Narduzzi on beating Albany, the defense, Pickett's leap and more

Narduzzi: Well, it’s always good to open up at Heinz Field and get a ‘W’. I was really overall happy with the way our kids played in the first half. I don’t think we came out in the second half and played the way you’d like to or be as clean. We had two turnovers in the second half offensively. One’s a tipped ball and one’s - you know, I think the first thing I said to Kenny at the beginning of the second quarter on the sideline when he was warming up was, ‘Listen, you do not take a hit; you go down.’ So what’s he do? He goes up. He must have misunderstood down and up. But he’s a competitor. He was like, ‘Coach, I was trying to get the first down;’ he was probably five yards short. We’ve got to be smarter there.

But again, it’s great to be 1-0. We were able to do it a little bit short-handed in a few different spots, which, again, just being smart and we’ll evaluate all of those. I’m not going to get into details, but I feel pretty good for next week as far as our personnel goes. Hopefully we’ll be near 95%.

The lack of cleanness in the second half is one thing, but how much also is that you knew you had a big lead and you didn’t need to show more than you needed to?
Narduzzi: As far as I told the guys, I told them at halftime it was zero-zero, so we weren’t taking the foot off the gas, to be honest with you. But you know what? I can say that all I want; talking to a bunch of 18, 19-year olds, they have their minds made up. I don’t know if that was the case. You know what, give Albany credit. They’re a good football team, they’re well-coached, they have a good defense, they made some plays, too. I like those guys. Good people there.

But was that part of it? Sometimes there’s a letdown. Sometimes there’s a letdown going into the game. Sometimes you don’t even show up. Our guys showed up. I thought they were really focused yesterday for walk-throughs. A little different focus than I’ve seen. I texted Heather yesterday saying, ‘Man, these guys are locked in a little bit different.’ Every year you have a different team and these guys are focused, so I like where we are right now.

We’re going to make our best improvement from Week One to Week Two. I told them afterwards, we have a lot of things to clean up. Offensively and defense, we’ve got third-and-1 and we jump offsides or line up offsides, and it’s just like, those things - you’re going to have a hard time winning them all if you do stuff like that. So we have to clean up a lot of things and we think we will.

And the other great thing I’ll point out when you look at the overall game is, we were able to get a lot of guys in the game. We got a lot of guys playing today. We played - shoot, we had to play probably 30 guys on defense and we’ll be able to really see where they are and evaluate the reps from there. It’s different practicing and a game. The last couple years, we’ve not been able to get our two’s in there, but we got - I bet you, shoot, we got two-and-a-half deep at every position, so that’s good.

Ollison had a good game but were you pleased with your running game?
Narduzzi: I didn’t look at rushing yards. We rushed for 238 yards; you tell me? I guess I’d be happy with 238 if we get 238 every game. I thought there were some nice holes. The O-line opened up some nice holes. I thought, really, all three backs did a good job. I don’t know who rushed for what; that doesn’t matter. They’re a team back there. But I was happy with the rush game. It’s going to have to be even better and it will get better this week.

You guys talked about avoiding the letdown; to come out and kind of put it on them, is that sort of the kind of response you were looking for and a sign of maturity?
Narduzzi: Yeah and I told Ffrenchy his picture will probably be right up on the wall in the locker room. We opened up with that big kickoff return and I said, hey, if we get a chance to return it, we’re going to take it to the house. They said in the huddle out there, ‘We’re going to make a house call here’ and they made a house call. So they delivered on what we said they were going to do and we’re not going to fair catch it like some people want to. We’re going to take that thing out. We’ve got some good returners.

You talked about telling Kenny not to take any risks; what did you tell him after the leap?
Narduzzi: I said, ‘Are you kidding me?’ I don’t know what I said to him. I couldn’t find him. I was screaming for him and he just kept walking; he was like, ‘Maybe I should pretend like I don’t hear him right now.’

Can you talk about Qadree Ollison, in particular?
Narduzzi: He started off strong. He led the guys early. I don’t know what he - I guess he rushed for 73 yards, but Qadree is a war daddy; he can tote the rock and I like what he looks like in No. 30 as opposed to 37. He looks a little faster in 30, I think. But I’m happy with all of those guys. We’ll find out next week.

