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UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

September 30, 2019

Pat Narduzzi

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

PAT NARDUZZI: Right on time. Monday morning, it's always great to get started on a new week. But to finish up Delaware week, I think when I watch the tape, I see exactly what I kind of saw on the sideline there. We didn't play our best game. When you look at getting better from game 4 to game 5, I didn't really see it out there. Why? Again, I'll give you the same answer maybe I gave you after the game, I think it comes down to emotions. I think our guys didn't play the best game they could have. I think you'd better have your mind right. I don't think our guys really did.

You know, the positive out of the whole thing is we were still able to get a win, and that's all that matters is a win. Call it ugly, call it what you want, it's a win and it's nice when you don't play very good and you still win. That's the beautiful thing about it.

So that's really all I've got to say about that.

You know, obviously defensively I thought we played solid. Had two short fields, so nothing has changed there. It was good to get Nick Patti out there and find out what he's got. Again, played a solid game. Would not say he's all-ACC pick this week, but he was solid. And again, it's the first time, probably like any starting quarterback getting his first snaps as a starting quarterback.

And obviously we were a little shorthanded Saturday, and you know, I think that all plays a part. Emotionally, as well. We'll find out where we are this week. As you guys know, I won't talk about it, but we were shorthanded, and we'll find out how shorthanded we'll be this week.

Then it's on to Duke, and we're playing a 3-1 Duke football team that lost to the No. 1 team in the country in the opener, had 450 yards of offense I believe that day, gave Duke problems offensively as you watch the tape. They struggled to cover some of their guys across the board.

And again, Coach Cutcliffe does a great job. He's one of the best in the country. He's a quarterback guru. Obviously he's got one playing for the New York Giants that everybody didn't think Daniel was very good, but I guess he's pretty good. I thought he was pretty good last year when he had some pretty darned good numbers against us.

This Quentin Harris is a quarterback this year who was kind of a wildcat guy a year ago, is a really, really good football player. He's very accurate with his passes. He can run better than a Daniel Jones. They like to run him. I think he's their leading rusher, as well, and Zac Roper and obviously Coach Cut, who I think both call that offense together, game plan together. I think they're one of the best in the country, I really do. Just schematically what they try to do to you, they don't do too much. What they do, they know what they're doing. They're very detailed in the way they run routes, how they kind of stem around. They're very, very good.

You know, it'll be a challenge Saturday night for sure. Defensively they've got eight returning starters, and Ben Albert is one of the co-defensive coordinators I've known for a long time, and I think they're about as good as they've been ever that I've seen a Duke football team on defense. Again, with eight returning starters you would think that would be the case. Up front I think they've got some guys. They're impressive, really top to bottom offensively, defensively and special teams.

We've got a lot of work to do this week to get prepared for the Blue Devils.

Q. Will Kenny play this week?
PAT NARDUZZI: Again, I thought he'd play last week, so I don't know. I'm not going to -- in my opening statement I talked about we're going to find out. I don't know. I wish I could tell you everything, but I can't tell you. I don't know.

Q. Is he feeling better?
PAT NARDUZZI: Next question. Here we go. You got a question? I don't know. He felt good Saturday. I thought he was going. So done.

Duke is really good.

Q. I don't think they've ever beat you since you've been coaching here, right?
PAT NARDUZZI: I don't know. I'm worried about 2019. It doesn't matter.

Q. How is Duke different this year?
PAT NARDUZZI: You know what, they're -- again, they're a year older. I think they've got veterans on defense for sure. They don't have as many veterans on offense. They like to run the football. They like their RPOs. I don't think offensively they're much different. I don't think defensively -- schematically they do what they do. They're a veteran staff. I guess the biggest -- it's a great question. The biggest difference they've got is everybody thought Paul Johnson was gone, okay, and he'd retired and playing a lot of golf and playing some gin after golf and all those things, but Coach Cut has taken over for Paul Johnson. They run and they've got a series -- we'll expect probably -- we're going to expect probably 10 to 15 snaps of the spread offense, the Georgia Tech offense. Each week it seems they add a little bit more to it, so it gets you -- you've got to go back to your Georgia Tech game planning and find out what you want to do against what they do.

