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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

September 20, 2017

Pat Narduzzi

Greensboro, North Carolina

PAT NARDUZZI: Headed into week four here. Really the second quarter of our season. Starting ACC play. We're anxious and ready for ACC play. We obviously go down and face I think a very talented Georgia Tech football team, TaQuon Marshall, quarterback for them, has done an exceptional job of running the football. They played two games so far. They're a very athletic, very disciplined football team. Well-coached. Should be great ball down in Atlanta.

Q. How much can you get a sense of there are certain things you need to improve upon defensively versus you may have seen the two best offenses you'll face all year?
PAT NARDUZZI: It's a little bit of everything. Obviously we played some very talented teams. But you know what, you go from facing probably one of the best passing teams in the country a week ago, you go play the number one rushing team in the country in Georgia Tech. It gets no better.

I'd said this before. We're a young football team, lost some talented players. I think we have some talented young players that are going to be good players. How long till they figure it out and play with good fundamentals and the details you need to be a great football team, that's to be said.

We played some good football teams. There may be one other team that's played two top-10 teams in the country. We got to keep our guys' heads up and move on to the next one here in Georgia Tech. Another very talented football team who loses to Tennessee in the opener in two overtimes, gave Tennessee all they wanted.

Q. What do you want to see better out of your defense and offense?
PAT NARDUZZI: It's really both sides. Our special teams were better last week than they were the week before, both offensively and defensively. Got some new guys. When you talk about breaking in a new quarterback on offense, I think that's always a struggle to find out your rhythm, find out of the what he does well in a game, what we can do better that way. So that's that.

Again, we want to see the fundamentals and details done better in the game. When I say that, it's not panicking when you get into a football game. It's easier said than done when you're a young guy, things are flying fast, whether it be the tempo or a player. You get out there. You do it in practice. You watch a guy do it in practice. Again maybe versus less talented guys when you're going against a scout team. Get out there, a guy runs up on them, it comes faster than what they thought. Then what do you do? You start to change your techniques, go backwards in what the fundamentals are instead of technique. When you lose your techniques and fundamentals, the bottom will fall out on you. That's what's happened at times.

Q. Specifically about the offense, not only with new players, but a new coordinator, did you anticipate there being a little inconsistency at the start of the season?
PAT NARDUZZI: Certainly, you always do. Any time there's change, there's going to be some sort of inconvenience, inconsistencies. It's something you deal with as coaches. Every year you have a different football team. We had a senior-oriented team a year ago with great leadership out of our seniors, and 21 to 23 seniors really when you look at it. At the end a couple guys became seniors and left. I think we ended up having 23 guys that left the program.

There's always going to be change, whether it's a coordinator or a team. Every team is different. This is a 2017 team that happens to be a little bit younger. When you're breaking in a new quarterback, a new tailback that's not started in this offense, started in another offense but not this offense, different things.

You know the most critical position on any football team is the quarterback, who that guy is. Obviously Nathan Peterman was an exceptional quarterback. You miss guys like that.

Q. What can you do to help Max get going? Is there a competition underway right now for who is going to start?
PAT NARDUZZI: Yeah, there's a competition obviously. Again, on the outside, everybody looks at what the quarterback did. Everybody looks at what the DB did instead of what the linebacker might have done to cause the problems.

Things get helped when everybody else does their job, too. When you protect the quarterback, he doesn't have to get hit, you give him a little bit more time to make a decision. When the ball is thrown down the field, it is a good throw, you have to catch it. Against Penn State I think we had six drops. There's those things.

It's 11 guys on the field. And unfortunately at times the quarterback might be one of those positions that gets too much credit when things are going good, and not enough when things are going bad.

Q. Two of those guys on offense produced a lot for you last year, Jester Weah and Quadree Henderson. Obviously this year they haven't seemed to make as much of an impact. What has held them back through the first three games?
PAT NARDUZZI: Obviously it's a different quarterback, okay? What's the difference? Jester Weah is still Jester Weah. Big, physical, fast. Quadree is a guy that's got great wiggle when he gets the ball in his hand, whether it's a bubble or jet sweep. Those guys haven't changed. I think they're just as good or better than they were a year ago.

But it's getting them the ball. Obviously people are sitting down on our run game a little bit because until they see us effectively throw deep and actually catch the ball, they're going to play the run.

We need to light it up in the back end there. That's what needs to happen.

Q. Georgia Tech's offensive system is always built around running quarterbacks. What do you see from TaQuon Marshall that makes him a particular headache?
PAT NARDUZZI: TaQuon, we got a guy that's running like him right now. I think it's like the perfect quarterback we could have, Paris Ford. TaQuon is an electric guy, I think. I think he's scary. He'll drop back and throw it as well. I think he's got a pretty electric arm.

He's a different guy than they had a year ago, but I think he brings a little bit different dimension. He was effective against Tennessee, rushed for, shoot, I think over 200 yards, five TDs, I believe. He's something special. Coach Johnson has found himself a special guy there, a guy he'll have for a couple years.

He'll sprint out. He's electric. He kind of reminds me a little bit of Denard Robinson as quarterback a little bit. Shoot, I think it's the same number. I don't know if he asked for that number on purpose or not. He's got a lot of wiggle to him like Quadree Henderson. He's a special player.

Q. On the rare times that they do throw, you indicated he has a really good arm. Can their running game lull you to sleep a little bit, then they hit you with a big pass play?
PAT NARDUZZI: That's what they do. In their two games so far, they've averaged throwing it 13 times each game. When you look at it, seems a little bit high for what they usually do. I'd have to look back and see exactly how many times they threw it against us a year ago. Might have been the same thing, maybe 13, 15 a game.

I can see them throwing it up a little bit more, testing our safeties' eye control. They're going to run, run, run, throw it. You'd be amazed, when you watch 26 plays that they've thrown this year how effective they are. He's thrown hitches, which they really didn't throw much of. He'll be able to throw it to the number one receiver on the hitch, thrown comebacks, fades, kind of an over-route as well, sprinting out to the right, then left. He's done a little bit of everything. He's a football player.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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