CHARLOTTE, N.C. - Pittsburgh Panthers football coach Pat Narduzzi had a good idea what to expect over the past two seasons from every opponent in the Atlantic Coast Conference's Coastal Division.
Not this year.
After two years with the same seven head coaches, nearly half of that group is gone with Georgia Tech, Miami and North Carolina bringing in new leadership. Now Narduzzi and the reigning division champions - along with Duke, Virginia and Virginia Tech - will face a new set of schemes and coaching tendencies.
"You can watch tape and see what they'd like to do, but really it's what are they going to like to do against your defensive front, your coverage - how are they going to defend your formations?" Narduzzi said Thursday on the second and final day of the league's annual football media showcase. "Those are a lot of things you don't know going into the first season, so that does change things a bit."
The arrivals of Georgia Tech's Geoff Collins, Miami's Manny Diaz and North Carolina's Mack Brown marks the second time in four seasons the Coastal Division will enter a season with three new coaches.
The change is most glaring at Georgia Tech on offense. Paul Johnson retired after 11 seasons running a run-heavy, triple-option-based system. Now Collins is taking over after two seasons at Temple and has said he would install "NFL-based" schemes, though he'll have to adapt a roster full of players recruited for the option attack.
Some of that work went on in the spring, with players experimenting with different positions. For 6-foot-2, 220-pound receiver Jalen Camp, that meant practicing some plays as a third-down pass rusher.
"He does that with a lot of different guys," Camp said. "If he feels this guy may help us in a separate area, then he's definitely going to try that guy out and see how he fits."
It's no surprise, then, that Collins spent part of Thursday touting the importance of "position flexibility."
"One of the big things is we're not an organization that's built on scheme," Collins said. "We're an organization that's built on players."
Excitement and energy also might be viewed as building blocks for the Yellow Jackets.
Collins, who is originally from Georgia, was so excited to return to the Southeast after two years at Temple that he ate breakfast at Waffle House his first nine days on the job.
"There's 400 Waffle Houses in the state of Georgia," Collins said. "The fact that everybody loves Waffle House, at least I know I do, and a lot of those guys are Georgia Tech graduates, it's been a really neat thing."
Linebacker David Curry, a fifth-year senior, didn't know what to make of Collins when he first met him.
Collins was jumping around, excited and full of energy when he first spoke to players at a team meeting after being hired. Curry said Collins joked with players "this is the most dull I'll be."
Curry said Thursday that his coach has lived up to word with enthusiasm that's "through the roof," whether it's the middle of the day or 4 in the morning. He said it's not usual to see Collins, who was known as the "Minister of Mayhem" as a linebacker at Western Carolina, running around and chest-bumping his players.
Curry laughed at the notion of being excitable, saying "I don't know any other way to be."