And again, their quarterback Harris can run it. He's good at it. They started off in the opener against Alabama. I think they ran 12 snaps in that game and had some success, and the more success they have the more you're going to see it. We've got to nail that down, try to take them out of that and let them get back to their normal offense, obviously, and that's why we're going to practice Georgia Tech all week, so we're playing Duke/Georgia Tech this week. That's how they're different.

Q. Have you watched the film or video from every game they've played?
PAT NARDUZZI: Yeah, now obviously we've played five, they've played four, and they lost their opener and won three straight, so we've watched -- we'll go back and watch four games -- we'll watch Pitt for the last four years, and we're going to watch every game they've played this year. We'll tag into some plays last year and games and trick plays. It's pretty extensive. We'll go back and look at all the trick plays they've run, any explosives. We'll look at everything.

Q. How can you get the return game going better?
PAT NARDUZZI: You know what, we've faced some good punters. When you look at kickoff, it's hard to get it started when the ball is kicked out of the end zone all the time. We put AJ Woods back there last week, not because Maurice Ffrench wasn't doing a good job, just to give Maurice Ffrench a blow. At least he doesn't have to run all the way from the sideline all the way 50 yards to get down to the end zone to watch that thing go over his head and go out of the end zone.

So each week we evaluate that, and again, we gave AJ that opportunity because he's fast. He may be the fastest guy on our football team, and he's playing special teams and he can catch kickoffs.

But you know, obviously we have to get it going. Our punt return is one of the ones that you'd like to get going. If you came back and watched the tape like we watched as a team last night and watched some of the blocks we have, really in both phases, both return games, we're one or two blocks or we're a hold away from popping a few, and we're not executing properly.

And I think it comes down to -- everybody thinks the returner has got to be a great one. It's not just the returner, it's the other 10 guys doing what they're supposed to do to get those blocks, and it's also the returner hitting where he needs to go.

Q. You opted for a 57-yard field goal instead of going for it on 4th and 7. How much was that decision impacted by not having Kenny?
PAT NARDUZZI: You know, I think it was -- you're in that iffy position, you're kind of like eh, 4th and 7 is a long way to go, I don't really want to punt it, and he's got that -- we know he's got the leg. I thought his rhythm, I thought everything was really good with Kess, and by no means are we saying what are you doing, Kess, missing a 57-yarder. It's not like the weeks before. He hit his 21-yarder, whatever it was early, and I don't think any coach, period, in the country should hold a 57-yarder against somebody. But he had the leg, and it's just giving him those opportunities, so when we have those opportunities that's one of those in-betweens, you've got to go try to take some points.

Q. You've listed four running backs this year as "ors" on the depth chart. Is that health-related?
PAT NARDUZZI: You guys, what do you think it is? Yeah.

Q. Nick Patti was 9 of 13, 9 of 13 passes for 3rd down, and seven of them went for 1st downs, obviously he had the 3rd and 17 to Taysir. What have you seen out of him in those situations?
PAT NARDUZZI: You know, obviously he made some plays when we needed to. Obviously the game plan gets slimmed down a little bit when he's in there. You're not going to ask him to do everything that Kenny would do, and I think that's the great thing about -- one of the reasons I hired Coach Whipple is his development of a quarterback; his detail and care into each one as a separate guy. It's not they all run the same offense. And he's done it before. He's developed those.

To say I'm surprised that Nick went in and operated and performed like he did, not surprised, just because I've seen him do it. He played with three quarterbacks, if you looked at their stats at UMass last year, you'd go, okay, he's done this before, so he does a good job at developing them and doing what they can do, not just throwing them to the wolves out there and letting them throw stuff that maybe he's not really good with right now at this point in his career.

Q. What have you seen out of Patrick Jones?
PAT NARDUZZI: Yeah, Patrick has played well. He's played well all year. Defensively you take away some minus or some plus territory touchdowns, probably holding people's score down. It's going to be a challenge this week, that's for sure. These guys are scoring in the 40s every week, and this will be our biggest challenge to this date. But Patrick Jones has got to have a great game.

The one thing about Duke is they've given up one sack on the year, so they're getting the ball out quick, out of Quentin's hands, and they're not taking negative plays. They throw it quick.

Q. Do you change your defensive strategy with this quarterback?
PAT NARDUZZI: You know, I mean, you hope you can continue to do what you do. If you change it, we probably won't be very good at change. Change is hard, you know. Your wife knows that. She's tried to change you for how many years now, and you haven't changed. So it's just -- it's like, who are you, what do you do well, let's do it better and let's hope we can get some sacks.

