PITTSBURGH -- Josh Conklin wanted to get more pressure on the quarterback, the lifetime secondary coach searching for reinforcements up front as he looked ahead to 2014.

So the second-year Florida International defensive coordinator picked up the phone and dialed Pat Narduzzi, then Michigan State's defensive coordinator. Who wouldn't? Narduzzi's Spartan defenses had become known for their unrelenting pressure, a staple that had just earned them a Rose Bowl win.

"I said, look, we've got a linebacker job open, so I'd like to hire a linebacker guy that you know, and that knows the system, that can come down here and help us tie this thing together, and put some of the stuff that you guys are doing in up there," Conklin recalled.

Narduzzi had just the guy: Michigan State graduate assistant Rob Harley, who helped Florida International make one of the biggest defensive leaps in the country last season. That improvement earned Conklin a Broyles Award nomination for the nation's top assistant coach.

More importantly, it helped Conklin earn the respect of one of the nation's premier defensive coaches, enough for Narduzzi to hand him the keys to the defense as he formed his staff as Pitt's new head coach.

If that's not validation for a guy who played NAIA ball and got his coaching feet wet at a trio of FCS stops -- and whose cup of coffee in the majors was a forgettable 2012 campaign at Tennessee that saw the whole staff get fired -- well, what is?

"I guess to be completely honest and be completely truthful, there is some validation," said Conklin, a Gillette, Wyoming, native who played linebacker at Dakota State. "There's validation of one of the guys that's the top of the country and what he did as far as being a defensive coordinator, believing enough in you as a person, that gives you a lot of confidence.

"And now, I guess to take that a step further, you feel like every day you come to the office, you've got to earn that responsibility, and you've got to earn what he's entrusted in you, so there's no question, there's no question."

So much of Pitt's 2015 campaign centers around the fact it returns arguably the ACC's top returning rushing/receiving duo (James Conner and Tyler Boyd), along with a blossoming quarterback in Chad Voytik. But Narduzzi is here to help reconnect the Steel City's college program with its blue-collar roots, the way he did in churning out top-10 defenses throughout his eight-year run in East Lansing.

In hiring Conklin as his defensive coordinator, Narduzzi is entrusting the unit to a guy whose final FIU team was opportunistic, to put it lightly. The Golden Panthers were among the nation's top-10 units in fumble recoveries, defensive touchdowns, forced turnovers, turnover margin and red-zone D -- all marked improvements from 2013, when they finished 93rd or worse in each category.

For Harley, who was a safety on Ohio State's 2002 national title team, the leap was built on the mental side of the game as much as anything.

"It's not like they weren't tough and they weren't physical, but this defense, like we say all the time, it'll find you out," Harley said. "It forces you to be fundamentally sound and physical and tough every play. And if you're not, this defense will find you out because a lot of times every guy's on an island in his own position. So we had to bring down that mentality.

"It's not a bend-but-don't break; it is a refuse to break. It is we will bring an attack and bring the tempo to the offense, and we will dictate the flow of the game. And I think we did that to some degree down there just even in one year, our guys started to buy in as we got better and better and better throughout the season."

Harley joked that he had been a grandpa in the graduate assistant business, as he entered the profession as a 29-year-old after working as a television analyst. Michigan State head coach Mark Dantonio had been his position coach back with the Buckeyes, which precipitated Harley's job with the Spartans.

Narduzzi knew he wanted Harley to be a part of his first Pitt staff. And he even grilled the linebackers coach on Conklin before bringing him aboard as his coordinator.

"I felt like this guy's going to mesh and he was running our defense. When we talk, we're talking the same language," Narduzzi said of Conklin. "Dantonio really didn't know me either. So it was that same type of hire. Dantonio did not hire a guy who was his best friend or a guy he knew. He hired a guy that he had respect for for what he had done defensively, and I did the same thing."

Harley equated his four-year rise from TV guy to a power-five assistant to "riding a rocket." He had missed the shared purpose of an entire building chasing a common goal. And he knows his time under Narduzzi during the height of MSU's reign has him prepared for the task ahead at a program that has taken a dip defensively in recent years.

"I know how demanding he can be," Harley said. "This is an environment that's not for everybody. And that's not to say it's bad. It's just not for everybody. It's demanding. It's tough. It's tough on the coaches, it's tough on the players. It's an atmosphere that is intense at all times. So there is no honeymoon here. It is hit the ground running right now, there is no time to wait, because I truly believe that it doesn't have to be in three years that we have a team that can play for the ACC championship. It could be this year.

"We don't have to come here and say, 'We're rebuilding.' Let's build right now. And I believe that. So we hit the ground running. And it's been like that ever since."