Narduzzi breaks down the first day of spring camp

Pat Narduzzi met the media after Pitt's first practice of spring camp on Monday, and here's video and a full transcript of what he had to say about the tempo, the quarterbacks and a lot more.

Narduzzi: Spring ball is here. It was good to get out there. I talked to our guys this morning, January 8th, we came in here and had a meeting after the season, first day of the semester, we’ve had a great offseason working toward this day. I think we’re bigger, faster and stronger; we’re going to find out if we’re better football players and better coaches right now. So, I’d say day one, a lot of different things out there, obviously, from special teams, tempo on offense, tempo for the defense, a lot of different plays - totally different. I wasn’t sure how long the periods were going to be or how many plays we were going to get in depending on how fast we go, but I think with everything we saw out there today, there was great energy, which is a positive. I think our kids are excited about some of the new changes. We’ll look at the tape and have more stuff for you maybe after watching the videotape, just because it’s going fast and you have no time to dissect and think about what happened on that last play. It’s moving on to the next one, so it’s a little bit different that way, but that’s why we’ve got great cameras and the eye in the sky.

So with the offense, even as you install, you want them going at the same pace as the game?

Narduzzi: Oh yeah. Anytime your offense is tempo - and again, they’ll go fast, they’ll slow it down like a game, but we’re just going. I don’t know if we’ll ever have a delay of game ever again. I won’t be looking at my watch or the play clock, you know, ‘We have to get this play off.’ It’s just a matter of how much time will be left on the clock before we snap it. But we’re working like game tempo. We’re moving. It’s the first day out there, new offense and new plays and new calls, signaling from the sideline and everybody getting the signal, so it was a good first day just for operation.

You’ve talked about Nate being the starter to start things off. How have you seen him step up as a leader and be more vocal?

Narduzzi: Nate has always been a guy that’s led, I think. Guys have always trusted him. I think it’s a great question for the players once they get up there. We have two coming in today; as a matter of fact, I think Nate’s one of them. But I think that will also come with going out and doing it every day in practice. Leadership goes with making plays and being the guy. I think everybody else wants to see him go out there and do it, too. Protect the football and do what’s best for the team. So I think we’ve got a lot of guys leading.

Did you have conversations with him this offseason or what kind of conversations did you have with Nate this offseason as far as saying, ‘You’re the number one guy going into spring, this is your job now?’

Narduzzi: I haven’t had a lot of conversations. I had maybe one conversation saying, ‘You’re going to be the guy going into it; we expect you to play like it and prepare like it,’ and he’s done all of that, as far as the offense goes. It’s going to be one day at a time, but I just feel like for the last couple years, I’ve felt as a head coach - and I don’t make those decisions; you guys know that - I’ve just felt like this guy’s the leader and his teammates believe in him, and I felt like he’s never taken snaps with the one’s or two’s, and that’s one of the reasons - I think he did a pretty darn good job out there when he got in the game during the season. It was kind of like, ‘The guy’s never taken reps with the one’s or two’s.’ To me, he deserves that opportunity to find out where he can go from there.

How have the guys done as far as their homework and knowing the offense as you got out there into drills?

Narduzzi: You know, I think they’ve done a good job. We’ll watch the tape. I’m sure there was some wrong routes and guys’ protections going the wrong way, picking up maybe the wrong guy. There’s a lot of things flying out there, especially with all the things we do defensively.

You know, tempo, a lot of times when teams run tempo, they’re going to get a vanilla defense. Well, not with us. We’re going to give them - you know, our guys have done it before so it’s not as new for our guys, except for in practice one, for sure. Usually it’s a game plan thing. We need to work on that.

I’m sure we had mistakes out there on both sides of the ball, but for the most part, I think they’ve done their homework. They’ve worked at it. We’ve had small installs as we’ve gone through the last month and a half.

How much homework is required for you to learn the new offense?

Narduzzi: None. No homework for me. I’ll learn it as we go. I have too many other things. Again, I’ve got an offensive coordinator running it. I know the defense. Little by little, I know some of the things already, just by repetition, hearing it. There’s different words that I like. I won’t give you all the words I like. The things I need to know, I know. There’s no way I’m going to learn an offense like that; I’m not sitting in every offensive meeting. Coach Bell and the staff is going to do that, and I’ll gradually get it by fall. I’ll know what they’re doing. I know some things. I know enough to be dangerous; that’s about it. But I’m not trying to master it. If I did that, I’d have no time to go through the film with the defense. Really, the last two and a half weeks, just going through all the cut-ups with defense. The offense had to go through cut-ups; I could have spent days in there. But again, I trust our offensive staff to get that done. I’m not going to do anything to add to that room. I’ll coach what I know how to coach and fix what I know how to fix.

In today’s college sports world, you see a lot of players get discouraged when they lose their starting spot or they see someone get put above them. How have you seen Christian respond to, you know, he was a starter last year and then Nate came in and finished strong - how have you seen him respond to that?

