PITTSBURGH — Nate Yarnell and Eli Holstein have spent the past eight months jockeying for position in the fight to be the starting quarterback at Pitt.
Coach Pat Narduzzi is in no hurry to name a winner.
Yarnell, a redshirt junior, and Holstein, a redshirt freshman transfer from Alabama, will both play during Saturday’s season opener against Kent State, a nod to the inroads Holstein has made since the spring when a hamstring injury limited his grasp of first-year offensive coordinator Kade Bell’s up-tempo attack.
The players have an “OR” listed next to their names on the depth chart, a longtime Narduzzi tactic that is equal parts gamesmanship and a way of rewarding reserves pushing for playing time.
Yarnell, who threw for 595 yards with four touchdowns and an interception in four games last season, seemed to be well ahead of Holstein when training camp began. That gap has closed significantly.
“Eli has made some major, major improvements,” Narduzzi said. “It’s like he caught up.”
So much so that Narduzzi wants to see how they respond to game action before making any sort of firm commitment one way or the other. Narduzzi pointed out that practice can sometimes skew things, and just because you light it up against teammates, that doesn’t mean “you’re the best quarterback.”
“To me, they need to be put into a game-like situation and let it go from there,” Narduzzi said.
Ideally, Narduzzi would like one quarterback to separate himself from the other fairly quickly. Pitt is coming off a 3-9 season in which its offense was the worst in the ACC. The Panthers almost completely overhauled their offensive staff, bringing in the 31-year-old Bell from Western Carolina, where his no-huddle approach led the Catamounts to average more than 37 points per game last year.
Pitt will have little time to get it together. While the Panthers open against a Golden Flashes team picked to finish last in the 12-team MAC, the schedule gets more difficult quickly. A trip to Cincinnati and a visit by rival West Virginia loom for Pitt once the calendar flips to September.
This isn’t the first time in Narduzzi’s lengthy tenure with the Panthers that he has entered the season with uncertainty at quarterback. Narduzzi jockeyed between Chad Voytik and Nate Peterman during his first season on the job in 2015, with Peterman — a transfer from Tennessee — eventually winning out.
Yet Voytik and Peterman offered a contrast in styles. Yarnell and Holstein do not. They are about the same size — Yarnell is 6-foot-6 and 215 pounds; Holstein is 6-4 and 225 pounds — and have a similar skill set.
“We have two conscientious, smart, talented, athletic quarterbacks,” Narduzzi said.
Bell won’t ask them to run around as much as he will ask them to make quick decisions in an offense built around getting the ball to playmakers in space as fast as possible.
Whoever does it the most efficiently will likely get the gig on a full-time basis. At the moment, that appears to be anyone’s guess, Narduzzi included.
“Both those guys are going to play on Saturday,” he said, “and let the competition begin.”