Clemson football: Pat Narduzzi says ‘Karma’ came back to bite the Tigers

It hasn’t taken Pittsburgh coach Pat Narduzzi to have a couple of pointed soundbites directed towards Dabo Swinney and the Clemson football.

Pittsburgh beat Clemson at home this past Saturday 27-17 in a game that, honestly, wasn’t even that close and the head coach has had a few things to say– at least passive aggressively– towards Clemson to that point.

Following the win on Saturday, Narduzzi said in his opening statement that Pitt should’ve won by more points.

"“Couldn’t be prouder of our football team just going out there and playing like they did,” Narduzzi said. “That’s a good football team that they beat today. Probably should have beat them by another 14, to be honest with you. There were some critical errors.”"

However, he didn’t stop there.

During his press conference on Monday, Narduzzi said that Pitt tries to “do things with class” and that they enjoyed getting to go into victory formation towards the end of the game Saturday. Of course, he was referencing the 2020 matchup against Clemson where the Tigers didn’t kneel the ball at the goal line on their way to a 52-17 victory over the Panthers.

"“We try to do things with class here,” he said. “Victory formation is a good formation. One of my favorites to end a ballgame like that with two minutes to go and no timeouts. Other people decide to do it another way than what we do. It will always come back to get you. Karma’s rough.”"

Clemson football has to swallow a little bit of pride right now, but Dabo Swinney doesn’t forget things like that

It’s not very often that Dabo Swinney takes kindly to a coach calling him classless.

Narduzzi talks a big game, but what he doesn’t realize– or doesn’t want to admit– is that if Swinney was truly classless, he could’ve hung 70 points on Pitt with ease back in 2020.

That last drive where Clemson didn’t kneel the ball against the Panthers, do you remember what happened? Third-string QB Hunter Helms handed the ball off to fifth-string RB Darien Rencher at the Pitt goal line. Perhaps trying to score more points right there wasn’t exactly the ‘sportsmanship’ thing to do, but it was an opportunity given to a veteran who has poured so much into the program.

Either way, you’ve got to believe that Swinney will remember these comments the next time that the Tigers play Pitt and Narduzzi better hope that Clemson still hasn’t figured it out by then. Because if Swinney has, he might not be so willing to take starters out– in the second and third quarter– as a way to show a little bit of ‘pettiness.’

Hats off to Pittsburgh because  they were certainly the better team on Saturday and it’s fun to kick the perennial powerhouse while they’re down, but you better hope they stay down.