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Pittsburgh coach Pat Narduzzi is known to wear his emotions on his sleeve, but said something Monday that should have been filed privately ahead of Saturday's ranked showdown with Notre Dame. In summary, the 24th-ranked Panthers are already looking forward to ACC matchups with Georgia Tech and Miami to close out the regular season in hopes of reaching the conference championship game.

Despite being one of five ACC teams in the selection committee's initial top 25, Narduzzi balked at the idea of Pitt's matchup with the Fighting Irish as a "must-win" despite it being a barometer game of sorts for the Panthers moving forward.

"Absolutely not. It's not an ACC game, glad you brought that up," he said. "I'd gladly get beat 103 … or 110-10 in that game. They can put 100 up on us as long as we win the next two. Again, our focus is on Notre Dame and getting as many wins as we can."

Imagine how Pitt's leadership within the athletic department or boosters contributing to Narduzzi's annual compensation must feel when he said he would be okay with a blowout if it means beating the Yellow Jackets and Hurricanes thereafter.

Cringe.

This is simply not a stance the leader of a program should take ahead of a rivalry game, especially when Narduzzi is 0-4 against Notre Dame at Pitt. The Fighting Irish outscored the Panthers over the last two meetings, 103-10.

Moreover, the Panthers do not control their own destiny in the ACC title conversation, as much as Narduzzi would lead you to believe. Not only do they need to win their remaining two league contests, but Louisville must beat SMU on Nov. 22 to avoid a multi-team tie scenario at the end of the month since the Mustangs only have one conference loss.

Five ACC teams enter Week 12 with one conference loss — Pitt, SMU, Georgia Tech, Duke and Virginia. 

Per ACC tiebreaker policy, if three or more teams are tied with the highest percentage of wins or two or more teams are tied with the second highest percentage of wins in league play, the following tiebreaker procedure goes into effect:

  • A. For a two-team tie, head-to-head competition between the two tied teams. 
  • B. Win-percentage against all common opponents. 
  • C. Win-percentage against common opponents based upon their order of finish (overall conference win percentage with ties broken) and proceeding through other common opponents based upon their order of finish. 
  • D. Combined win-percentage of conference opponents. 
  • E. The tied team with the highest ranking by the Team Rating Score metric provided by SportSource Analytics following the conclusion of regular-season games. 
  • F. The participant shall be chosen by a draw as administered by the commissioner or commissioner's designee.

It Pitt beats Georgia Tech and Miami, the Panthers finish 7-1 in league play. Duke or Virginia could do the same (unless the Cavaliers fall to Boston College or the Blue Devils trip up at North Carolina or Wake Forest), along with SMU — and there's the three-team tie for first place coming into play.

Moving down to the win-percentage against common opponents metric, Virginia would get the bid over Pitt since the Cavaliers beat Louisville and the Panthers lost to the Cardinals back on Sept. 27.

Pitt's playoff chaos theory

Say Narduzzi and the Panthers upset the Fighting Irish at home. That not only would strengthen the ACC's playoff argument, but eliminates Notre Dame from the at-large mix and provides a new road for multi-loss options like Texas, Oklahoma, USC, Vanderbilt and others.

Do you think Brent Pry at Georgia Tech will tell his team how little the rivalry clash with Georgia matters if the Yellow Jackets punch their ticket to the ACC Championship Game the week before? Of course not. Coaches are supposed to rally their locker room, not nuke it.

What version of the Panthers will show up in Atlanta to play Georgia Tech on Nov. 22 if they tank against Notre Dame and suffer a lopsided loss? That's not a question Narduzzi should want to entertain, despite it sounding like he's welcoming the idea.