Pat Narduzzi emphatically said Wednesday he plans to stay at Pittsburgh, and wants any speculation tying him to the opening at Michigan State to be squashed.
"I came here to get a job done," Narduzzi said during a national signing day news conference. "We couldn't be in a better situation at the University of Pittsburgh."
Narduzzi, who was hired by Pitt in December 2014, spent eight years as defensive coordinator at Michigan State under Mark Dantonio, who resigned from the Spartans on Tuesday.
"The rumors, squash them, whatever you want to call them," Narduzzi said. "I'm here at Pitt and I want to be here at Pitt. That's where I want to be. It's my ultimate goal to be here at Pitt. You can't have a coach with one foot in."
A logical name to surface on lists about candidates to take the job, Narduzzi declined to comment when asked Wednesday if he had been contacted by Michigan State, where he won the Broyles Award as the nation's top assistant in 2013.
"You know how much success you had at another place, and you enjoyed it, too,'' Narduzzi said. "If you didn't enjoy it, you wouldn't have stayed there for eight years. There's always that pull.''
Narduzzi just completed his fifth season at Pitt and is 36-29 with the Panthers, including an ACC championship game appearance in 2018 and an upset victory over eventual national champion Clemson in 2016.
"I know what I'm dealing with here at Pitt,'' Narduzzi said. "I know every day when I call up [athletic director] Heather Lyke and say, 'How about this?' She's going to say, 'We'll get it done.' I just know that. I don't know that about any place else in the country like I know it here.''
The Associated Press contributed to this report.