What we did to celebrate the win against Clemson

By the writers of the Pitiful News (Formerly the Clemsoniful News, Pitt got us in the divorce)

• Cured our hangovers by drinking more
• Made it just in time for Saturday night Mass
• Reconnected with Josh, the cute guy I met at the game 
• Made out with ROC
  • And disrespected The Tiger
• Made out with Kenny Pickett
  • And disrespected the Panther
• Pregamed on the drive to the frats after (it’s okay, I don’t drive stick) 
• Locked a band guy in the portapotty, stole his uniform, played the tuba, got to be close to SCOTTY
  • This sounds suspiciously like a sex thing.
• Bought a $20 hot dog from the concession stand
• Played Madden to relive the experience 
• Streaked the field, but with my clothes on and I was also walking
• Scheduled a rapid covid test
• Asked for extensions on all assignments, citing Kenny Pickett hysteria as the reason
• Put blue Mio in the frat juice so everyone would be puking pitt colors
• Murdered anybody I saw wearing orange
  • Forgive me, crossing guard
• Created our own victory lights by taking all the string lights from all the dorms 
• Streaked on Forbes Avenue  
• Got our flu shots!!
• Checked my polling place information for the November 2 election
• Burned down my high school (their colors were black and ORANGE)
• Rammed through all of the traffic cones in the parking lot…and then realized that the cones were just people in Clemson jerseys
• Told the shuttle driver to have a really nice night and apologized for the noisy ride back to Pitt
• Started pregaming for the next game against Miami 
• Wore the head pieces of fursuits of random college football mascots that have beat Clemson, out of sheer spite  
• Jumping into the air and shouting “Yipeeeeeeeee!”  
• Got into an “Okay?” “Okay.” loop with a young teen at the game.
• Drowned my orange tabby cat
  • THIS IS SO DARK OMG
• Tried to drown my goldfish, didn’t work
• Got irrationally angry at a Garfield comic 
• Pissed my pants
• Did something a bit gay.  
• Took down my MAGA flag – Trump’s spray tan teeters on Clemson colors and that is where I draw the line 
• Ate Frosted Flakes and spit them out because Tony the Tiger can suck my dick.  
• Perfected my liquid eyeliner skills because I’m a girlboss.  
• Joined the Cathedral Club so we could bathe our naked bodies in the glow of the Victory Lights 
• Shared skin care tips with my homies because we all deserve to look glowy <3   
• Raw Tigered the Tiger (similar to raw dogging but with a tiger)  
• Did laundry  
• Lost my virginity 
• Changed my tinder to guys and gals
• Upped my body count by so many
  • So many, guys, i have so many more bodies now 
• Bought blue and gold birds because that seemed like a celebratory thing to do at the time. 
  • Please help me i have too many birds i dont know what to do with them
• Mugged the guy who won the 50/50 raffle 
• Buttered my toast bottom side up  
  • Bottoms-up toast hits so good though
• Left my mom on read, now a SWAT team has kicked down my door killed my wife and I still have not told my mom I am ok 
• Got a bible verse tattoo to show my thanks to God
• Snuggled with my cat a bit more 
• Licked a few random hot dudes  
• Did the ice bucket challenge  
• Got ALS  
• Read my favorite book, the Cheesecake Factory menu
• Double homicide 
• Double Homie-cide  
• Double Tequila 
• Double Suicide
• Double 1-800-273-8255 
• Double-decker cheeseburger 
• Double-decker Bus 
• Ate a pizza
• Got hit by a Port Authority bus 
• Port Authority bus got hit by me 
  • Physics 
    • Yeah, Newton’s Third Law, I’m smart too
• Watched Ratatouille
• Found my virginity: it was in my dirty laundry  
  • It’s always in the last place you look!  
• Got drafted :(

Pat Narduzzi Arrested: Found Intoxicated, Wandering the Streets of South Oakland and Charged With Various Crimes Against Nature

By Evan Rafferty

    Reports from University of Pittsburgh police early Sunday morning disclosed that Pitt football head coach Patrick Regan Narduzzi was taken into police custody at around 3:45 AM, and was charged with public urination, excrement consumption, resisting arrest, first-degree scumbaggery, twelve counts of “actions detrimental to the honor and tradition of college football,” and just being a moron in general. Which, after an embarrassing stretch of performances including four straight losses suffered against the entire wolf population of North Carolina, Boston University, the University of Coral Gables, and an absolute annihilation at the hands of some French preachers from Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris, are not surprising infractions at all.