Q. Delaware was the fourth game that the defense hasn't forced any turnovers. Is there anything you can do from a preparation standpoint to maybe force more --
PAT NARDUZZI: You know, there's a couple tiny little things. You'll see one time Erick Hallett comes through, if you go back and watch the videotape that I've got, and he's trying to lay the quarterback out and put his face on the quarterback and his chest, but if he does this, he can knock the ball out, and again, I know my hand is going to get to this mic a lot quicker than my chest is going to get there. We've got to knock the ball out. So there's a couple things like that that we've just got to continue to hammer into our kids' heads. But sometimes they come, sometimes they don't. I'm not going crazy over it. You can't. You'd like to get more. We'd like to go dunk a basketball or a football, whatever you want to do, but we -- it is what it is. Damar Hamlin, second play of the game, I believe, has got a chance to take a pick six but he undercuts it and doesn't make the tackle.

You start talking about just going to get the ball, I get worried that they're going to get the ball and they miss and then the guy turns and runs for a touchdown. You've got to take what they give you, and we continue every week to do the same things as far as trying to get the ball out in our team periods, and we've just got to keep going. Things will happen.

Q. A few places out of New Jersey mentioned you as a candidate for Rutgers. What's your reaction to that?
PAT NARDUZZI: I signed a long-term contract here a few years ago, and my daughter is a senior in high school right now. She'll be a freshman next year in college, and I'm here at Pitt and I'm saying at Pitt. Real simple.

Q. When you use the Pitt Special in the Central Florida game, does that have a tendency --
PAT NARDUZZI: How many weeks ago was that?

Q. Two.
PAT NARDUZZI: That's the problem, you guys keep bringing this stuff up, and our guys are still thinking about the Pitt Special. You probably put a design on the -- that's the problem. They're the -- whatever, go ahead.

Q. The question deals with the future. For the defense to have a play like that in their repertoire, does that loosen them up a little bit?
PAT NARDUZZI: No, no. They're probably thinking that we're never going to run that play again, so they're like, oh, good, I'm glad they wasted it on UCF. I wonder what else they've got. We'll see.

Q. Is Harris similar to Bryce Perkins or how have all these mobile quarterbacks kind of prepared you for this, and how do you feel you guys have done against running quarterbacks this year?
PAT NARDUZZI: You know what? Again, the opener in Perkins I think is a different deal, but Henderson last week, I told you that guy was a good football player. That guy can run. He's impressive. He's got moxie. I really like -- we've played some good quarterbacks this year. When you look at what we've faced so far, they all -- I think everybody prepares you. This team is a little bit different. Their drop is not as deep. There's sometimes that quarterback was at 14 yards running sideways just to get the heck out of the pocket. This one has got a little shorter as far as dropping the pocket and all that, so it's all different, but this guy can run, and they like to run the ball. They like to read D-ends and find out if the quarterback is going to keep it. It's certainly going to help us, that's for sure.

Q. Given what your defense has done so far (indiscernible) does it in some small way (indiscernible)?
PAT NARDUZZI: You guys ask, I think, this question every week, and I can probably give you the same answer. First of all, it's Randy Bates' defense, and our defensive staff's defense. I'm just sitting there watching and critiquing. But we'll find out at the end of the year. If Duke puts up another 619 yards on us this week, what do you think I'm going to say next Monday? So we'll find out. We get graded every week. Nobody cares what they did against Delaware, nobody cares about Central Florida and the Pitt Special, nobody cares about the week before or the week before that. All's I care about is Duke, and we've got to focus on Duke. It doesn't matter where our defense is going to be or our offense at the end of the year, it doesn't matter. All that stuff, we need to throw that stuff out the doors, out the windows and let our kids focus on Duke because if we don't focus on Duke, none of that stuff matters.

At the end of the year we'll grade it, we'll sit down, we'll have an hour press conference where we can talk about all the stats. I'll pull the stat sheets up and we'll look at them all together and we'll analyze them, but it doesn't matter. It really doesn't. Our defensive staff and Randy Bates have done a tremendous job. They've done a great job game planning, putting our kids in position to make plays, but I don't care what you did last week. If you guys are going to get fat and happy in the staff room over there and start eating cheeseburgers, have the GA's go out and get some donuts for lunch instead of worrying about stopping Duke -- which is not going to happen. Our guys work tails off, and it's just one week at a time, and it's a process.

