After a 2-year break the historic rivalry game between Notre Dame and Pittsburgh is back on this weekend live from South Bend. Back in the 2020 meeting, quarterback Kenny Pickett was injured, Pitt gained 162 total yards, and the 42-point Irish win was the 2nd worst defeat of the Pat Narduzzi era.
A lot has happened since then. Notre Dame has a new coach, Pickett is clinging to life with the Steelers and their 3rd worst scoring offense, while C’Bo Flemister (who scored a late touchdown for Notre Dame in the last meeting against Pitt) now plays for the Panthers.
Pittsburgh (+20.5) at Notre Dame
Notre Dame Stadium
South Bend, Indiana
Date: Saturday, October 28, 2023
Time: 3:30 PM ET
TV: NBC/Peacock
Series: 50-21-1 Notre Dame
It’s been a very up and down tenure for Narduzzi who is in the middle of his 9th season in Pittsburgh and this looks like one of those years where too many struggles are enveloping the program. However, the recent history suggests that when Notre Dame and Pitt meet in South Bend it’ll be a close game.
Pittsburgh’s Offense
It’s not been a real good time for offensive coordinator Frank Cignetti Jr. who came over to Pittsburgh from Boston College ahead of the 2022 season and comes into the weekend with the Panthers ranked 88th in scoring, 114th in rushing yards per game, 92nd in passing yards per game, and 110th in yards per play.
Cignetti helped bring in Boston College (by way of Notre Dame) transfer Phil Jurkovec for a homecoming for a local Pittsburgh native only to see him benched after a 1-4 record with a dismal 50.9% completion percentage in the year of our Lord 2023. Redshirt sophomore quarterback Christian Veilleux (amazing pronounced VAY-air) transferred over from Penn State late last year and has provided a tiny spark with 40 completions and 502 yards with 4 touchdowns and 0 interceptions over the last 2 games.
Pitt has experienced a lot of injury problems with its offensive line this year after hoping this would be the foundation of their whole offense. In late August, left guard Ryan Jacoby (6-4, 310) was ruled out for the season and in their 3rd game the Panthers lost All-ACC left tackle Matt Goncalves (6-6, 330) for the rest of 2023 and in that same game center Jake Kradel (6-3, 305) injured his foot.
After Goncalves’ injury, they’ve flipped redshirt junior Branson Taylor (6-5, 330) from right tackle to left tackle with redshirt freshman Ryan Baer (6-7, 330) sliding into the right tackle role.
Redshirt senior right guard Blake Zubovic (6-4, 330) missed the Louisville game and didn’t start last week (true freshman BJ Williams 6-3, 315 filled in), but came back to the lineup in the 2nd half.
Redshirt sophomore Terrence Moore (6-5, 305) has stepped in at center while Kradel’s foot is better and he took over for redshirt senior Jason Collier (6-6, 330) at left guard in the 2nd half last week.
We get to see C’Bo again.Â
Pitt has shortened the bench in the backfield and are increasingly relying on former Notre Dame backup C’Bo Flemister (5-11, 205) who had a career-high 23 carries last week. Also being featured is junior Rodney Hammond (5-9, 195) who has a solid 1,211 rushing yards in his career.
Veteran junior tight end Gavin Bartholomew (6-5, 250) returns as a starter and has put together a nice career with 919 yards and 7 touchdowns. He’ll be a weapon to contain for the Irish.
5th-year wide receiver Bub Means (6-2, 215) transferred from Louisiana Tech (after a freshman year at Tennessee) and returns as a starter along with Konata Mumpfield (6-1, 185) who came over from Akron in 2022. These 2 have combined for 50 receptions and 6 touchdowns this year. The Panthers will also use Florida transfer and redshirt sophomore Daejon Reynolds (6-2, 210) who has 11 catches in 2023, plus true freshman Kenny Johnson (6-1, 195) is coming off a career-high 4 receptions last week.
Pittsburgh’s Defense
Defensive coordinator Randy Bates came over to Pitt back in 2018 but this always has been and remains a Pat Narduzzi-run scheme. As usual, they will try to stop the run, dare you to throw the ball down field against press coverage, and make them pay with efficient wide receiver playmaking.
Just 5 starters returned for 2023 from what remains a pretty solid defense, but they did lose 4 players to the NFL Draft this past spring.
