Pitt offensive coordinator Frank Cignetti met the media Wednesday to talk about the Panthers' offense after seven games.

Here's video and a full rundown of what he said.

Seven games in, the offense obviously coming off a 10-point game at Louisville; what have you seen overall in the progression of the offense? Are the guys picking it up?
Cignetti: I’ll tell you what: they’ve picked up the offense. Football is the ultimate team game. We try to put our guys in the best position to be successful. When we try to balance the run game and the passing game, I think you see us play very well. When you take a look at the game of football, it’s usually things that lose games that affect things. So when you take a look at games like Georgia Tech and you take a look at Louisville, when you turn the ball over, when you penalize yourself, those things are costly. When we play clean, we’ve come out successful.

We talk about it every day with our guys that, hey, football is the ultimate team game. It takes all 11 to play as one. And it’s things that lose games that we really try to minimize, and it’s those things that we talked about. So when you take a look at those losses this season and you look at the turnovers, the penalties, those are the things that we need to clean up.

Forgetting fundamentals and scheming and play-calling and all of that; when you have a quarterback who’s struggling, as a coach, what can you do to help him?
Cignetti: Well, first off, any player, we try to put in position to be successful. We talk about, the foundation of any player’s success is his fundamentals and his technique. That’s the foundation. Every day, we go out there as coaches, we teach this great game. Just like today’s practice, we’ll go out there and get a chance to watch it on tape and make the corrections, schematic corrections, fundamental and technique corrections, whether it’s eyes and feet. And then players, the biggest thing we ask is to prepare and perform.

In a quarterback situation, we are continually working on run game decisions, protection decisions, pass game decisions and the fundamentals and techniques that are involved in those phases. You know, in the passing game, what is my progression, what is starting point? My eyes lead my feet, I have to make quick decisive decisions and throw an accurate ball. In the run game, you’ve got to be able to identify defenses and get us into the right run checks, as are the protection checks.

What about counseling these guys, talking them through some of their problems?
Cignetti: Man, we love coaching this game. Just like last night, Kedon and the quarterbacks came in for awhile and, man, what a great meeting we had. Just to be able to teach the game of football. Take the winning and losing out of it, but just the experiences that we’ve been able to have as coaches and to share the knowledge and the wisdom with these guys. Like, last night, just talking about certain coverages and certain things, it’s a great game to coach.

Honestly, the relationships are important, and as a teacher you want to be positive. And the biggest thing we want to do is, if someone makes a mistake, you want to correct it so hopefully it doesn’t happen again. Just like our offensive meeting Sunday: the approach we take is, hey guys, we’re all disappointed we have three losses. We’re all very disappointed. But you have to move forward. So when you’re watching tape on Sunday, my words walking in there was, hey, that loss hurt. We work hard and winning football games is not easy, and that loss hurt. But we have to take a look at this film and take a look at the mistakes and we have to learn from it, because at the end of the day, we’re teachers, we want to do the best job that we can mentoring these guys, staying positive, so hopefully they don’t make the same mistake again.

Overall, how would you say Kedon has played this year?
Cignetti: You know what, Kedon has done some great things out there. First off, playing quarterback is very difficult. I just think about the great quarterbacks I’ve been around in my life; it’s hard, you know? Kedon’s done a very nice job preparing himself, he’s done a great job in the run game in terms of run checks, protection checks. In the passing game, there’s always going to be plays that you want to have back. Just like that first series at Louisville - certainly, he’d like to have that play back. I don’t know a quarterback that doesn’t have plays they want to have back.

Kedon is progressing. Unfortunately, when you take a look at the season, the second game of the year, Kedon goes down with a concussion, loses a week. So hopefully as we stay healthy here, we’re going to see continued success with Kedon.

Pat talked about how the offense takes a little bit to develop with a new offensive coordinator, new quarterback, new receivers - do you think that everything being so new has played a role in the chemistry not necessarily being as good as you’d like it to be right now?
Cignetti: I don’t, because our coaches and players have done a great job learning this system. It’s not like it’s run game and protections and pass game that they haven’t been around in the past. The one thing that we have tried to do is establish some balance, because when you look at our offense, you know, we’ve got a pretty good running back room, we’ve got a pretty good line room, and you always try to play to your strengths.

