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UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

November 18, 2019

Pat Narduzzi

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

PAT NARDUZZI: All right. Right on time. It's nice to come in here on a Monday after a nice Thursday win. I had a good weekend like I told you I would. Got a lot of work done, and got a head start on Virginia Tech, which is where our focus is right now. I thought it was an impressive win for our kids on Thursday night. I loved the effort they played with. They played hard, flew around, played tough, were physical. And obviously we weren't perfect. I didn't say the word "perfect," but we were physical. We found a way to win that football game like we have all year.

You can call it ugly or you can call it pretty, whatever you want to. In the end, it's about W's, and that's what our guys produce.

I'm just impressed that offense that sits on this side of the room really had a nice afternoon or evening, was impressed with them. Defensively, probably a little bit disappointed in really their performance and what they did. And again Sam Howell is a good quarterback, made some nice throws. But when you watch the videotape and you look at the details, it was about the details, the little tiny things. If we had done those better -- we gave up one big run, which the linebacker takes the back door, and it's like what are you doing? But when you do that, that's when you get beat and that's why you give up yards.

So, again, a lot of the liner details were missed, and I think as much as everybody pats the defense on the back -- like I told you, you get evaluated at the end of the year -- we evaluate them weekly, but we don't give them stars on their piece of paper. But they didn't play up to par, the expectations of what we have for them.

So we'll have a better outing this weekend, I promise you that.

Obviously we've got a hot, hot Virginia Tech football team, Bud Foster on defense and Justin Fuente, I think, runs the offense or has his hands in it very heavily. They're talented. They've turned it around since the Duke game where I think everybody in the country looked and said man, this is going to be an easy one. Now we get to mid November, late November and find we're going to have a battle on our hands down in Blacksburg. They're well-coached, they're tough, they're physical, they like to run the football, and again, they're playing with a lot of confidence right now with five straight wins.

I think the turnaround, EJ asked me walking down the hallway, What's a turnaround? I said you're not a reporter, stop asking me those questions. But really their quarterback, the Hooker kid who we recruited out of high school, we offered him, has been really sound. He's thrown eight touchdowns, no interceptions. He gives them a chance to be in every football game because he's taking care of the football.

And then defensively, obviously, Bud Foster and their defense, they're always going to be attacking you and getting after you, so it's a well-coached football team.

Questions?

Q. It's been a long season, obviously. How do you keep the team fresh this time of year?
PAT NARDUZZI: You go to the zoo. We were at the zoo yesterday. Went to go check out the animals, the giraffes and the lions and the tigers. The kids had a good team. The seals.

How do you keep them fresh? I think the best way to keep them fresh is to win. I think people get worn down when you lose. I think it's easy to be fresh when you win, and I think winning football games, guys stay fresh that way. And, obviously, we want to take care of their bodies physically in the training room and in recovery with our strength coaches, but nobody is fresh at this time physically. But, mentally, we'll start to trim practice a little bit this late in the game, but it's all part of the game.

Q. (Inaudible.)
PAT NARDUZZI: Not really. He's played a lot of good games. That's one of them. I'd say it's one of the top five or six of them that he was just on fire. He didn't miss much. When you watch the tape, he ran well. He threw it away when he wanted -- when he should have. That's what we expect out of him. Again, I think he just gets more and more comfortable. Put the tape on and put the Virginia tape on at the beginning of the year, it's a different dude. But it's called coaching and our offensive staff's got a nice job with him and obviously Coach Whipple.

Q. What's the situation with Maurice?
PAT NARDUZZI: Day by day. Day by day.

Q. Have you ever dealt with a player with a broken (indiscernible)?
PAT NARDUZZI: Never.

Q. Obviously, that's different than saying someone has a sprained knee or something like that. I don't know, is that something you can play through?
PAT NARDUZZI: You know, it comes down to his pain tolerance. He feels like he is. We're going to make sure we protect him. And we'll make a good decision, he'll make a good decision and we'll figure out where he is by Thursday.

Q. Virginia Tech is in the top five red zone offenses in the country. What's allowed them to be so successful when they go down there and finish drives?
PAT NARDUZZI: You know, because they run the football, and they run it well. That's kind of how they're made. They're going to throw fades into the end zone, when they get down in the red zone. And they've -- they'll switch up and put Patterson in at quarterback who's 240 pounds. He's a tailback that runs like a fullback and he's big like a fullback. They do a job. Justin Fuente does a great job game-planning and when they get down there, they try to get seven points instead of three. It's a big deal.