Along the defensive line, 6th-year senior David Green (6-1, 285) has made 16 career starts from the tackle position. Next to him 5th-year senior Deandre Jules (6-3, 310) starts while backup 6th-year senior Devin Danielson (6-2, 290) has plenty of experience, too.
On the edges, senior Dayon Hayes (6-3, 265) has stepped up into a starting role and leads the line with 5.5 tackles for loss. On the other side, 5th-year senior Nate Temple (6-4, 250) has 2.5 tackles for loss and fellow 5th-year senior Bam Brima (6-5, 270) also sees the field a lot with 3 tackles for loss.
This isn’t a spectacular group and interestingly Pitt didn’t try real hard to jump into the portal for some help in building their defensive line up for 2023.
Simon is now a captain at Pitt.
The Panthers do like their linebackers a lot. Former Notre Dame player and 6th-year senior Shayne Simon (6-3, 235) patrols the Mike position in his 2nd year of starting. At their weak-side spot, senior Bangally Kamara (6-2, 230) missed some time but returned 2 games ago after starting in 2022, as well. Starting at their Star linebacker spot is redshirt junior Solomon DeShields (6-3, 225) who has moved up from a special teams role in the past. These 3 have combined for 14.5 tackles for loss in 2023.
6th-year senior Marquis Williams (5-9, 180) and 5th-year senior MJ Devonshire (5-11, 190) provide a strong returning starting presence at corner–the latter already totaling 8 pass break-ups this year.
Pittsburgh has been breaking in an all-new set of starters at safety, including redshirt sophomore Javon McIntyre (6-1, 195) and junior Phillip O’Brien (6-0, 185), plus Florida transfer and junior Donovan McMillon (6-2, 210).
Prediction
I am not sure how much time we need to spend on Pittsburgh’s offense. We know Flemister will run hard and break some tackles but he’s not a massive playmaker out of the backfield. Their offensive line–while really quite large–might really struggle containing Notre Dame’s aggressive pressures and they haven’t exactly been a cohesive and healthy unit to begin with this season.
This will be, on paper, the 4th really bad offense that the Irish have faced this season. In those 3 other meetings (Navy, NC State, Central Michigan) Notre Dame has allowed 4.17 yards per play and a total of 44 points. In modern times, we’ve seen a lot of low-scoring and struggling Pittsburgh offenses against Notre Dame and this looks like it’ll be another one of those matchups on Saturday.
In 9 separate games between these teams since 1993 (exactly half of the total meetings) Pitt hasn’t broken 20 points and scored a combined grand total of 79 points, or 8.7 points per game.
Whether it’s Vegas, or the advanced stats, most places have Pitt predicted to score barely in the double-digits against Notre Dame, if that.
| STAT | ND | PITT |
|---|---|---|
| FEI | 13 | 62 |
| FEI O | 22 | 101 |
| FEI D | 10 | 36 |
Pittsburgh’s defense is a different story. While far from scary, they have a history of stifling Notre Dame and keeping this rivalry game close.
3 Keys to Victory
#1 Drive Pat Narduzzi Nuts
We’ve had some head coaches in recent memory really act up on Notre Dame’s sidelines. Dave Clawson back in 2017 (or was it 2015?) was just going through buckets of emotions and flipping out constantly to remain the gold standard of coaching frustration against the Irish. Pat Narduzzi is more tame in person–he spent most of the 2018 game looking slightly confused and unsure of the events unfolding in front of him–but he’s really shown his colors by disliking Notre Dame in the press.
Narduzzi thought he had us back in 2018.Â
The Irish have a great opportunity to really twist the knife this weekend. The Nard Dog and his collection of Boomer assistants are on their way to the worst season in his tenure, and maybe the most losses for a Pittsburgh team this century. Notre Dame must pile on the misery.
#2 Let Us See Phil Jurkovec
Narduzzi probably did the right thing benching Phil Jurkovec a couple games ago and sparing the quarterback the pressure of coming back to Notre Dame. But boy, would that have provided us with some quality entertainment.
There were reports that Jurkovec was moving to tight end but ultimately those proved to be false. Pitt actually lists him as the 3rd string quarterback this weekend so I doubt we actually see him on the field. Still, if the Irish defense is swarming and/or Veilleux gets injured we may see NBC showing us 794 shots of Jurkovec standing on the sidelines. Watch him not even travel to the game, though.