Narduzzi: Christian’s been awesome. He’s going to go out there and compete, just like everybody else in that room is. Everybody wants to compete. Everybody wants to play. And I think he’s been a pro about it. Things happen on game day and you have to make plays. You have your opportunities. Everybody had their opportunities. We had three quarterbacks have their opportunities last year and it was what it was. That’s why I figured, we have - he had a ton of reps as well as some other guys, so he’s been good. I think depth charts are always fluid. We talk about depth charts, but really, we’re going to have to be two-deep on offense. There’s going to be eight receivers, six receivers, seven receivers playing actively, just with the tempo and what we’re doing. Everybody wants to play. Same thing at running back. We did a lot of six-play series today; we want guys to at least be able to go for six and then we’ll go to eight and 12, 15, because there will be some longer series.

How have you seen your guys respond to this entirely new offensive staff, what do you like about the way they’re worked to install this new offense?

Narduzzi: Again, they’ve done a great job to understand, to learn it. I think they’re excited. You can talk to the kids about that stuff. For me to say, ‘Oh, I’ve never seen a team so excited’ and they come in and go, ‘Oh, it’s okay’ - it doesn’t matter what I say. It’s what they say, it’s what they feel, it’s how they act. I think it’s a great question for those guys, to be honest with you. But I think it’s been good.

You mention that the team is bigger, faster, stronger. Is there any one player who strikes you with his physical growth in the offseason?

Narduzzi: I don’t have all the numbers like we do in fall camp. I just know that we’re in good shape. I got an email maybe two weeks ago looking at some of the numbers comparing it to 2022, I believe, in the spring. Just the speed numbers from the GPS, it was like, holy cow. We’re a lot faster team. In one group, there was two guys - back in ’22 - that were running over 20 miles per hour; we have like 10 or 12 of them. We’ve got more guys that are faster. I haven’t gone through all the weight numbers and vertical jump and all of those things.

You’ve had a lot of guys come in through the transfer portal. Just overall, how have you seen them being part of the program?

Narduzzi: They’ve done a nice job. I don’t have all of those names in front of me. I’ll just point out a couple. Like Nate Matlack has showed up. Nick James, just looking at defense, did some nice things, just seeing a couple things. Now, I might come back in a couple days and say, ‘I was wrong, they were terrible.’ But I just saw some things there. Those are two d-linemen.

Lyndon Cooper has done some good things, just mature. I think he’s learning. Eli Holstein’s done a nice job. Just really calm in the pocket as well. You notice some things about his composure. CJ Lee, he had a nice catch today. I didn’t like what he did with the ball afterwards, but that was that. But he’s a playmaker. Him and Poppi, two guys that can make plays. Jake Overman’s been good. Jake had a couple nice catches today, again, just learning the offense.

You guys have had the benefit of having three corners start for quite some time. Who’s stepping up to be the lead face of that group?

Narduzzi: That’s a great question. A year ago, we’re sitting in here, we had corners and we didn’t have safeties. This year, now we’ve got mature safeties, guys who played a lot of ball at the safety position, and we don’t have any corners. With M.J., A.J. and Marquis being at Pro Day here in a couple weeks here on campus, those are some voids to fill, for sure.

I would say Ryland Gandy’s a guy that played the most ball. I think he’s looked great all offseason, just running and learning. Tamarion Crumpley is a guy that has played well. I saw some nice things out of Jahvante Royal today. We’ll find out if I was right or wrong; just looking at his tackling, his sideline tackle, ‘shake tackle,’ we call it. But it’s wide open out there. It’s wide open. Tamon, a transfer, didn’t notice him a lot today. I noticed a couple bad things today I didn’t like. But just the tempo. It’s new. He’s brand new back there. He doesn’t know the defense at all. Some other guys have an advantage there, so it’s not fair to really grade him based on his knowledge at this point.

Over the last couple years, you’ve had a lot of turnover on the offensive line. How do you feel like that group is coming together and the depth you have there?

Narduzzi: Yeah. We have to keep them healthy, but that’s a pretty cohesive group right now with Branson kind of leading the show. Jeremy’s done a nice job with that group since he got here on campus, so I’m excited to watch practice today and see how they go through 15 practices. The spring game is going to be fun. I’m happy with how our o-line will be. We have to stay healthy. We don’t have Jacoby back yet, but soon enough. It looks like he’s ready, but I’m not the doctor or the trainer. He looks ready to roll.

Eli and Julian, two new quarterbacks for you guys; how have you seen your early impressions of meetings and how they practiced?

Narduzzi: Meetings, they’ve been good, they’re paying attention, they’re locked in. We’ll watch the videotape today. You guys saw early, balls were hitting the ground and all over the place. But there was a lot of quarterbacks throwing balls, that’s for sure. So those guys have done a nice job. It’s early. It’s way early.