You know, I’m all about winning. And like I said before, the three losses were very disappointing. I’m not into style points. One thing I learned in the National Football League is, it’s a game about winning. It’s not about about pass yards I have, it’s not about how many running yards I have, it’s about trying to get one more point. And we’re always going to take the approach - what is our best way to try to win this football game Saturday? And it’s not just from an offensive standpoint, but how can we best protect our defense from being on the field, too? Whether it’s time of possession, whether it’s changing field position.

But I think our coaches and players have done an outstanding job within the system. It’s a game of execution, right? So at the end of the day, it takes all 11 guys doing their jobs as best as they can, and that’s why we’re hired to teach this great game. Fundamentals, techniques, make the corrections. And every team that’s out there playing, it’s hard and we all know how hard it is. But it’s the greatest game there is, and every day we come here, we’re positive and it is truly a blessing to teach this great game.

How’s Kedon doing mentally?
Cignetti: Kedon’s doing great. You know, getting a concussion and missing a week, week and a half, that’s not easy. We know how difficult that is. But I think Kedon’s really doing well.

Pat talked through a few of the turnovers at Louisville. You have a little bit of a different view; can you walk us through what you saw?
Cignetti: Yeah, I can walk you through them all, because once again, these are teaching moments. Those were the words I used with the offense Sunday: these are teaching moments. And I am never going to - the offensive staff, we’re never going to let disappointment and losing change the way we are going to positively coach these guys so they can learn.

When we talked about those turnovers, because that was the first thing we put up there - you know, let’s take a look at these four turnovers that we had. The first turnover was simply a poor decision. Quarterbacks do make poor decisions, and they’d all love to have them back.

The second turnover came down to ball security. We’ve got a beautiful drive going, and you know what? Rodney didn’t secure the ball as well as we - he would have liked to, and the defense, you have to give them some credit, too.

Every turnover has a different story, and the most important thing is, hopefully we learn from it, and as coaches, we have to make sure that we’re doing the best job we can teaching, training our players and then in practice doing ball security drills and so on.

What’s the struggle to establish the balance when you have such a strong running game every week? Like, against Virginia Tech, you guys ran 17 times and threw 17 times in the first half; you came out in the second half and said, ‘Let’s take this game over.’ Then you ran 28 times and seven passes and have the most historic rushing performance in history. How tough is it to balance your play calls and try to keep that balance when you see the success running the football?
Cignetti: Well, you know, the way I was brought up in this profession, you want to be balanced. When you’re a run, run-action, keep team, situational drop-back pass, you would really like to start the game off and try to be balanced in your run/pass. And if it’s working, then you stay that way. Then hopefully you get ahead, get in four-minute offense and you get a lot more rushing attempts. So as a coach, you have to make decisions as the game is going on: How are we playing? What are we doing best? Are running the ball well? Are we throwing the ball well? Are we completing the ball? How are we protecting? Because, you know, this is the ultimate team game. When you see an incompletion, there’s so many different reasons why. That’s why you have to come in here and evaluate it.

But honestly, the Virginia Tech game, I felt like, you know what, the second half, that the offensive line and the blocking unit - it’s truly a blocking unit - and Izzy could take the game over. Why was Izzy named the starting running back? Because he can hit home runs. When you have a home run hitter back there, you have to give him at-bats.

What did your dad teach you about handling players?
Cignetti: Wow. Great question. You handle them with respect. You know, we’re here to help these young men. Winning and losing is part of the process, but it’s our job to build positive relationships and try to make them better people: better men, better husbands, better fathers.

He taught me to realize that every day is a blessing and every day is a positive day. Some days are better than others, and when you go into work, go in there and make a difference in these kids’ lives. Don’t let the negative things that happen in this business - because there’s a lot of them - you have to block out the outside noise.

These kids give us everything they have. They prepare, they give us effort, and you can’t ever let the winning and losing change the way you love these kids and care about these kids.

Man. Great question.

My father - when I come into work every day, you know, I talk to my dad and I want to make him proud. And part of that is being positive and making a difference in these kids lives.