Pat Narduzzi made some crazy claims last week as the ACC Football Kickoff (media days) took place in Charlotte. He spoke about the upcoming season obviously, but the topic of the Big Ten and SEC came up and he made some controversial statements.
The former Michigan State defensive coordinator obviously had to stand up for his conference, but he took it one step further by saying that the ACC is better and more talented than the Big Ten.
He doubled down on a previous statement that he made about the conference’s compared to each other, claiming ACC superiority. Now he’s saying that the conference is more skilled and doesn’t have losing records against the Big Ten in bowls nor the regular season.
And he’s just flat-out wrong.
NEW: Pitt's Patt Narduzzi says the ACC is better than the Big Ten:
— On3 (@On3) July 18, 2026
"It's better than the Big Ten. It's got more skill."
He added: "You look at our record in bowl games against the SEC and the Big Ten. You look at our record in the regular season. We don't have losing… pic.twitter.com/3wdd8IdHnZ
”We don’t have losing records” vs. the Big Ten or SEC in bowls nor the regular season.
Let’s do a little fact-checking, shall we?
Pitt’s all-time record vs. Michigan State
Let’s get the first and most obvious matchup out of the way. According to Winsipedia, Pitt has never beaten Michigan State in eight meetings. The Spartans are 7-0-1 against the Panthers, but if you asked Narduzzi, he’d tell you that his lone loss to Michigan State happened because Kenny Pickett sat out the Peach Bowl. Kenneth Walker III, too, sat out and the Spartans won by 10.
Pitt’s record vs. the Big Ten under Pat Narduzzi
Narduzzi may want to avert his eyes because his all-time record against the Big Ten since taking over at Pitt is actually horrendous. He’s 1-6 all-time against the Big Ten and if we want to be really nice and give him a free one, we’ll even give him a win over UCLA in the 2022 Sun Bowl, two whole years before the Bruins joined the Big Ten. So we’ll throw that win in there for him to make him feel better so he can be 2-6 all-time against the conference he claims superiority over.
The ACC’s record vs. the Big Ten since 2015
The former Michigan State defensive coordinator under Mark Dantonio took over at Pitt in 2015 and since then, he’s claiming that the ACC has winning records in bowls and the regular season against both the Big Ten and SEC.
Well, would you believe it if I told you he was wrong?
Yahoo! did a little digging after he made this claim and found that the Big Ten is 41-30 against the ACC during that span. For good measure, the SEC is 70-52 against the ACC in that same span.
It’s tough to claim that your conference is better and more skilled than another, but then when you can’t back that up with facts and incorrectly claim that ACC teams are always beating Big Ten teams and have a winning record, you better be ready to be called out.
I’m all for coaches hyping up their own conferences, but to claim something so obviously disprovable is comical to me.
Narduzzi is lucky that Michigan State fans will forever respect him for his dominant defenses while in East Lansing, but his ACC takes are a bit horrendous.
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