Pat Narduzzi and Mario Cristobal have a midfield pat-off

The game was over long before the clock ran out. The last few seconds were for the 2 head coaches, and neither of them was letting go first.

Will Compton

@_willcompton

Cristobal with the last pat

On the surface it was polite. The words looked cordial enough. But the pats had some mustard on them, and as the 2 split up Cristobal appeared to give Narduzzi a little shoulder shiver on the way out. 'The last pat' is a pun on Narduzzi's first name, and it lands on a guy who just lost by 29. Read it as a hot-seat joke, though, not as news. Nobody has reported that Narduzzi's job is in danger.

Here's why a handshake turned into a sparring match. Back in late July at ACC Media Days, Narduzzi publicly accused Miami of tampering, saying the Canes tried to pry his young quarterback Mason Heintschel into the transfer portal right before the window closed. His exact words: 'Miami tried to get Mason Thursday before, and we were able to hang on to him and shut them down.' He also brought up Darian Mensah, the QB Cristobal flipped out of Duke with hours left in the winter portal window. That move had Duke screaming tampering too.

Narduzzi didn't let it drop this week, either. Asked about the tampering comments on Monday, he said, 'He's playing by his rules and we'll try to play by our rules.' He basically pinned the bulletin board material up himself and then had to go play the No. 1 team in the country in its own building.

Rico Bo$co

@Return_Of_RB

We had a good old fashion “pat off” at Pitt Miami and Narduzzi took his second L of the day…

That's the joke internet-wide: the pat-off had a winner, and it wasn't the guy who lost the game. You can argue Narduzzi held his own in the patting itself. Barstool's own clip said he 'wasn't losing the postgame handshake.' But on a 52-23 day that's a moral victory at best. It also isn't new for Narduzzi. He's spent years calling out other programs over recruiting, and he has history with Lincoln Riley at USC and Marcus Freeman at Notre Dame over similar complaints.

Miami is the one walking away happy. The Canes stay unbeaten and stay No. 1, and Cristobal got to answer a summer's worth of accusations on the scoreboard and then once more with a firm hand on the back. Pitt goes home with a blowout loss, Heintschel is still the quarterback they hung on to, and the coach who started this keeps getting asked about it. If these 2 meet again in December, bring the slow-motion camera to midfield.