Pat Narduzzi appears to be ready to squash whatever beef he has with Mario Cristobal. I guess getting whipped in a game of tackle football will do that. But the Pitt Panthers coach had to speak about the post-game handshake between him and Cristobal because it had people talking.
For the most part, it was pretty cordial, especially considering all the noise and accusations that have come from Narduzzi over the past few months, but the Miami Hurricanes coach might've been a little stern with one of those shoulder taps before the two sides walked away.
#Pitt HC Pat Narduzzi on his postgame handshake with Miami HC Mario Cristobal, which made its rounds on this app:
— Brendan Howe (@bybrendanhowe) October 26, 2026
“I had a great handshake with him, and I told him to go win it all. He said, ‘Thanks Pat.’ And that was about it … Maybe he was mad. Whatever. I don’t know.” #H2P pic.twitter.com/xsNLm56v1T
But Narduzzi said it was just two competitive men showing some sportsmanship after an emotional build-up during the week.
"Nobody really wants to talk after the game. You want to go celebrate a win or get with your guys. So, there was, you know, again, I don't go on social media, so I couldn't tell you what's out there, but you guys can make what you want of it," he said.
Pat Narduzzi may decide to keep it quiet next time
I understand Narduzzi's frustration with today's college football landscape. It isn't built for coaches like him. He wants to recruit players that he believes will be good fits for 3–4 years, and when he runs into a gem like quarterback Mason Heintschel, he wants to plan on keeping that guy for the full duration of his college career.
But life doesn't work like that anymore. Heintschel is a very good player at a premium position and, in today's college football landscape, that means that he's going to have plenty of interested suitors who want to offer him the world. That rankles Narduzzi because, instead of using Pitt's meager NIL resources to build a team around their star quarterback, the Panthers had to give more resources to Heintschel to keep him on the roster.
It's no longer "finders keepers" in college football; it's more like "finders pay or get poached," and Narduzzi decided to place that blame at the feet of Cristobal. And it goes without saying that there was never any indication that Miami was going after Heintschel, and if the Hurricanes were interested in the Pitt quarterback, they probably would've signed him.
Narduzzi doesn't like the system as it stands, and he has every right to air grievances to anyone who will listen. Cristobal doesn't really like the system either. It puts a lot of pressure on him to win and win big because that's the only way to get a fair share of revenue in the ACC while it's a poverty conference. It's not Cristobal's fault that the discrepancy between the ACC and the "haves" in college football is so far apart.
But this blame game that Narduzzi tried to play didn't make him or anyone else look good. He came across like a big baby, and maybe it was appropriate that he got spanked Saturday afternoon at Hard Rock Stadium. Next time he'll watch his words more carefully, and maybe that shoulder tap won't feel like a gut punch.
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