The second year of a new head coach’s tenure is where he begins flexing his personnel decision-making muscle. He has two complete recruiting classes that bear his name to choose from and can begin to start looking at playing talent over experience.
That’s not something 1st year HCs do often because there are so many changes happening with the existing 80+ players on the roster they have to walk a fine line to keep some positive continuity going toward a successful first year.
Pat Narduzzi did that well last season ending up with an eight win season. That isn’t to say he didn’t change things up, he sure did and in a big way at some places… like QB.
It takes a leap of faith to replace an incumbent starting QB with another QB who didn’t have much of a track record at all. In doing that with Voytik and Peterman Narduzzi leaned on the old phrase “Play the best player.” But as much as sports fans want to think that holds true in all instances, it really doesn’t.
The real phrase should be “Play the best player given the circumstances“.
pittpov.com 