    Coach Narduzzi was made available for comment before spending the bye week in a dark, dank jail cell, thinking about what he did wrong. Unfortunately, most of the questions from reporters were not questions at all. Instead, the press conference quickly degraded into disgusting comments joking about what a stupid little dumb idiot Pat Narduzzi is, or how he is such a stupid idiot nerd, or how he’s so dumb and stupid, and annoying, and sucks at his job, or how I hate him, or how he looks like an ostrich, or how he’s too braindead to stop using power run with a 5’8” running back, or how he made me waste $25, four hours, and a piece of my soul to watch my poor panthers get curb stomped by a coterie of Catholics, or how his defense is so godawful that a white guy with the first name Ian carved his pride and joy up like a jack-o’-lantern. Please do keep in mind that all of these insults are unprofessional, not at all funny, and should never be repeated. I was able to get in a few completely unbiased questions amidst the chaos and general rioting of the crowd. Below is a direct transcript of the Q&A with Narduzzi.

Evan Rafferty (ER): “Alright Coach, this has obviously been a tough last month or so for your football team. It certainly could have gone better, but setbacks like this could be seen as an opportunity to bring out the best in players and people in general. That being said, what in the name of God was going through your head this time, and, follow up question, why are you so stupid?”

Patrick Narduzzi (NARD): “Alright, uh, yeah. Gimme a second to sober up here.” Narduzzi then did a set of pushups, took off his shirt, and threw up into a nearby trash can. “Football? Yeah, football. Basically, what happened was, things were going great, right? Just playin’ some football, guys being dudes, what could be better than that? Then, all of a sudden, this big old half-bald white guy standing next to me looks over and says-”

ER: “You’re referring to Mark Whipple, your offensive coordinator?”

NARDZ: “I don’t know, I don’t really pay attention to names and all that. I just shove a couple of bennies in some guys’ pockets and let ‘em goof off for a few hours every gameday. Not really my problem. Anyway, that nipple guy or whatever looks at me and is like ‘Hey, the game’s over. We lost, again.’ And then I look up at the scoreboard and I’m like, ‘Oh, shit, what?’ I don’t know how to read it anyway, but I see all the people in the other colors jumping up and down and celebrating, which I’ve learned is what people do when they win something.”

ER: “Wait, so, you can’t even read? How old are you?”

NARD: “That’s an off-topic question, shut up and let me finish. Basically, I forgot to score more points than the other team. It’s that simple. I trusted all these nerds that I hired to remind to score more points and I guess they just didn’t tell me. Then I ask for a score check and some dweeb next to me tell me we’re down by forty-two. Like, what the hell, right? So then, after the Notre Dame game, my wife doesn’t let me in the house, and I have to drag my ass all the way back to my mom’s place just to have her make fun of me for an hour and a half. It’s not fair, you know? So after the fifth or sixth round of her telling me to get my act together, and kick the bath salts addiction, I packed up my stuff and made plans to crash at my boy Brad’s place in South O for the weekend. Apparently, I had a couple more Appletinis than I could handle before I got there and the next thing I remember is pissing in the Schenley Memorial Fountain and some sirens going off behind me. I guess having to take a leak is a crime now. It’s nature!”

ER: “So, what are you going to do now? Will you retain your position as the head coach of Pitt football?”

NARD: “Oh, obviously. Those geezers up at the AD’s office are paying me over $4,000,000 to lose to Boston College every year. You’re stuck with me unless I’m dragged out of Heinz Field and shot.” 

ER: “As tempting as that sounds, you don’t think that you might be on the hot seat after you’ve disappointed and underachieved for the last five years? Maybe with your severance package, you can give me back my $25, pay for my hospital bills after I broke both of my hands from beating the devil out of the poor chair in front of me every third down, and bribe your wife to let you back in the big house instead of crashing with Brad every weekend and spending your Sunday mornings too plastered to even attempt to become literate.”

NARD: “What the- Who the hell are you, anyway?”

In fear of attracting the attention of the security guards, and the potential that my poorly put together Pittiful News press pass that I had to pay seven of my hard-earned cents to print might be discovered as a fake, I was forced to flee into the vents of the police station and make my escape back into the safety of the darkness.

    Let this tale serve as a message to all those who stand with Narduzzi and his plans to destroy the sanctity and extensive tradition of Pitt football from the inside- I will be waiting. Once Heather Lyke returns all of my phone calls, emails, texts, love letters, and fruit basket messages, you’re all as good as gone. #FireNarduzzi, and, as always, hail to Pitt.