Q. When your team gives up those two quick touchdowns in the fourth quarter and they stop on the field goal, what's that say about their bounce-back and their confidence?
PAT NARDUZZI: You've got to love it. Things happen. Like I said, it's a game of inches and details, and our guys didn't take care of some details. But when it counted, they made those plays, holding them to a field goal after they gave up two touchdowns. And it's like our kids could have that mentality, like, here we go again, but they didn't. They made plays. They were relentless. And then in overtime, they got eight plays and eight yards is all they got in overtime out of eight plays. They had to go for it on 4th down twice just to get it.

And, again, it started with our offense scoring a touchdown, so they had to match the touchdown, so they had to go for it on 4th down. But it just tells you who those guys are and what they've got in that chest cavity, I think.

Q. How encouraged have you been to see this team win close games but also win them in different ways? Is that a sign of growth, maturity and toughness?
PAT NARDUZZI: It is. I mean, our guys -- like I said, I used the word relentless earlier. The kids play hard and they believe. You can have all these pretty blowout wins, but do you find out who you really are? I think we know who they are. I think when it gets down to a fourth quarter in Blacksburg, we'll know what we're going to get. Our guys aren't going to quit regardless of what the score is. Our guys are going to keep going, believing that they've got a chance. I can't say everybody is like that.

But I think everybody likes these blowout wins and all that, and they're nice and whatever. Does it tell you who you are? That's what's been most impressive about our kids.

Q. What's special specifically about Bud Foster's defense? What has made him successful?
PAT NARDUZZI: You know, number one is his continuity. He's been there for so long. He knows the kids, he knows the area. I mean, he obviously understands the game of football. He's a great Xs and Os guy and he's a great motivator, gets those guys going. That's why Bud Foster is a legend and he's only got a couple games left.

Q. Do you see that in different ways, blitzing teams and (indiscernible) as much?
PAT NARDUZZI: Yeah, they play a lot of -- tight man coverage is really what he's known for, his man coverage and the way they attack the line of scrimmage. They've always had great players up in their front seven, and they have had great safeties going to play next door.

Q. Can you appreciate how long he's been at it?
PAT NARDUZZI: I can appreciate it in the world of coaching, no doubt about it. And the same place, too, for that long shows you he's a loyal guy, and he obviously loves where he lives.

Q. Going back to last year's game, 52-22, it's so different, the personnel is so different. Do you take much from that game last year?
PAT NARDUZZI: I mean, you watch it, you look at it. You obviously change things up from what you did a year ago, so you're never going to keep anything the same. You have to do something different offensively and defensively. If you think you're going to come out and run the same run game that we had so much success with two big old tailbacks -- I guess Qadree scored his first touchdown. Congrats to him with the Falcons.

But it's a totally different football game. Last year doesn't matter, two years ago doesn't matter. It's 2019, it's this football team. It's the talent and the personnel you have right now that you have to deal with and work with.

Q. You mentioned briefly (indiscernible) what have you seen out of him?
PAT NARDUZZI: Jared Wayne would have played a lot more had he -- he was a little nicked up for a few weeks and we didn't know if he'd get back to get that fifth game in. And then when Maurice got banged up a little bit, it's like this guy has got to go. He's our next best option. But what we've seen big ol' target. I mean, the one thing Kenny says is I can see him coming across the middle. He's not this little guy running across. You can see a big target over the middle that he can find and see. And he's smooth, he runs really well, and he's going to be a great receiver in this conference.

Q. How encouraging is that to have two freshmen that are that impactful this early?
PAT NARDUZZI: No doubt about it. He had one little error at the end where he didn't get lined up and we had an illegal motion, which was pretty critical, but that's going to happen with freshmen, true freshmen.

Q. Why do you think Matt Harper has been able to transition so quickly?
PAT NARDUZZI: Because he's got Italian blood. I don't know. (Laughs).

Q. How about Shocky Jacques-Louis stepping up?
PAT NARDUZZI: Shocky is a good player. Shocky is fast. Shocky is one of the faster guys on our team. We saw it two years ago in camp, I guess his freshman year in camp, just go take off. The ball looked like it was overthrown, and all of the sudden you saw this guy go. But we're happy where he's is right now. He's healthy, and that's been the big them just keeping him healthy. So just got to keep him going. I think he's got a little confidence right now, too. That was a catch, too, by the way. We'll leave it right there.

Q. Did you have any conversations with him --
PAT NARDUZZI: No. (Laughter.)

Q. Have you spoken to (indiscernible)?
PAT NARDUZZI: No. No capiche about that.

Q. Seriously, though, what has been the big thing with him?
PAT NARDUZZI: You know, actually he's a talented guy. He's athletic. And I'll say this, for guys that haven't played that much, sometimes it's better not to play that much. You don't build any bad habits. Some guys have been playing -- yeah. I was playing since I was four. Yeah, you've been doing that same stuff since you were four. I wish we would have had you when you were earlier. He doesn't have a bunch of bad habits, he's coachable, he's smart. And Coach Partridge gets all the credit, he's developed him into a football player.

