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UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

November 14, 2019

Pat Narduzzi

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Pitt - 34, North Carolina - 27

PAT NARDUZZI: All right. Well first off, that football team in there, I love those guys. There's no football team I would rather walk out of the locker room or run out of the locker room than those guys. They played their tails off against a really, really good football team, as you guys know. Sam Howell is a great quarterback. Receivers, that Newsome kid is hard to cover. Probably the play of the game was when he went for an interception and they called targeting, which, I guess, I don't know what targeting is anymore. A guy's got his arms out looking for the ball.

But we got two good wins today and we beat everybody on the field today. So the hat goes off to our players in there. They made all the plays. Kenny Pickett with a great touchdown, our defense held at the end in overtime, tough situation, backs against the walls, and our kids made plays, so I'm proud of them and thank the man upstairs. He was with this football team today. So, questions.

Q. What can you say about Kenny's performance two rushing touchdowns, a passing touchdown, one in overtime?
PAT NARDUZZI: Kenny was outstanding. He was on target. I don't think he had a bad pass. Obviously, we had some drops in the first half which was going to happen. Jared Wayne had a couple nice catches for a young guy getting in there, made some nice catches, could have maybe had a touchdown over the middle. Shocky was outstanding. But Kenny Pickett was on fire all day long. He played outstanding.

Q. Is there a reason why you guys didn't push the ball down field the last three games and decided to today?
PAT NARDUZZI: It doesn't matter. We can go back, I tell our kids all the time, we're right here, today. And like I said. We take what they give us and our kids made plays today.

Q. Did Shocky, in the absence of Maurice, how do you think he did?
PAT NARDUZZI: Yeah, we did some other things with getting Taysir in the slot. Obviously, we knew Maurice was obviously out at that play. I appreciate you guys keeping it quiet, you guys knew all along, didn't you? But Maurice was out, kind of got a little broken jaw on a freak play, really, got a knee to the jaw. He'll be back out for the year and those guys stepped up. That catch by Taysir Mack at the end in overtime was outstanding. And Shocky had a big day, guys made plays.

Q. Maurice's broken jaw, did that happen down at Georgia Tech?
PAT NARDUZZI: Yes, on a punt return on their sideline.

Q. You had Kessman back there punting. What was, what went into that?
PAT NARDUZZI: Kirk had a nice sky punt. Our plan going into the day, I haven't been really happy with our punt game, and really, we had kind of a punt tryout and Kess won the job. And we didn't punt very much today but he would have punted all regular punts. And Kirk was going to kick our sky punts because he's been outstanding with that all year. So we'll see who wins it this week.

Q. UNC gained a lot of yards, but in the overtime period you really kind of stepped up and Twyman came up with a big play there. Can you talk about that a little?
PAT NARDUZZI: Jaylen Twyman is a beast. I think he had two-and-a-half sacks or whatever he had, four-man pressure most of the day. They tried to gap protect, it was hard to get home, their offensive line is very good. They max protected a lot and tried to get Newsome. Again, like I said, if Damar is playing the whole game, we probably don't go overtime, I can tell you that. He's special out there at the free safety spot, and not having him really hurt us in the second half.

Q. That was probably as much adversity as your defense has seen in a while, right?
PAT NARDUZZI: It is, but, and again, it's a good football team, I mean, Howell hadn't thrown many interceptions, we got one, probably could have had two, you got me. Great, great plays on their half. Paris Ford goes and gets a diving interception that doesn't count. But the pass rush was good all day. I thought there was -- I don't know how they didn't get home more, put it that way. But like I said, we had a couple victories out there, one against UNC and we'll leave it at that.

Q. Does being in these tight games give you guys a sense of confidence?
PAT NARDUZZI: It gives me a heart attack, I can tell you that.

Q. For your players, I mean, this is a team you haven't had success, it's always tight and they always seem to find a way to win it.
PAT NARDUZZI: That's what you said all week it's been a tight game, and in 2019 it was another tight one and the Panthers came out on top. And again, it's character in there, those guys believe in each other and, like I say, that's as big a team win as you can have offensive, defensively, made plays when they needed to.

Q. Is there a feeling of kind of a monkey off the back of getting a win in this series for the first time?
PAT NARDUZZI: You know what, you can call it that, whatever you want to call it. It's a good football team and, yeah, it's, I guess the monkey is off the back. It's a win.

Q. Fourth and three on North Carolina's 7 there in the first quarter, you guys go for it. What went into that decision?
PAT NARDUZZI: Well, like I said, if we kick it you'll wonder why we didn't go for it and, you know, felt like we had a good play and we got, I think that -- again, it's been a long time since that first quarter -- but I think we had a chance to convert it and we didn't make the play there and didn't execute it. But what went into it? We're going to go for it. So, taking a chance.

Q. You had the same situation twice, right? One time you went for it, one time you kicked. Is that just feel?
PAT NARDUZZI: It's feel, that's what -- it's like you got to take the points, depends on the score and everything else, so just coach's feel and you got to do what you got to do.

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