Pat Narduzzi has been hit with a show-cause penalty for failing to promote an atmosphere of compliance, the NCAA announced Thursday.
Narduzzi was forced to remain home for one week of the off-campus recruiting period from last Dec. 1 through Feb. 1. He will also have to miss two days of practice in August.
Those penalties are in addition to a trio of punishments already served: an 8-hour reduction of athletically-related activities, a reduction of one countable coach for four practice days in the 2019-20 academic year, and two quality control coaches were forced to miss three days of practice during 2019-20.
According to the NCAA, Pitt knowingly and willfully exceeded the limit of countable coaches by having quality control assistants conduct on-field instruction of football players. And the NCAA found the football program developed quite the system for covering up the activity:
According to the agreement, the head football coach instructed or was present at the practice facility when three former quality control staff members performed coaching duties, resulting in the program exceeding the allowable number of permissible coaches. The university conducted adequate spot checks of the program, but the agreement said the violations were undetected in part due to the program’s practice of playing music to indicate when outside parties were present at the practice facility. Football quality control staff members reported that they would make sure they were not near student-athletes when hearing the music.
The university, football coach and enforcement staff agreed the football coach did not promote an atmosphere for compliance when he asked one individual to assist and was present when three others performed coaching activities. Additionally, the agreement said the football coach did not monitor his staff when he did not prevent the violations from occurring.
Additionally, the Pitt athletics department has been hit with three years' probation, a $5,000 fine plus 0.5 percent of the football and men's basketball programs for violations committed under Kevin Stallings' leadership of the Pitt basketball team.
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