I don't ever go sit in a staff meeting, pull the stats up, and go look, guys, we're No. 1 here, we're No. 88 here. It doesn't matter because a lot of times all those stats are based on who you played and who you didn't play. Great question, though.

Q. You guys have played some good teams, though.
PAT NARDUZZI: I know, but it doesn't matter. You're only as good as your last week. Okay, like I said, the 619 yards, it doesn't matter. Right now when I look at that tape, I get sick and I think we're a crappy defense, so we'll find out what we get this weekend, and we'll evaluate them week by week, and then at the end of the year we'll find out who we've got. Same thing offensively, same thing with our punt team, same thing -- I mean, it doesn't matter. One week our punt team is good, one week they show weakness. One week we get a blocked punt, the next week you get two blocked punts, and then what are they going to do this week? It doesn't matter what they did last week. Are we going to rough the punter again? Are we going to hit the punter? Maybe we take one to the house. Is it going to cost us a 1st down?

The stat I'm worried about is they had 15 1st downs last week, and five of them were by defensive penalty. To me that drives me -- they got four 1st downs by running the ball and got five by penalty. That ain't good. Those are what I'm looking at. I'm grading those things. I'm looking at all the bad stuff. We've got to get better.

Q. Do you like the fact that you're going to be playing ACC teams the rest of the way?
PAT NARDUZZI: Yeah, I am. I think it's kind of a new year now. It kind of starts -- we opened up with an ACC team, which is always tough, I think, for either team, if you lose the game. But now we're back into trying to go back to Charlotte sometime, you know. Each one of these next games counts, and I think our kids understand what they're playing for the next several weeks. I'm excited about getting back in the ACC. You're familiar with who they are, kids know who they are, they can watch tape from last year and see what they did or didn't do, and go, okay, I'd better strap it up and get ready to go.

Q. This was the third time you guys have had six sacks. How is this front seven, not just the front four but the front seven, with Kyle getting in there, too? How is this front seven different than what you guys have had in the past?
PAT NARDUZZI: You know what, the sacks -- the front seven is detailed. Again, we gave up some sacks, as well, so I'm looking at the bad parts of it. But the front seven has done a nice job. But if you go back and watch the tape, on some of those sacks, the quarterback is like, ugh. There's times when he's even taken that hand off the ball, wants to go, and he's like, ooh, I can't, and then he gets hit. It's coverage sacks as well as people beating one-on-one.

So it's a combination. It takes 11, and it's a super question. It takes 11 all the time, and we can have -- Jaylen Twyman can come running through the A-gap untouched, but if it's crappy coverage and he throws the ball, it's kind of like, it doesn't matter.

So coverage sacks are what matter, and Duke has got one sack they've given up all year. They're getting the ball out quick. Quarterback is making a great decision. How good is the coverage? I don't know. We've got to have good coverage or we're not going to get a sack, either, like everybody else.

Q. (Indiscernible) I don't know if they've ever talked to you about these guys' offense, but would you be in favor of that down the line?
PAT NARDUZZI: Yeah, we'll talk about it after the season. I'm worried about stopping Duke and their empty sets and their bone formations option. I haven't read that today. I haven't looked at the news. I have no idea. I don't even know what that means, what it -- I don't even know. That's something we'll talk about, I'm sure, as an ACC Conference later on. But I've got no comment on that. I mean, it's -- we're not in California. Neither is Duke. I don't know. Sorry, I can't answer that. I don't even know anything about it.

Q. Quentin Harris leads the ACC in (indiscernible). If you look at the tape, is Duke mainly throwing passes around the line of scrimmage within 10 yards or are they trying to push the ball vertically?
PAT NARDUZZI: They do both. He throws -- a couple weeks we talked about that guy throwing some balls up. Quentin will throw it up, he'll throw the deep ball, he'll throw intermediate routes. He throws all the balls. He really throws it all over the place. They love to line up in empty and spread you out. They're going to run quarterback draw, they're going to dink you all over the place and then they're going to take shots, so they do a little bit of everything. He's a good football player. He's just another talented quarterback in the ACC. We've got our hands full with him for sure. He's throwing it everywhere.

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