	products recent interviews FastScripts archive about ASAP Sports

Our Clients:

Browse by Sport

Find us on

Subscribe to RSS

Click to go to
Asaptext.com

View our
e-Brochure

UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

October 23, 2017

Pat Narduzzi

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

PAT NARDUZZI: Had a good weekend, obviously. A nice Saturday and a Sunday and it's nice to have one of those. Happy for our kids, you need to have success. Can't have it every week, we know it's not easy. But it's even harder to go on the road and get an ACC against a good football team.

Duke fought their tails off, and I gave them a lot of credit, but our kids came out on top. We get to come home to Heinz Field. We have a great Virginia team coming in here, 5-2 team with notable wins against North Carolina and Duke.

You know, Bronco's got a tough football team. He's in his second season. What I see on tape is a tough football team that's physical like we like to be. Plays through the whistle. You've got a lot of respect for the way their kids play hard.

They had a tough one up at B.C. this weekend against a good football team, a team that's on the rise as well with BC, we don't get to watch them much. So we're just ready for that next one. So we'll just move on to the next.

Q. Follow-up on Darren's performance Saturday, once you reviewed it and watched the tape, how realistic is it -- 250 is one thing, but how realistic is it to expect him to stay being the guy, and stay providing that run game that you need?
PAT NARDUZZI: Right now, he's the guy. It's his job. You know, I think he's got a lot of confidence right now. I think he feels good. I think he's playing fast. I think he's kind of in the groove a little bit. You saw him make cuts that he doesn't make very often, and Coach Powell's been preaching, preaching, preaching, about making somebody miss and getting yards after the (loss of audio) someone take to it, and something happens. But that doesn't go without Quadree also blocking his tail off for him. There are a lot of two-back sets in there where Quadree's in there also blocking his tail off. So we have an unselfish football team that guys play for each other. Whether it's Quadree running and Darrin blocking or vice versa. Our guys are out there playing hard.

Q. Any chance to learn the extent of (Inaudible)?
PAT NARDUZZI: No, our doctors and trainers were out yesterday. They're on vacation. They went to the Bahamas, so we have not had a chance to evaluate that, right?

Will you talk to him afterwards? I mean, you got me. Thanks. Appreciate it.

Q. You seem to have some stability now at quarterback, run game, offensive line. Does it feel good to carry that into the latter half of the season?
PAT NARDUZZI: It doesn't feel good. Because you only feel good Saturday after a game if things go good. To me, you're only as good as your last game. So our offensive line, our running backs, Darrin Hall, those guys, quarterback, they can't get a fat head or we'll be right back where we were. We have to go back to work tomorrow. They're in some time between 11 and 2:00 today having brunch and watching tape and moving on to the next one. But you better forget really quick what you did last week because nobody really cares. On Saturday afternoon you won't care what they did last week. Everyone will long forget about what happened there. And it's all about what have you done for me today.

Q. Have you seen (Inaudible)?
PAT NARDUZZI: Yeah, yeah. We've got to stay in the moment, especially when you have a young team. So we're going to go out there and have a hard week of practice, and we'll be feeling good. There is no doubt some guys can feel good. We're there, we know what we're doing. We've got it. Not so fast.

Q. Do you think your quarterback play after watching it, that you're pretty happy with it in the moment, and it's pretty much the same thing.
PAT NARDUZZI: Happy with some of the run game stuff. Not as happy with the pass game stuff. I think we missed some plays. Got to be a little more composed in the pocket, but that will come with time too.

Duke had a ton of sacks, 21 sacks on the year, something like that. Had high sack numbers and brought a lot of zone pressures and a lot of man coverage. But that goes with the young quarterbacks. It's not going to be perfect. I think it's a work in progress.

Q. On Darrin's two long runs, the middle was wide open, and the offensive line really had to break. As far as progression, what have you seen from them as a unit over the last couple of weeks?
PAT NARDUZZI: A little bit. I mean, it all depends on the coverage they're playing. They're playing a lot of man free or quarters and they're down in there trying to stop the run, and they've got guys running after the Jet sweep, you make one mistake inside when you're running inside zone and it pops and it could be gone. That's really what they -- it's kind of an all or none. Kind of like what we did.

They were kind of selling out like it was 4th and 1 a few times. It's kind of what we did when we were trying to get the ball back against North Carolina State. Put the ball up there too much, and sometimes it gets you. Sometimes you make a play. I think they had a TFO, so sometimes they won, sometimes they lose. If they lose, we might lose a three-yard minus three, but you might get a plus-92. But that's defense. That's the world we're living in it today.

