Innovative Pitt offensive coordinator Canada started small

The W-2 form from Butler still sits inside a nightstand in Matt Canada's home, perhaps a reminder of how far he has come.

“My first job,” he said of coaching quarterbacks and receivers at Butler, “I made $5,000 for the whole year.”

He remembers going home to tell his father. “It wasn't the easiest conversation,” he said.

“I'm making five grand,” he said, recalling the day 20 years ago.

“For the spring?” his father assumed.

“No, for the whole year.”

It was OK, though.

“I rolled the dice and had great support from my parents to be able to do that,” he said. “The next year I was named coordinator, and we kind of went on.”

And that's how Canada, now Pitt's wildly successful offensive coordinator, got his full-time start in coaching.

Meanwhile, the explanation of how he landed at Pitt this year has a strange mix of intrigue and convenience.

More than a month after the end of last season, Canada was fired as N.C. State's offensive coordinator, even though his unit averaged 33.2 points per game — third best in school history.

Five days after Canada's firing was reported, his good pal, Pitt coach Pat Narduzzi, hired Canada to replace Jim Chaney, who had left for Georgia four weeks earlier.

The pieces fit together nicely, and Pitt appeared to get the best of the deal. Canada's innovative offense, minus Tyler Boyd, has set a school record for points (432), breaking the mark (428) set in 1977. The offense is balanced, too, with 2,364 yards rushing and 2,362 passing.

Canada, a semifinalist for the Broyles Award as the nation's top assistant, is as modest and self-deprecating as anyone can be, calling his game plan “the same, old, basic, boring offense.”

But five receivers and fullback George Aston have carries on jet sweeps or quick hitters, producing 658 yards and nine touchdowns. Those plays aren't new: Canada used them at Northern Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin, where he served one year in 2012, succeeding Paul Chryst as coordinator.

Canada also designed two run plays for Pitt offensive tackle Brian O'Neill, who scored on an across-the-field lateral and end-around play.

Tight end Scott Orndoff is the leading pass catcher with 32 receptions, and first-year starting wide receiver Jester Weah is third in the nation and first in the ACC in yards per catch (23.2).

“You never know what we're going to do,” said offensive tackle Adam Bisnowaty, who said he has been working on his catching skills. “It's fun every week to see what he has in store for us. I feel like he sits in that office too long and draws some plays that are unreal. But, hey, they seem to work.”

All of this, of course, makes Pitt fans nervous that another school will poach perhaps the most popular offensive coordinator (college or pro) to work in Pittsburgh in a long time. Canada, 44, never has been a head coach, but he's been a coordinator for all but five years since 1997.

Narduzzi vowed university administration will do everything possible to retain Canada. Refusing to enter the speculation, Canada said he just sits in his office thinking of new ways to confuse defenses, his focus narrowly fixed on Syracuse, Pitt's opponent Saturday at Heinz Field.

“I don't read the papers,” he said. “I'm really, really happy to be where I'm at and happy I'm allowed to have fun calling plays and putting in stuff.

“If I'm not ever a head coach, I don't think it's going to be I'm a failure. I love what I do. I love scheming and figuring out a good way to attack somebody.”

His players respond to his coaching style, even when he raises his voice to make a point or motivate.

“Human nature is what it is. You don't fool people. You don't fool players,” he said. “I'm just who I am. I coach as hard as I can coach. Some days it works. Some days it doesn't.

“To me, coaching is using what you got when you got it and making (players) as good as they can be.”

Canada said his coaching style mirrors that of Narduzzi, with whom he worked — and competed against on opposite sides of the ball — when both were on the Northern Illinois staff from 2000-02.

He said he's at Pitt only because Narduzzi invited him.

“I hope that doesn't get spun (in a negative way),” Canada said. “Pitt's great, and I love it, but I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for Duzz.

“That's the positive thing about being with someone you trust. Now, when they tell you something, it's going to be the truth. That's a big deal.”

Jerry DiPaola is a Tribune-Review staff writer. Reach him at jdipaola@tribweb.com or via Twitter @JDiPaola_Trib.