James Franklin and Pat Narduzzi were rivals for years. Now, they'll face off again
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Four games into his first year with Virginia Tech football, and his first season as a head coach in the ACC, James Franklin will come across something he’s largely missed out on in the opening weeks of the 2026 season: a familiar face.
It won’t necessarily be a welcome sight, though.
Virginia Tech’s game against Pittsburgh on Friday, Oct. 2 will be one of the most anticipated events in Week 5 of the college football season, with two undefeated teams facing off against one another in a matchup in which the winner will earn an all-important leg up in the race for a spot in the ACC championship game.
Beyond that, it will serve as a reunion of sorts for two coaches with a complicated, seldom straightforward past.
For more than a decade, Franklin and Pitt’s Pat Narduzzi coached at rival schools. Though Franklin’s now gone from Penn State after his abrupt firing last October, he landed on his feet in a conference where Narduzzi has led the Panthers for the past 12 seasons. And with that, two coaches who spent years trading barbs will once again get to face off against one another.
Though anyone expecting anything more beyond two teams facing off may end up being sorely disappointed.
“The players play the game. Coaches don't,” Narduzzi told reporters on Monday, Sept. 28. “We don't get on the field. We're not going to have a boxing match before the game. He's a first-class coach. I see myself as a first-class guy, as well. It's just coaching. I think people love to make something of nothing, which if that's what they like and it gets them fired up and lets them buy tickets, then let's go.”
While Franklin and Narduzzi won’t be stepping into the ring for a 12-round bout at Lane Stadium, the two have had enough dust-ups over the years that can’t be ignored.
Heading into their latest meeting, let’s take a look at some of the most memorable tiffs between Franklin and Narduzzi:
James Franklin and Pat Narduzzi history
The clap flap (2016)
For years — particularly in the 1970s and 1980s, when both programs were among the sport’s best — Pitt and Penn State shared one of the fiercest rivalries in college football.
Following a 16-year hiatus, the rivalry returned in 2016, when the Panthers beat the Nittany Lions in a 42-39 thriller in Pittsburgh. The loss ultimately helped keep a Penn State team that won the Big Ten out of the four-team College Football Playoff.
In his weekly news conference three days after the loss, Franklin pointed to instances of Pitt defensive players clapping and noted how it affected his team’s play-calling cadence.
“You're not allowed to do that,” Franklin said.
During the game, Franklin was told by the Big Ten officials working the contest that the clapping was legal, something that Big Ten coordinator of officials Bill Carollo echoed.
When asked about Franklin’s comments the following day, Narduzzi clapped back (pardon the pun).
“That's just another excuse,” he said.
Narduzzi said his defenses at Pitt — and before that at Michigan State, where he was the defensive coordinator from 2007-14 — had clapped as a way for players on the field to communicate with one another. Sure enough, video from the Panthers’ win the previous week against Villanova showed linebacker Matt Galambos clapping before the snap.
“We clap,” Narduzzi said. “We raise the roof with our hands. We twist our arms. We do kind of like a cowboy lasso. We did it at Michigan State. But the offense has to do something to make us clap, and if they stand still most of the time, we don't do a whole lot of it.”
Akron-gate (2017)
Penn State got a measure of revenge against Pitt the following year, earning a 33-14 victory in State College behind 133 total yards and two touchdowns from Saquon Barkley.
After the game, Franklin seemingly downplayed the significance of the win.
"I know last year for their win (against us), it was like the Super Bowl," Franklin said. "But for us, this was just like beating Akron."
The comment was widely viewed as a jab at Pitt. While the Panthers made a big celebration out of their win against Penn State 12 months earlier, the Nittany Lions thought their victory over Pitt was comparable to a win against a MAC program (Penn State had beaten Akron the previous week, 52-0, which would explain why Franklin singled out the Zips).
Sensing the reaction it might generate in the moment, Franklin later clarified his remark during his post-game news conference, telling reporters that he considers each game to be like a Super Bowl for his team. Whether it was in a buy game against Akron or a historic rivalry like Pitt, the importance of a game was the same week-to-week.
"Everyone 'oohed' during my opening statement, but don't think too much into it," Franklin said. "I've been saying the same thing for years."
Changing signals (2019)
Four years before Connor Stalions became a household name, Penn State and Pitt had a signal controversy of their own — or a perceived one, at least.
In the days leading up to the matchup between the Panthers and Nittany Lions in 2019, Franklin said his team changed all of its offensive and defensive hand signals after former Penn State safety John Petrishen joined Pitt as a grad transfer that August, one month before they were set to play. Franklin said the move was made “because he knows all of our signals.”
Narduzzi quickly returned fire.
"We haven't been thieves, I guess," he said. "But usually the people who are paranoid are the people stealing them."
Narduzzi downplayed the potential role Petrishen could play by noting that Penn State had a former Pitt staffer, Eric Thatcher, on Franklin’s staff.
"We're busy getting our own signals in," Narduzzi said. "Just think about this: Are we going to signal to our defense, and then tell them what the offensive play is? There's no time for that. Our eyes are on our kids. Signals, I mean, I could have their notebook. If I had their notebook sitting right here, which, maybe I do. I don't know. I could have their notebook, but that ain't gonna help me win a football game. I can promise you that. OK? Defensively, your hands are tied. You can't steal signals. That's me. Maybe I'm just a dumb defensive coach.”
A rivalry in peril (2019)
The war of words between Franklin and Narduzzi came as the future of the rivalry that pitted them against each other was in doubt.
Penn State and Pitt played each season from 2016-19, but beyond that four-game, home-and-home series, there were no other matchups scheduled. Pitt leadership had expressed a desire to pursue future games after 2019, but Penn State, which had marketed itself for years as “unrivaled,” didn’t publicly reciprocate that interest.
The stalemate raised questions about the rivalry in the modern era of college football and, namely, what school stood to benefit more from it and whose fan base cared more about its continuation.
With the Nittany Lions remaining non-committal, Pitt turned its attention to another longtime regional rival, West Virginia. The Panthers and Mountaineers renewed the Backyard Brawl in 2022 after an 11-year hiatus and played in each of the three seasons after that. Following a three-year break, the two programs will face off every season from 2029-36.
Pitt and Penn State haven’t played since 2019 and have no future games scheduled.
"We embrace rivalries,” Narduzzi said at ACC media days in 2024. “We'd love to play Penn State if they would play us. If they won't play us, we'd love to play West Virginia as many times as we could play them.”
A detente? (2026)
Whatever friction there was that built up over the years between Franklin and Narduzzi hasn’t been on display this week, at least publicly.
Narduzzi said in a news conference this week that he and Franklin have “always had a good relationship” and said he reached out to Franklin shortly after he was hired at Virginia Tech last November. When discussing Virginia Tech, he described the Hokies as “well-coached.”
“You can play up the rivalry and all that stuff, but coaches are coaches,” Narduzzi said. “We all get along. We spend time together off the field. You guys get revved up more than, I think, the coaches. It's part of the game.”
For his part, Franklin said that he has “a lot of respect for Pat professionally, what he’s done over his career.”
“I think he’s done a phenomenal job in his 12 years there at Pitt,” Franklin said. “Obviously, when you think of Pitt and you think about Narduzzi, you think about their defense. He’s done a phenomenal job. … They’re playing really good defense.
“They’ve got a system, they’ve been running it for a long time and it is difficult to run on. It is difficult to pass on from a protection standpoint — they’re playing really good defense as they consistently have done there.”
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: James Franklin and Pat Narduzzi were rivals for years. Now, they'll face off again
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