Again, it's not necessarily the knowledge, it's really coming off that injury that he had. And to play like he's played right now has been the most impressive thing. And probably the guy nobody's talking about, Patrick Jones. And you're talking about Haba. Let's talk about Deslin, the two plays he made in that fourth quarter last drive, the last play of the game, he gets a piece of that quarterback's arm and that's why that ball flutters. That guy has got a motor. Deslin has played outstanding, and he played -- he had a heck of a game and made some critical, critical plays in the end where he takes a tight end and drives him right into the quarterback, and the quarterback throws it on the 2nd down into the dirt. It's because of Deslin and what he did.

Q. 21 of your 45 sacks this year have happened on 3rd down. Does that show --
PAT NARDUZZI: It's depth. You'd love to get them to third down and long. And it's depth. Our kids believing in what they're doing. We get into that package and we think it's an elite package. We think we do some stuff in that package that a lot of people don't do, can't do. Coach Whipple hates seeing it in preseason camp. There's just a lot of different things coming. And we've got some new twists for this week, as well, that maybe nobody has seen yet. So I think that's -- there's a lot of stuff coming at you, and you've got to pick it up and it's not easy.

We didn't actually -- we played -- we didn't play great on Saturday on 3rd down. That's kind of one of the disappointing things. So we've got to change some things up a little bit and take the next step.

Q. (Indiscernible) on the depth chart. Will he travel?
PAT NARDUZZI: I don't know. We'll find out. He's been out, so I just figured I'd make a change so you would notice and talk about it. He's getting better.

Q. Are you satisfied with the amount of mental errors?
PAT NARDUZZI: Not really. You know, sometimes the aggressive penalties are going to happen. You wish they'd all get called the same way. But Amir Watts' penalty on our sideline was no good. I'm really not going to address the rest of them. But that was a bad penalty by him. It was late. It didn't look as late from the sideline as it does when you watch the videotape. But that's why you have to watch the tape before you make too many comments.

But I'm never happy with one flag. On punt team, we had a delay of game, which is our first delay of game of the season, I believe. We've seen a few of those in the past. And then we got a false start. So it's like there's some details that still bother me. It's new guys playing some positions at times, whether it's our personal protector who's really our third personal protector in a punt team. So there's some new things that happened out there that we've just got to adjust to and get some guys some work.

Q. When you talk to your guys -- you have three guys checking this year. Do you talk to them about the situation?
PAT NARDUZZI: Well, that's two more than we've had in the four previous seasons. I'm not happy with it. I watched games on Saturday like you guys did, and I saw some things get turned over by the SEC and the Big Ten or whatever conference you're watching, and I don't -- I'm going to have to go to school and find out what targeting is. But that's as far as I'll go.

Q. Is that an off-season things for coaches to talk about?
PAT NARDUZZI: We can talk all we want. It doesn't matter what we talk about. We're playing football the way it needs to be played, and again, aggressive penalties are going to happen. I don't like to see any targeting calls. We had one by Patrick Jones at Virginia, I guess, a year ago, and that was the only one that I can think of in all my years. And to have three in one year and to have guys sitting in the locker room is not why we coach football. That's not why our kids come to Pitt, and I don't like seeing it at all. I don't want to see those. I want to have a safe game, I want to protect our kids, I want to protect the other team. But there's some things that are uncontrollable, too, so I don't understand. So I guess I'll leave it right there.

Q. Virginia Tech has the best punter in the country. I know field position battles (indiscernible) but when they have a weapon like that on the other side, how much do you need to focus on that?
PAT NARDUZZI: Well, it's important. Obviously it'll be even more important if Maurice is back there or Mike Vardzel or whoever else we put back there. But he's an outstanding punter and it's going to change the field. I was happy with what Kessman did last year in his one 42-yard net punt, and we'd like to have a weapon like they have, and it's a weapon. You've got to do something to slow it down, so we'll figure that out.

Q. A couple opportunities (indiscernible)?
PAT NARDUZZI: Yeah, I mean, again, the couple opportunities we did, he was solid. I think he got one little eight-yard return. And, again, the most important thing we say of our returners, the most important thing is that we have possession of the football at the end of that play. You can get 50-yard returns, you can get 8-yard returns, you can get no returns. Most important thing is possession. We've had some problems with that. Wasn't happy with the one he didn't catch. I think he was lined up too deep at 45 instead of 40, and if he had lined up at 40 he would have had to go four yards to catch that one ball. We lost 18 yards. But again, another young guy back there doing it for the first time in a big game on a Thursday night.

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