The Level II violations were committed by Kevin Stallings and Pat Narduzzi
Jeremy Brevard-USA TODAY Sports
The NCAA announced on Thursday that Pitt’s football and men’s basketball programs committed Level II coaching violations between August 2015 and March 2018, and Pitt later self-reported the violations. The announcement comes on the heels of an investigation into the infractions that confirmed wrongdoing on the part of former Pitt basketball coach Kevin Stallings and current Pitt football coach Pat Narduzzi.
Neither coach was mentioned by name in the announcement from the NCAA, but the violations were attributed specifically to the person in the position that Stallings held at the time that he held the position and to the person in the position Narduzzi currently holds at a time when he was in the position. The initial violations were minor and specific to coaching as opposed to recruiting. However, the NCAA found that Stallings attempted to obfuscate his violations by deleting practice videos.
The violations include the following, according to a release from Pitt:
”Between June 2016 and March 2018, the former head men’s basketball coach instructed and permitted non-coaching staff members to regularly perform NCAA-defined coaching duties that included providing coaching instruction to men’s basketball student-athletes at practice, leading film review sessions with student-athletes and providing coaching input at halftime of competitions. As a result, the men’s basketball program exceeded the permissible number of countable coaches.
”At the direction of the former head coach, the men’s basketball program actively attempted to hide the violations and intentionally deleted practice film to avoid detection of such violations.
”Between May 2017 and September 2017, the men’s basketball program produced personalized recruiting videos for 12 men’s basketball prospective student-athletes, showing the videos to prospects during their visits to campus.
”Between August 2015 and November 2017, the head football coach was present at the football practice facility when three quality control members engaged in impermissible coaching activities, which included occasionally throwing footballs and holding play cards for the scout teams during practices. As a result, the football program exceeded the permissible number of countable coaches.
”The head football coach asked a quality control staff member to help out during a segment of practice drills occurring between October 22, 2017, and November 23, 2017. As a result, the football program exceeded the permissible number of countable coaches.”
The NCAA specified that in addition to being “directly involved” in committing the violations and apparently attempting to cover them up, Stallings also “developed an alert system” to prevent the detection of violations and continued to commit violations after receiving warnings from the Pitt athletics department.
As a result of the violations, the Pitt athletics department as a whole will be placed on probation for three years. That period of probation will end on Feb. 19, 2023. In addition, Narduzzi will be forced to miss two practices in August, and Stallings has been issued a three-year show-cause order. The order states that if Stallings is hired by a program in the next three years, he will be subject to a suspension for 30 percent of the first season of his employment. However, Pitt will not face any postseason bans or scholarship restrictions.
