What does a head coach say after upsetting the No. 2 team in the country? Here’s a rundown of everything Pat Narduzzi said in his post-game press conference.

Narduzzi: Thanks for waiting for me; there’s a lot of celebrating going on in there, that’s for sure. But heck of a team win today by our guys. Kenny Pickett played lights-out and Qadree Ollison came in and really carried the ball, had some great cuts on the one series. Defensively, did a heck of a job the entire day - really a team defensive win. There were a lot of guys that made plays. Dennis Briggs had a big PBU - you could just go on and on about guys making plays.

I just couldn’t be more proud of our kids. For the older guys, for the seniors, it was one to remember for a long, long time. I talked before the game about it happening in West Virginia; we know it all happened - you guys asked about it, it happened in Clemson last year, I said, it’s about time it happens in Pittsburgh. That’s for all the Panther Nation out there. I wish more of them would have been here on a holiday weekend, but we understand, for sure.

And for our younger guys, just a point that, when you believe and you have faith, which is what we talked about on Monday, that anything can happen.

I’m going to mention, Devon Edwards wasn’t able to be here today for Senior Day, but he texted me last night:

“Thanks for the message and the thoughts, Coach Duzz. I would give anything to be there with my team tonight and be able to play my heart out in the last game tomorrow. Sometimes that’s just how life goes. But without a doubt, know our team has what it takes to get the ‘W’ tomorrow. I’ll FaceTime you after the win.”

We had him in there, but you know, a senior - that’s what type of football team and what kind of love we have, and when you’ve got that, pieced together with great football players, great things happen. It was a win that we needed, something that we can grow with after the season and through the offseason and I just couldn’t be happier with our kids. They made a ton of plays out there today.

You made those callbacks to the Clemson and West Virginia games at halftime; did you already know at that point that you guys were going to be able to finish this one off?
Narduzzi: I felt pretty good. I wouldn’t have said it if I didn’t feel pretty good. I guess I believe, right? I believe every week but I just had faith in our guys; I saw how determined they were, I saw how they practiced this week. When you’re winning and you’re 9-1 or 10-0, it’s easy to coach, and that’s probably the best job of coaching that our guys in that locker room - my hat goes off to them for sticking with it. Our kids continue to believe, and sometimes you can lose your guys, but our coaching staff did a heck of a job. Our players trusted and believed and that’s coaching.

It’s hard when you’ve got four wins going in against the No. 2 team in the country. But our guys believed and that kind of tells you what we have in that locker room.

You’ve seen your defense make progress all season, was this game all of it coming together?
Narduzzi: I think so. You had one senior out there, Avonte, but little by little, our guys had confidence and little by little, I think they’ve gotten better. Really, on both sides of the ball. But it’s a team win and we’ll look at the tape and find out what was good, what was bad; I’m sure there are some plays that you’ll want to knock yourself in the head about. But our kids played football.

Charlie Partridge said the other day that in ’07 he could feel something happening during the week; could you feel anything happening during this past week?
Narduzzi: No, I didn’t feel anything. Maybe Charlie felt something; maybe it’s a good interview. I don’t know. I believed from the beginning. I didn’t feel any different this week than I usually feel. My wife - thank you, Donna - she keeps me straight. We didn’t have a Thanksgiving. We’re going to celebrate Thanksgiving tomorrow. I didn’t feel any different. She can probably tell you if I felt different; probably not.

Did the team feel any different?
Narduzzi: I think they believed but I didn’t notice anything crazy. It was no different that I saw. I just think they believed, and we continue to pound it in their head. We talked about the turnover chain and the 27 turnovers and we gave them two - and I shouldn’t say - we gave them one with a snap and then they earned a turnover on that big hit on Chris Clark, which is not easy. But they got zero points off it. Our defense went out there and went three-and-out on both of those sudden-change situations.

What went into the decision to run the bootleg on fourth-and-6?
Narduzzi: Shawn Watson made a great call. Kenny Pickett made a great call. We didn’t tell the O-line. That goes into the decision: don’t tell those guys, otherwise they’ll be turned around, looking to see if he’s okay instead of blocking right there. It’s called a “sucker” play; I wish we would have called it last week. But we had the “sucker” in this week. I think we had it on the game plan last week. But a heck of a call by Shawn Watson and the offensive staff. We were watching the back side and they were running, running, running, they’re fast; they run really fast and they ran really fast over here and we ran it over there.

The running game all year has had weeks when it’s been good and sometimes when you really needed it to come through and it didn’t. Did you think that drive, in particular, they really showed what they were capable of?
Narduzzi: No doubt about it. We still struggled to run it against, again, a heck of a front. The last two weeks, as good of a D-line as we’ve faced. And we still - I think they had 45 yards and we had 152 and we maybe had 75, 80 yards going into that final drive. But we talked about just knocking them out with a drive and eat the clock up and tick-tock, and our kids were able to do that.

You mentioned Kenny playing lights-out; do you think he’s had that in him all season?
Narduzzi: You know what, we played him in the North Carolina State game; you saw some things that we needed to clean up. We had a couple weeks to clean it up and Ben did a heck a job getting it done for those two wins. And then when we really needed to throw it - you see some of the passes. I mean, we really shot ourselves early. We could have knocked them out early in the game but we had dropped passes where he’s putting it where it needs to be. We didn’t execute early as well as we did late with catching the football.

At the end of the game, we didn’t have our big receiver, Jester Weah, in the game, just a little tiny, maybe Achilles, just didn’t feel right. He’ll be fine. But he was the one that onside kick was supposed to go to. Jordan didn’t do such a good job and Jester Weah, that’s what he’s done all the time. That was his spot. So we missed him at the end, too.

How much does it mean to see a freshman like Kenny Pickett play the way he did in such a big game and also how much does it mean to the program?
Narduzzi: Kenny’s a good football player. He’s still young; he’s got a long way to go still. But it means a lot to the program. I think the players have faith, he’s getting the ball to the receivers. He’s something to work with for the future, I think. He’s got three more years. I told you, when Max went down earlier in the year, I knew that guy could go. We were trying to save him, but I had no hesitation putting him in in that Syracuse game, because I knew that, with some work, he was going to get where we need to.

For two weeks when Ben was starting, he was able to get all the ‘two’ reps, and that helped develop him, where before that he was down on the scout team, running plays off of cards. So we needed a little bit more time with him and it had been a few weeks before he’s taken any snaps.

What about the third-down performance in general?
Narduzzi: There were some big plays across the board, whether it was the four sacks that we got, PBU’s - Shane Roy gets a PBU; I don’t care what down it is, all downs are important - but our guys did a heck of a job on third down. We called our nickel package out there and they responded all day long. It was impressive.

What’s the significance of a win like this for the program?
Narduzzi: I kind of already answered that question. It’s significant. It’s a big-time win in Pittsburgh, maybe one of the biggest wins you’ve had in the city of Pittsburgh for Pitt football. It gives belief to our kids that we can do it anytime. You know, there were some ones we’ve missed on and our kids deserved that. They’ve worked hard and sometimes you miss, but it’s significant.

How fitting was it for Avonte to get the sack on that last play?
Narduzzi: We blitzed him on that down. It was huge. Outside our locker room we have some players up there - the player of the game that wins at home. He was looking last night at dinner and said, ‘Coach, I haven’t been on that wall yet.’ I said, ‘Well, get on the wall today.’ So the player of the game, the big play of the game, I would say he’s getting on the wall. That as a big-time win and a big-time sack.