Pitt QBs Yarnell, Holstein to both play vs
Aug 26, 2024, 02:44 PM ET PITTSBURGH– Nate Yarnell and Eli Holstein have spent the past 8 months jockeying for position in the fight to be the beginning quarterback at Pitt.Coach Pat Narduzzi remains in no hurry to name a winner.Yarnell, a redshirt junior, and Holstein, a redshirt freshman transfer from Alabama, will both play throughout Saturday’s season opener versus Kent State, a nod to the inroads Holstein has made because the spring when a hamstring injury limited his grasp of first-year offending coordinator Kade Bell’s up-tempo attack.Editor’s Picks The players have an”OR”listed beside their names on the depth chart, a long time Narduzzi strategy that is
equivalent parts gamesmanship and a way of gratifying reserves pushing for playing time.Yarnell, who threw for 595 yards with 4 touchdowns and an interception in 4 games last season, appeared to be well ahead
of Holstein when training camp began. That gap has actually closed significantly.”Eli has actually made some significant, significant enhancements,”Narduzzi stated.”It’s like he captured up. “So much so that Narduzzi wishes to see how
they respond to game action before making any sort of company dedication one way or the other. Narduzzi mentioned that practice can in some cases skew things, and even if you light it up versus colleagues, that doesn’t suggest”you’re the very best quarterback.””To me, they need to be put into a game-like scenario and let it go from there,”Narduzzi said.Ideally, Narduzzi would like one quarterback to separate himself from the other relatively quickly. Pitt is coming off a 3-9 season in which its offense was the worst in the ACC.
The Panthers nearly totally upgraded their offending personnel, bringing in the 31-year-old Bell from Western Carolina, where his no-huddle technique led the Catamounts to balance more than 37 points per game last year.Pitt will have little time to get it together. While the Panthers open versus a Golden Flashes team selected to end up last in the 12-team MAC, the schedule gets harder quickly.
A trip to Cincinnati and a go to by rival West Virginia loom for Pitt once the calendar flips to September.This isn’t the very first time in Narduzzi’s lengthy period with the Panthers that he has gotten in the season with uncertainty at quarterback. Narduzzi jockeyed in between Chad Voytik and Nate Peterman throughout his very first season on the task in 2015, with Peterman– a transfer from Tennessee– ultimately winning out.Yet Voytik and Peterman provided a contrast in designs. Yarnell and Holstein do not. They have to do with the very same size– Yarnell is 6-foot-6 and 215 pounds; Holstein is 6-4 and 225 pounds– and have a similar ability. “We have 2 conscientious, clever,
gifted, athletic quarterbacks,” Narduzzi said.Bell won’t ask to run around as much as he will ask to make fast decisions in an offense developed around getting the ball to playmakers in area as quick as possible.Whoever does it the most efficiently will likely get the gig on a full-time basis. At the moment, that seems anyone’s guess, Narduzzi consisted of.”Both those guys are going to use Saturday,”he stated,”and let the competitors start.”