You said you wanted to keep Kenny upright but he did play almost all of the game; what went into your decision to keep him in there?
Narduzzi: In my opinion, he’s still a freshman. The guy still needs those game reps. And the other thing, if he would have scored on that one drive when he got tipped and picked, he would have been done right then. But I didn’t want him to end - who wants to walk off throwing a pick? I didn’t want him to end like that. I was hopeful he’d go down and score, but that didn’t happen. I wanted him to get back out there and not be thinking about that all week. I think that’s a mental thing. I would have liked to have taken him out there. I thought Ricky did a nice job when he went in. It’s good to get your backup quarterback some reps. He really should be 2-for-2, I believe; I think Aaron dropped one on him and then Jimmy Medure had a nice catch-and-run.

You seemed to get most of your sacks from your defensive line; is that a philosophical thing?
Narduzzi: We’ll take sacks any way we can get them. I don’t care who gets them. The nice thing is, they’re getting them. If you can get four-man pressure - I don’t know if it was four, if it was five or six-man, we’ll have to look at the tape. I know Rashad Wheeler had a nice one at the end, which I think was four-man pressure. If it’s the D-line getting it, the question really is, how many came at that time? Did he get turned loose? Were there four or five, six guys going? That’s the question. We’ll have to go back and look at that. But if all our sacks - which, I don’t know how many we had - I know the very first one was six-man pressure, so it all depends on what the pressure was.

It’s safe to say you had the advantage in size and speed, but how much did Kenny’s precision early on and decision-making put everyone at ease a little bit?
Narduzzi: I think at first he avoided a little sack back there and then threw a completion to Taysir Mack, who went about 10 plays and that was the plan, just to keep him ready to go. So we didn’t take him out for a big reason there.

I don’t know if Kenny was as sharp as I’ve seen him. I think he was about 75%. I thought he played okay. I’ve seen him play a lot better. I’ve seen him be a lot more accurate. It’s been a long time since he has played. He hasn’t played that much football. I expect to see a sharper Kenny next week.

Given that he was perfect - 13-of-13 in the first half -
Narduzzi: He was?

He was. Did you see any flaws in the first half that could have set him up to not have as good - maybe some over-confidence?
Narduzzi: I don’t know that. He’s a confident guy to begin with. I would never say it’s overconfidence. I didn’t know he was 13-of-13. But he can be a lot better. I can’t answer that.

Do you think Damar was going to score?
Narduzzi: I did. I don’t know who got him but I thought he was going to score.

What sort of progress did Ffrench make this offseason?
Narduzzi: He’s an explosive guy; you see, he takes the corner and it’s like - he’s explosive, he’s strong. Our strength coach did a great job and obviously he put the work in. But he was explosive when we had him in camp a couple years ago and he continues to get more explosive. That guy is a big-play threat and I think you saw a little bit of burst out of Shocky today; you got to see a little bit of 18. So both of those guys got a chance to make some big plays on some of those sweeps.

Are there any concerns about the longer pass plays Albany was able to make?
Narduzzi: Yeah. Again, we’re maybe a little short-handed back there but they bother me. I don’t think we were clean defensively like you’d like to be. I mean, we stopped the run, which is the number-one thing; I’ll tell you that over and over and over again. But they’re going to keep throwing it - I don’t know how many passes they threw, what’d they throw? 29. If you can’t run the ball, you’re going to have troubles if you throw it up.

I thought a couple of those PI’s were - you know, shoot, he ran into us one time and Bricen has a nice pick. There were a couple - to be honest with you, the last big pass, I think we had a safety who should have been in the middle of the field and hung out Bricen, so it wasn’t really Bricen’s fault. We should have had a guy sitting there in the middle of the field helping him and he should have had a pick there, too. Sometimes what you see on tape and what you see in the stands isn’t exactly true. So there were a couple busts. Guys tell me, ‘Coach, I didn’t see the whole formation.’ Well, that’s what we practice every day for; are you kidding me? There’s only 11. That’s all you have to do is count to 11, and, shoot, five of them are sitting up front; they don’t ever really move.

Last year you played an FCS team in the opener and went to overtime. How much different is this compared to last year, especially given that you’re going to play Penn State in the second week each time?
Narduzzi: I think our kids understood that going into it. We talked about that not happening and we came out in a different fashion. That shows our kids and hopefully shows everybody that this is a different football team than it was a year ago. We didn’t go out there and just settle for less. And I think we’re just going to keep getting better. That’s the positive: I think we’re going to keep getting better.