#3 Just Score Some Points
I’m not getting my hopes up that this will be a really impressive offensive performance from Notre Dame. During Marcus Freeman’s weekly press conference ahead of the Pitt game he mentioned taking some chances downfield and being good with their play-action shots, which sounds great, but can Notre Dame actually complete these plays? Hopefully the healthy return of Jayden Thomas and Jaden Greathouse helps the passing game get out of its funk but everyone should be skeptical.
Freeman also mentioned ‘physicality’ a bunch of times and having to run the ball into loaded boxes and not just throwing the ball all over the place. I think we’re going to see a lot of frustration running the ball with too many 3rd & long opportunities.
One thing that jumped out to me is that Notre Dame has been bad this year in the field position battle while Pittsburgh is worse, and among the worst in the country. I get the feeling the Irish won’t be afraid to punt and try to sit on Pitt’s offense for 60 minutes. It’s not an exciting recipe for entertainment or for a lot of points scored, but that’s my prediction.
A defensive TD and an offense that’s a bit better after the bye week. Greathouse and Thomas aren’t used much and basically get another week to get healthy. We run the ball better than expected and Mitchell and Staes shine. ND 31-10.
Sam Hartman’s mustache is better than Dave Wannstedt’s.
Irish 27-6.
Sam shaved it off, what does it mean!??
He’ll grow it back tonight.
This is definitely a game where you think ND should win 42 to 3. However its Pitt. This will be frustratingly close through 3 quarters and ND finally sees some life in the 4th.
24-10
maybe the fact that we all feel a little trepidatious about this game means we’re about to see some fireworks tomorrow lol
Part of me does think this is going to be like BC last year (without the blizzard, hopefully)
counterpoint running that T formation trap play in a blizzard to make it 44-0 i think would make the nard dog explode
I enjoy that you said this as a joke but ND was winning 44-0 at the end of the 3rd lmao
I came into this week thinking ND was going to detonate Pitt from orbit but the longer it has taken to get to kickoff I’ve gotten that weird Pitt sinking feeling
I don’t think Pitt is at all nearly good enough to win or threaten the Irish but I also think it’s gonna be a snoozefest (that i totally won’t be watching while i broadcast a baseball game boss)
ND 23
Pitt 9
This is one of those games where if you showed someone Pitt’s stats and players but hid the team name, they would pick ND to cover easily. But we are so scarred from prior Pitt experiences that it seems everyone is gun shy about predicting a blowout win. And I get it, the last time we beat Pitt in South Bend by more than one score was 2001. There’s been six straight barnburners against this try-hard team since then and two of ND’s best teams this century had their closest calls of the regular season against crap Pitt teams.
But not me! This won’t be close.
ND 33
Pitt 6
Remember when Narduzzi subbed in another punter in 2018 and thought we wouldn’t notice he was calling a fake punt and it spectacularly failed? No reason I’m bringing that up, I just thought it was funny.
That was one of the strangest things I’ve ever seen because it wasn’t just another punter, it was Jeff George Jr. the backup QB. Narduzzi had him change jersey numbers to try and confuse us (pretty sure that’s illegal) and all he did was throw the ball out of bounds. A complete and utter waste that fooled absolutely nobody.
Even weirder is that it was 4th and 4 near midfield with less than four minutes left. If you’re going to go for it, just put your offense on the field! Rewatching the play I’m not even sure if everyone on the field for Pitt knew it was a fake punt, nobody ran a coherent route and one guy somersaulted and fell down. A true comedy of errors.
Also our defense was on the field!
And remember how he was so angry during the 2020 game he was steaming up his plastic face shield?
Lots of good names on that Pitt team #analysis
Hi from Paris, everyone,
Sitting here getting more nervous, ’cause Pitt (usually) plays us so damn tough.
Kinda traumatized by the offense, and hoping sort of desperately that the bye week helped Sam improve whatever he might have got in the Central Michigan game, that his illustrious receivers hamstrings are less tender, that whatever has been ailing Dric and Blake has got better.
Anyway, good preview, good comments.
And Hackney Diamonds is keeping me peppy at least — a really fun album!
Go Irish!