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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

November 15, 2017

Pat Narduzzi

Greensboro, North Carolina

COACH NARDUZZI: Just trying to recover from a tough one last week at home here with North Carolina.

Good football team as we know that didn't turn the ball over. We're on to the next but we've got a another great opponent in Virginia tech who we get to play down there. I made the mistake the other day of putting on the Virginia Tech / North Carolina game and watch what their defense did to North Carolina, and you know, they are impressive on both sides of the ball. They have a lot of great players and a lot of speed on the field. It will be a great challenge for us.

Q. Curious as you look at their defense, their linebacker, Andrew Motuapuaka has been very steady and makes a lot of tackles. Do you see him as a guy who is cleaning up or is he a little more active and a playmaker?
COACH NARDUZZI: He does it all. He's a cleanup guy. It's all based on the defense that they are their running, whether it's a blitz or they are playing base. He does a great job. He's got a great nose for the football.

They are playing their base and he has an opportunity to read his keys and get down and get downhill and fit where he's supposed to be. Obviously with the success they have had, it all starts with that linebacker, not only with his intelligence but the way he plays. He's a heck of a football player and he's a leader.

Q. Looking at Terrell Edmunds, their safety, is going to be out for rest of the season. What kind of an impact did he have, and how does that affect your preparation knowing that a player like that won't be back there?
COACH NARDUZZI: You know, really doesn't change your preparation. Obviously Terrell is a good football player. I'm sure his brother will play his tail off for him, so he'll still be with them on that defense. You know, he's tremendous obviously.

But when you look at their skill that they have on defense, you know, they have got him playing around somewhere where they move Anthony Shegog over there to that spot or Khalil takes over for him. They have got guys. It starts up front. It starts with Tim Settle and Ricky Walker and Vinny up front. Those are the guys up front that will make the biggest impact and those guys make those guys job on the back edge a little bit easier.

Q. Speaking on that, one of your former quarterbacks, Nate Peterman, is going to get the starting job with the Bills finally this season. What can you say about what they have in him?
COACH NARDUZZI: Yeah, you know, Nathan Peterman, came off the field today and heard that news, which is obviously great news for the Peterman family and in in my opinion for the Buffalo Bills.

Immediately picked up my cell phone and gave him a call. I'm excited for him. They have a smart quarterback. I think that move there by Coach McDermott, I also texted John McDermott, as well. We've known each other for a long time. I had a call with him and his senior staff I guess over there probably the Sunday before the Draft talking about him in front of their group and just told him what I thought about it back then. I think he's a Kirk Cousins, who I've been around a lot, a smart guy that's going to get better game-by-game. I think the Bills fans will be eager to watch him.

I know the touchdown he threw last week -- we've kind of stayed abreast of what's going on, even though as a college football coach you don't very often get to watch much of the NFL video that's happening. But our video people put some clips together what's happened with some of the guys in the league that are Pitt grads. I'm happy for him and I think they will make some improvements offensively and he's going to steadily get better every day.

Q. As far as your team this season, at 4-6 with a couple games to go, where have you seen improvement on the team and what have you taken away from the squad this year as you have two big games coming up to round out the regular season?
COACH NARDUZZI: We have two big ones for sure. You know, it would be nice to finish on a strong note with these two wins, which is obviously the intent, what we intend to do here as we approach these two games. We know they are against two top-notch opponents, one of the top four teams.

I've seen improvements in a lot of different areas. Is it what you need to win a football game? You know, last week, I thought we played a pretty darned good game but a couple costly penalties and one drive -- I should say, one penalty and a drive and some others, maybe no penalties and a drive and hurt us and cost us a football game, and then, you know, kickoff return, some of those things.

So it's something different, but I think out kids come together. The biggest thing, if you would say what is the biggest improvement, I would say it's our run game; that we have been able to get our run game going as we try to christen a new quarterback and try to find out where our passing game is or where it's gone.

I think you can say, hey what do we do well on offense. We did a nice job of running the football the last three weeks. I think defensively, you have to say we've done a pretty good job of stopping the run at times, except for that last drive where we would have liked to get the ball back to our offense.

Q. I know he's gone back and forth between offense and defense, how important to have a player on your team who is willing to fill whatever role you need him to fill.
COACH NARDUZZI: You know, Mike is a great kid. He is a supper, super kid. He's a team guy. You know, just it's funny, you ask about him because yesterday he's in there all by himself sitting in a D-Line meeting room watching video all by himself. So he's into it. And I just asked how he's doing. He says,

"I'm a lot happier in this room." He loves defense.

He came as a defensive player, moved him to guard, moved him back over. He's done both for us. He's actually gotten more snaps as a defensive player this year probably than on offense. I believe he got a start early in the year at right guard, but he's a super guy -- and it's unbelievable. It's great to have guys that can play both ways. One of our philosophies in recruiting is to take more D-Linemen than you take inside guards and centers because they can do both and that's the case with Mike. If we have a depth problem, someone's hurt, we can certainly bring them over.

But we've left him over the last couple weeks and he just keeps getting better I think. He's a guy that could play both ways for us and probably just loves that defensive side of the ball more than the offensive side of the ball right now.

Q. Do you have a plan nor next year at this point or is that something you'll decide in the off-season with him, where you'd like him to play next year?
COACH NARDUZZI: Yeah, that's an off-season plan and it very likely could be that he plays both ways again and find out where he is in the two-deep. We have to get him, if he can start somewhere, that's a bonus. I.

Don't want to say, hey, he's a D-tackle but he's one of the three starters. I'd rather him be a starter. I think it depends where we feel like he can get in there and help us, where our needs are at based on graduation and seniors that have moved on.

So I think that's going to be really where it starts is looking at the plan and what we've lost. Again, we don't lose that many seniors. We don't lose anybody on defense overall, except a defensive end in Allen Edwards. I mean, we have two seniors playing for us right now, so we're a young football team.

Offensively we lose probably, we lose one of our guards in Alex Officer, so that will be something to say, is he going to be the guy to fill for AO.

Q. I'm talking to him at 12:30. Any tips on how to get him to say more than two or three words?
COACH NARDUZZI: Talk about food and talk about defense. You got it. That will get it. He likes food and he likes defense.

Q. Why has Darrin emerged for you guys in the run game? What has he done the last three weeks that has given you guys a spark?
COACH NARDUZZI: You know, he's really just played really good and I think our offensive line is tied in with him. It's great to see him. After Duke, you're sitting there looking for the guy that's going to be the hot guy for you and after the Duke game, you're going, wow, that's great, he had two long runs and 250 plus and all that and he was able to match another great performance against Virginia and he had another really good one against North Carolina that we had a really good chance to win and didn't get it done.

So why, I don't know. Maybe he's figured it out. He's really pressing the line of scrimmage well. When I say that, he's able to set up blocks for O-line. So you know, it's not that he's just gaining the yards. It's how he's running the ball. He's really taken to the coaching. Coach Powell, our running back coach, he's pressing it and O-linemen are able to get their blocks when he presses it well. And when you talk about flow of linebacker play and D-Line play, because he's setting the blocks for the offensive line, it makes their job easier, too.

I've said it all along throughout the season, when the run game was sputtering, that, you know, it's not just the O-Line. Everybody wants to point at the O-Line when you're not running, or, oh, it's the running backs the next week. It's a combination the quarterback, the O-Line, obviously the running back play and our receivers blocking downfield, too.

There's 11 guys out there. I think as a whole, they are doing a great job and they are engaged in what we are doing.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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