A Deeper Dive Into Potential Pitt OC Candidate Mike Shanahan

Mike Shanahan — the one currently at JMU — is a popular candidate for the Pitt offensive coordinator vacancy, and it’s not just because he went to Norwin High and was a two-time captain at Pitt. It may be part of it, sure, but Shanahan has done an excellent job in his relatively short coaching career.

Shanahan, 33, is a disciple of Curt Cignetti. Yes, that Curt Cignetti, and he got his start under Cignetti as a wide receivers coach at Indiana (Pa.) in 2016. He went with Cignetti to Elon in 2017 and then to JMU in 2019.

He retained his role as wide receivers coach at JMU, eventually gaining the recruiting coordinator title, before he was elevated to offensive coordinator — in addition to his duties as wide receivers coach — before the 2021 season. He went to Cignetti to ask for more. And it paid off.

As JMU has made the jump to the FBS level, the Dukes have remained one of the top offenses in the Sun Belt.

Shanahan is a former wide receiver, still top 10 in receptions (159) and receiving yards (2,276) in program history, and his offenses have centered around a couple of high-profile transfer quarterbacks, but his propensity for running the football has unlocked two offenses that have not missed a beat in the transition from the FCS to the FBS. It’s been a major success, in fact.

The Dukes have averaged just about 165 rushing yards per game over the last two seasons, and in a feat that the previous Pitt offensive coordinator was unable to accomplish, he’s established a rushing attack that actually opens up opportunities through the air by spreading out opposing defenses.

JMU runs an aggressive, mauling offense under Shanahan, one that has pushed teams around in the Sun Belt (to the tune of a 19-4 record over the last two seasons), but he’s had success with two different quarterbacks. It’s all because he’s adapted to the modern college game.

“I would say [offenses have] changed a good amount,” Shanahan told the Daily News Record’s Greg Madia in 2021. “However, things are starting to circle back. We played in pro-style, spread, we played in it all and you kind of went through the phase when everyone was playing fast, getting a ton of plays off and then you look at some teams now really being in a mixture of everything. [Offenses are] able to play fast, able to shift and motion, able to change up the tempo. So, I think it’s changed, but also circling back around.”

Shanahan spent time with Frank Cignetti Jr., Mike Norvell, Calvin Magee and Joe Rudolph as his offensive coordinator, some different schemes, but thee overarching theme of his collegiate career was a pro-style offense. Cignetti, Frank in this case, ran a pro-style offense in his second tenure at Pitt.

It was, by all accounts, a huge, sprawling offense that took quite a long time to install. The install in Year 2 was apparently further along earlier in the offseason than it had been in Year 1, but it wasn’t evident on the field. The result was a bland, uninspired offense with poor sequencing and no real threat to throw the football. And in Year 2, the run game didn’t work either. Nothing really worked.

Shanahan, who has former Pitt quarterback Tino Sunseri serving as his quarterbacks coach, has helped guide quarterbacks Todd Centeio and Jordan McCloud to massive success over the last two seasons. He’s not exactly a quarterbacks coach, but his all-hands-on-deck approach to running an offense has already produced a system that actually elevates its playmakers — quarterbacks, running backs and wide receivers.

Pitt didn’t score enough points, one of the lowest scoring in college football in 2023, and the Frank Cignetti offense wasn’t able to string together enough consistency throughout the course of a game to even get into the red zone most of the time. Pitt needs to score more points, and Narduzzi realized that. That was the No. 1 problem facing his squad, and he’s already taken the first step toward correcting it.

Cignetti, at the end of the day, simply did not do a good enough job teaching and running a modern college football offense, and that cost him his job. If Narduzzi isn’t able to effectively replace Frank Cignetti now, it may cost him his job, too.

Shanahan is younger than a traditional Narduzzi candidate, he isn’t exactly the archetype for the hirings made during Narduzzi’s time at the helm of Pitt football, but Shanahan would be a hire who has legitimate play-calling experience, has shown the ability to succeed with an offense that is both balanced and innovative, has served as a legitimate recruiting coordinator and has deep ties to Western Pennsylvania and Pitt.

He would be a breath of fresh air, an injection of youth and creativity for an offense that has rapidly gone stale over the last year — or more.