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Coach: Pat Narduzzi
Age: 49
Record at Current Job: 5-1 in 1 season at Pittsburgh
Overall Record: 5-1 in 1 season
Why he would be a good fit for USC: Simply put, he can coach defense, something the Trojans lack under "vanilla" Justin Wilcox. Prior to moving to Pitt to be their head coach, Narduzzi worked as the defensive coordinator for Mark Dantonio at both Cincinnati and Michigan State. The two had tremendous success over their 11 season (2004-2014), including a Rose Bowl victory over Stanford in January 2014. Under Narduzzi the Spartan defense was arguably the best defense in the country (though that would be quite the argument if Alabama fans got a hold of this) being the only defense to be Top 10 nationally in both rushing and overall defense from 2011-2014.
Narduzzi took over the Pitt Panthers in 2015 as his first head coaching job. They are currently 5-1 and ranked 25th in the AP Poll. The Panthers are 3-0 in ACC play and look to be division favorites in the Coastal as both Florida State and Clemson are in the Atlantic. If it weren't for a 57 yard buzzer beater against Iowa, Narduzzi could potentially be undefeated halfway through his first season.
Why he would be a bad fit for USC: The biggest knock on Narduzzi is his experience. He has plenty of high quality work under his belt, but only one season as the fall guy. He has exceeded every expectation that Pitt could have had going into 2015, but that is still a very limited sample size. Schools of USC's ilk rarely hire coordinators or fresh -faced coaches. They are the big boys on the block and they look for coaches with excellent resumes (at least in theory).
Additionally, Narduzzi's hard-nosed approach may not work in Hollywood. Modernly, USC has seen its best success under Pete Carroll, and that was in part due to his ability to work the fan base. We have already seen nationally what having a good coach in a strange situation (Charlie Strong at Texas and Rich Rodriguez at Michigan are a couple examples) can do to a program. Simply put: it doesn't work. If the fan base wants to turn on a coach from the get go, there is little the coach can do to right the ship. That being said, there is little to dislike about Narduzzi outside of his experience.
Agree? Disagree? Let us know in the comments below.