’s tenure have finished with 5 or more losses. Games at Miami and Louisville could definitely be losses, but while the schedule isn’t brutal, there are games with single-digit point spreads. Games at Virginia Tech, and a finish with Georgia Tech, Florida State, Miami, and Cal won’t be easy. UCF is out of conference. The defense was decent last year, but could give up big plays, and if Heintschel has that proverbial sophomore slump, the season could be nothing special.
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