Coaching Deity Pat Narduzzi Reveals Secret Strategy to Win Football Games

By Evan Rafferty

Author’s Note: This article was written long ago, based on an alternative timeline in which the author still felt happiness. When the sun still rose in the morning, the birds sang their cheerful songs, when Pitt didn’t absolutely blow it against NC State, and bungle it against Boston goddamn College. Football only serves as a chilling reminder that nothing will change, nobody loves you, and it doesn’t get better, so don’t get your hopes up. Until next Saturday.

    That’s right, nerds. Close that textbook. Put away that laptop. It’s time to watch our lads sling some pigskin and slam a bunch of losers into the dirt. What do you mean there’s a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic going on? Shut up, it’s football season.

Unless you’re actually dumb, then you know that our Pitt Panthers opened up the 2020 season with absolutely dominating victories over a bunch of posers that call themselves the Austin Peay State University “Governors,” and a basket of oranges hailing from Syracuse. Who knew you could grow citrus in upstate New York? Anyway, if you know anything about the greatest sport in America, you could probably deduce that this means that Pitt is once again the best team in the nation (Don’t @ me, Clemson. See you on November 28th). But for Pitt and their head coach, Pat “The Thunder of Southern Connecticut” Narduzzi, with great power rankings comes great responsibility. The Panthers have an obligation, a moral imperative, to enlighten the mass media and give some insider information on just how the Panthers have gotten off to such a hot start. However, despite the onslaught of reporters foaming at the mouth, begging for an iota of detail behind the team’s victories, none have been successful at getting the coaching staff to spill the beans. It was time to bring in the big guns, the A-team, the best detective that upper campus has to offer: me.

    With help from my god complex and the motivation from my self-condemned Sisyphean struggle to try and inform the stupid common man, I was able to call in a few favors, whip up a little blackmail, and break into Heinz Field by disguising myself as a ketchup bottle in order to get a one-on-one interview with the man, the myth, the legend himself, Patrick Regan Narduzzi. While you might have expected someone to be surprised or scared by a walking, talking, stalking, popping, and locking tomato sauce container approaching you and screaming out of excitement, Narduzzi paid no attention to my presence. The man’s a stoic. His eyes were glued to a screen playing the entirety of Louisville’s offensive film at 139x speed, faster than any normal human could comprehend. That’s when I knew I had something special to report, and I had to go deeper than simple observation. It took a super-secret Pentagon safe word used to bring government agents out of their natural brain-washed state, ‘Linguini,’ to awaken the coach from his game-day preparation hibernation. 

    Narduzzi’s head snapped toward me with the incredible speed of someone snapping their head towards someone at an alarmingly fast rate. His eyes began to glow, a haunting shade of Pitt Royal™, HEX #003594.

A voice from deep within the Allegheny mountains rumbled to life and spoke from the language of the ancient gods, blasting directly into my temporal lobe: “Quid est bonum, fratrem?”

“W-Well, your Duzziness,” I stuttered, trying and failing to maintain my composure and credibility in the face of greatness. “I have come before you to beg, to plead for a scoop. How have the Panthers grown into the greatest football team in football history, in such a short amount of football time? What’s the football secret- a new formation, a trick play, a UPMC-developed football steroid?”

“Do not fear, my child. I was but a curious mortal once, as well. I will give you the answers you seek… for a price,” the coach said, a sly grin creeping across his face. 

“But of course, your Duzziness. Hell, I’d give an arm and a leg to learn the process behind the best football team in the wo-”

 I woke up in UPMC Presbyterian 4 days and 12 hours later, missing two of my most trusted and loved appendages. Sorry if the helicopter woke you up again, that was probably me. As my mind repaired itself from my encounter with such a powerful figure, I felt an object materialize in my pocket out of thin air. I reached down with my remaining arm and retrieved a note, a message from Patrick Narduzzi himself. Written with the blood of a Nittany lion (whatever that is), on ancient parchment made of the skin of a Mountaineer, the memorandum spoke thus:

Victory is not found in singular glory, or modern scheme

To win, one must score more points than the opposing team.

    My hippocampus began to shake, collapsing in on itself from the weight of pure godly knowledge that had just made its way into my brain. Every kind of doctor you can think of rushed into the room to try and save my life. An epinephrine injection directly into the brain stem, a defibrillator, and fourteen kinds of essential oils attempted to keep my very soul in its flesh casing, but all of them failed.

I write this account to you, dear reader, from the world beyond. I trust you with this message, and that you will use it to do good in the world. Just know that when January rolls around and Pitt is playoff-bound, the famed “Kenny Heisman” theorem of scoring more points than the other team, developed by Coach Narduzzi, and whatever Lovecraftian Yinzer lord lies within him, is what brought them there. Hail to Pitt.