Pat Narduzzi wasn’t ready to name Pitt’s starting quarterback for Week 1 against Kent State last week, and he wasn’t ready to do so after the final scrimmage on Sunday.
If Pitt has a starting quarterback, Narduzzi is keeping it to himself.
But Narduzzi said he has a good feeling about Nate Yarnell and Eli Holstein as their competition continues in the final week of fall camp, with the season opener just 10 days away.
“We don’t have one quarterback — we have two quarterbacks, which is good,” Narduzzi said before practice Tuesday. “I’m glad we have more than one. We have two quarterbacks that are really good. Those are tough decisions and we’re going to make them day by day. When you start game planning or just game planning, I feel like we have two really good quarterbacks right now that we can win with.”
Narduzzi has said he has stayed out of decisions about the quarterback position over the past few seasons, but it appears he has a greater personal interest in the battle this year.
“They’re out there taking a lot of reps with the 1s and the 2s, we’re mixing it up … Nate is our starter right now and there’s a battle going on,” Narduzzi said last week.
Yarnell, who started the final two games of the 2023 season (and performed well), began the summer as a starter. Or at least he was named a starter before spring ball and then again after the spring game.
Holstein, who arrived from Alabama as a high-profile transfer in December, started the spring slowly after suffering an injury early on. But he finished the spring strong and hasn’t looked back since. He’s a legitimate option to start in Week 1 against Kent State.
Yarnell may have entered the summer with the “upper hand” after participating in the ACC Kickoff in Charlotte, North Carolina last month and serving as QB1 throughout the spring and summer, but Narduzzi approached this summer with a new perspective.
“You can say what’s the percentage, I think anytime there’s a period of time where something ends, you finish spring ball – hey, that’s the guy,” Narduzzi said. “But then you go into another phase, and you come out of fall camp and do the same thing. And that goes for any position. At the end of spring ball, you might be a starter, but that doesn’t mean you’re a starter. And that goes for any position, I’m not talking about quarterback.
“But there’s a battle going on and I think they both push, work hard, work their asses off, come in late, spend more time just to be the best. Sometimes it can pay off, sometimes it can backfire. But we see them compete every day, I love the competition, you just have to love what you see out there when you have two really good quarterbacks competing against each other.”
Narduzzi has no timetable for naming a starter. Sunday’s practice game — the second and final one this summer — was a key gauge of a handful of key position battles across the roster. If Narduzzi is swayed one way or the other based on performances, he’s keeping his thoughts to himself for now.
“They were both outstanding,” Narduzzi said before practice on Wednesday. “I don’t think you’re going to be disappointed with what you see out there. I think you’re going to be happy with what you see. I don’t think our defense is easy to beat with everything we do every day, and Bates does more in practice than he would in a game. … We’re looking for that consistency. One day one is really, really good and the other is good, and the next day the other is really, really good and the other is good. We want them to be great all the time.”
Narduzzi said Pitt will learn more about how Yarnell and Holstein respond and adapt as the week progresses, and that could be a factor.
The season opener against Kent State is Aug. 31 at Acrisure Stadium, so either way, the starter will be announced within the next two weeks. It’s likely that Narduzzi could name the starter a week before kickoff, as he did when Kedon Slovis and Nick Patti were competing for the starting spot.
It’s also possible that Narduzzi will insert a “Nate Yarnell OR Eli Holstein” into Pitt’s starting lineup on Monday.