Q. You talked after the game about Brian O'Neill stepped up, and you said something about the guys. Can you tell us what you said exactly?
PAT NARDUZZI: Not exactly. It wasn't just a game day thing. It was a weekly thing. I just think he's stepped up, and he's kind of fed up with not only what we were doing attitude-wise, but what we were doing structurally as well. So it was both. It was kind of, hey, let's do this. Let's be really good at this and let's go. That's kind of what it was. It will be good to see someone step up and say something.

Q. What are the differences with Virginia. They went 2-10 last week (Inaudible) what kind of differences have you seen early on in your evaluations?
PAT NARDUZZI: Again, I think I started off saying I really see a tough football team. I see a physical football team. They like to throw it on offense. They're very multiple on defense. Three down. But aggressive defensively and aggressive offensively. They're going to chuck it down the field and do a lot of different things. You won't know what personnel. If they're three backs, two backs, five tight ends. You won't know. It kind of looks like it's all over the place as far as trying to figure out who is in the game.

I don't know how the officials would find out if they've got 11 or 12 in the game to be honest with you, of all the people in and out of the game. But I see a physical football team that's playing hard for Bronco. I think that's where it starts. If you'll play hard and if your match-ups are good, good things happen.

Q. What happened (Inaudible)?
PAT NARDUZZI: Well, I mean, you can ask Bronco that maybe. He's going to tell you. But I see a good B.C. football team that always plays good defense, that did a good job controlling them, and B.C. was able to make some big plays on them. But it came down to explosive plays.

Q. Obviously, you and Ben are on the same page as far as what he has to do to knock people out of the game. What did you tell Kenny about that game in terms of not using him (Inaudible) Saturday?
PAT NARDUZZI: For a young guy like Kenny, everybody wants to get in, but the run game was going good. We weren't making mistakes, weren't turning the ball over. So I think that kind of goes with it. I wouldn't take Kenny out. I wouldn't take Max Brown out if things were going good. So it's a matter of how things are going. It comes down to a feel thing. Do we need a spark? Do we need something else?

Q. We've asked you a lot this year about the running game, and I was looking at conference-wise, the two leading rushers in the conference are Omar Jackson and Marshall. I'm just wondering, as you look at film, you know, are defenses adjusted? Actually you had James, you had Dalvin Cook, and it seems like this might be the first time ever ACC has a leading rusher that's not a running back. Is that sort of symptomatic of this is the way the game's going?
PAT NARDUZZI: Well, Lamar's a running back. He's a back. That guy can run, and it doesn't shock me. But I think every year's different. I think personnel is different. That's why you look at personnel match-ups, whether it's a quarterback. Last year was a good year tailback wise, it was a great running back year. This year, you know, maybe not as much, but we've got some receivers that go up and get the ball, and are making plays in the passing game.

So I think every year is a little bit different, every year can't be the same. That's what I would say. There are still good players and good football teams.

Q. But is it a specialization too though? You've tried it where you give lots of guys opportunities, that's why you go down the roster, and there are lots of guys with five, six, seven, eight carries a game. If you don't have one guy, then maybe you need four guys?
PAT NARDUZZI: Maybe. Until you find the one guy. Darrin Hall didn't have many carries until he did. 24 carries, and all of a sudden he'll probably get more now.

Q. Other than wins and losses over the last four games, what are you looking for from these guys?
PAT NARDUZZI: I'm looking for our guys to come back the next week and try to win one more. It's all about the next game. We're 0-0 right now and just working on the next. That's the thing. Come out and work again. Forget what you've done in the past and move on to the next one.

Q. Are you seeing some things that might carry over into the off-season?
PAT NARDUZZI: In the off-season? You're looking way ahead. But I'm looking for things that carry over for this week. You know, confidence-wise, fundamentally, and in every respect. Again, Saturday there were some good things and some bad things. Some things that we've still got to clean up special teams-wise offensively. Defensively we didn't help our football team out in the third quarter with any field position at all and making poor decisions in the kick return game, not getting the ball past the 25-yard line.

So we put our offense in a rough spot in the third quarter. So we've got a lot of things that we need to improve on, and that's what we're going to be focused on. Not the off-season.

Q. The field position for your defense was at a minus with the penalty, and the helmet coming off. What happened on the play, what did you tell him?
PAT NARDUZZI: What do you tell him? It's hard to tell a kid, hey, they've got 11 guys over there, you've got ten. He should be able to at least run down the field and not hit anybody. Or nobody should hit him. It's one of those things. But to run him off the field is a another just crazy rule.

But he runs off the field and then the guy takes it, punt return for a touchdown. I'd rather have 15 yards and six points, to be honest with you. But Cal didn't care. He's a young guy, ran down the field, looked pretty good. I liked his effort down the field.

What are you going to do? We don't have to coach that often, but obviously it came up and we'll coach it a little bit. But I wouldn't run completely off the field.

