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Pat Narduzzi doesn’t intend to let his team rest on its laurels in the aftermath of Saturday’s upset of Clemson.
Sure, that game was one of the biggest wins in Pitt history and the first signature win of Narduzzi’s tenure as Pitt head coach. But, less than 48 hours after Pitt fans and players stormed the field at Memorial Stadium, Narduzzi had a simple message for his team.
“Get over it. Let's move on. Get to the next one,” Narduzzi said Monday at his weekly press conference.
The next one is on Saturday, when Pitt hosts Duke at Heinz Field for a 3 p.m. kickoff. But while that game will have all of the team’s focus this week, there has been plenty of attention paid to the Panthers recently.
On Sunday, redshirt senior quarterback Nathan Peterman was named the Walter Camp National Offensive Player of the Week for his 308-yard/5-touchdown performance at Clemson. And yesterday he was named ACC Offensive Player of the Week, joining Matt Galambos and Chris Blewitt on the conference’s weekly honor roll.
Galambos was named ACC Co-Linebacker of the Week for making 12 tackles against the Tigers, including a fourth-down stop of running back Wayne Gallman to set up Pitt’s game-winning drive. And Blewitt completed that game-winning drive by drilling a 48-yard field goal to set the score at 43-42.
Monday also saw the Football Writers Association of America name Pitt the national team of the week, and the Bobby Dodd Coach of the Year Foundation and Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl named Narduzzi the Dodd Trophy Coach of the Week. Narduzzi is the second coach from the ACC to get Dodd Trophy honors this week; Larry Fedora was also recognized in Week Five after North Carolina knocked off Florida State.
It seems that when you beat the No. 2 team in the country after being a 21-point underdog, people take notice. Now Narduzzi needs his team to turn its focus to the Blue Devils, who will come into Heinz Field with a 4-6 record but fresh off a 28-27 win over North Carolina.
Duke is a team Pitt should beat, but Narduzzi knows his players can’t take any opponent for granted, and he expects them to play like the national team of the week again on Saturday.
“It's like I told our guys last night - I'll steal this from Mike Tomlin, they got it up in their locker room and really his motto is, the standard is up here; anything less is not good enough,” Narduzzi said Monday. “I've seen what you guys can do when your energy is high, your emotion is high, and you're hitting all cylinders; so, do we do that this weekend? I don't know. But that's the challenge as a coach and as a player to mentally get your mind to a point where you play like that every week. And I think that you learn how important it is when you put it in your mind that, hey, we can go do this, we're going to do this, we will win, and then you do it; they understand that they mentally have to prepare that way every week. Doesn't matter who you play.”