Q. You weren't mad at him for doing that. It was more frustration at the role, I guess?
PAT NARDUZZI: Yeah. He started off with a hold on the first play. We would have had him pinned inside the five, then it's a hold, we back us up, make him kick again. His helmet pops off and he's giving great effort. Right there, it says effort. It doesn't say effort with your helmet on or helmet off. The dude gave effort, and he's a great kid.

Q. Was it yanked off? Did you see anything like that?
PAT NARDUZZI: I don't know. It's hard to tell in a scrum.

Q. You mentioned how Folston's blocking for a lot of those runs. Is he a guy, I don't know if ego is the right word, but swallows his pride and says I'm going to help regardless if I'm blocking as a fullback?
PAT NARDUZZI: Yeah, he did a great job Saturday. He had a winning performance blocking with the two tailback sets. You know, he's an unselfish guy that probably had just a rough week last week period but came out and fought and had a great week, really.

Q. Did you see a step forward with your front seven?
PAT NARDUZZI: Kind of. Still not where you want it to be. I saw some hesitation and saw some linebackers that should be fuelling faster and smacking somebody. They're still trying to figure it out. They're still young and not as physical as you'd like them to be. They've got to play more physical this week against Virginia because they are physical. They'll hit you in the mouth, and we've got to come down and hit people in the mouth.

There are times we're out there and trying to do other people's jobs instead of just stick your nose in there and what can somebody in your game and you'll be fine. Don't worry about it popping out. I think until we start trusting each other around us 100% of the time and be physical, that we're going to be the same.

Q. What about Jester, throwing a couple of comeback catches down at the 5? It's been up-and-down kind of season for him. To see him make that play, is that something (Inaudible)?
PAT NARDUZZI: Yeah, I mean, you know, the ball is maybe a little bit underthrown, but the thing is he competed to go get the ball, and he did a heck of a job of going to get it. Again, to come back and get the ball. But Jester's always competing for the ball. Sometimes he'll wait thinking it's going to be laid out here. So it's hard to judge that.

But Jester's had a pretty solid year. They're used to seeing -- they're always playing a guy over top of him with a guy underneath him. So he's getting a lot of double coverage there, but we're still able to get it up to him.

Q. Is that guy over the top this week maybe going to be landing to make a lot of plays for them in the safety spot?
PAT NARDUZZI: He's usually the guy in the deep end, and the other safety will be the rolled up guy. So I would assume we might get some of that.

Q. How do you try to avoid letting them get to you either with a forced fumble or a sack?
PAT NARDUZZI: Execute. You've got to execute. You've got to do a pretty good job of pre-snap and knowing where they are and what they're doing. That will be, the offense does its job directing traffic up front, and the quarterback knowing that look.

Q. (Inaudible)?
PAT NARDUZZI: Phillipie came back and had a really good week. Not only practice-wise. Took him a little time to get back. But Phillipie is back and ready to role. He'll obviously have a bigger role moving forward because he went out and did a nice job playing quarter and some of our nickel back.

Q. (Inaudible) with four games left, even if things seemed kind of difficult at times, how much do you use Bowl eligibility (Inaudible)?
PAT NARDUZZI: Not at all. Not at all. I mean, we haven't mentioned it one time the entire year, you know, in this meeting room here. So, it's not anything we talk about, because we start looking ahead, he is particularly with a young football team, you'll get whacked, even with an older team. We're not worried about that. We're just worried about winning the next one and taking them one at a time. Let the chips fall as they will.

Q. Second halves have at times been where the team has struggled recently. Do you think a win like Duke will give them a little more sense of confidence mentally?
PAT NARDUZZI: Yeah, I think it does. But, you know, every game's different. I think it's just one play at a time. Plays last about six seconds a piece. So you keep stacking six seconds on top of each other for 60 minutes and you have a chance.

But, same thing, you can't look forward to, hey, we're going to win it in the fourth. Just win it in the next play. Forget about the last one. Keep stacking them on top of each other. It's not the second half. It's the first half. There are some things we could do in the first half to give them a bigger jump on it and we don't. We've just got to play each play like it's your last play and go.

But, obviously, we'd like to have a better second half, but we can't worry about just the second half with the third quarter. It's just each play is kind of the process we take.

Q. There was one punt return where (Inaudible) instead of Quadree Henderson. Are you just trying different guys back there?
PAT NARDUZZI: No, you've got to drink more of this. Propel right here is good stuff. You've got to drink more water. Cramping up, it was more of a cramp issue. We have confidence in Maddox kickoff return. He had one of the better sort of rah-rahs.

So, maybe freshness is good. Those guys every day go out there and return punts, so they know what they're doing. We'll just go with whoever is ready to go.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297