Narduzzi on beating Duke

DURHAM (N.C.) - What did Pat Narduzzi have to say after Saturday night's win over Duke? Here's the full rundown of his comments.

Narduzzi: Obviously it’s an incredible win by our football team. Week by week, our kids continue to just show how much character they have as a football team. Ugly game. Tale of two halves. Our defense played outstanding in the first half. I mean, incredible. Didn’t play so good in the second half, started to slide when we muck the punt and things started to turn. They got a little momentum on that, getting the ball at the 5-yard line, and it just kind of went downhill from there. But our kids hung in there until the end. And with whatever that was, a minute and whatever seconds left on that final drive, Kenny Pickett led the show, our offensive line did a great job and players made plays like they’re supposed to. I wish we’d do that for 60 minutes, because they have the ability. But I guess they just want to make things tight and give me chest pains.

I love those guys and my hat goes off to them.

You mentioned the muffed punt; what led you to put Paris back there?
Narduzzi: Put the blame on me. I have a lot of faith in Paris and I thought he made some plays. The punt before, Maurice - just ball security, it drives me crazy, he had the ball out here like this at one point and I was just like, ‘Put Paris in the game, give him a shot, he’s been begging for a shot for weeks.’ I gave him a shot. That’s on me. I made that decision and it backfired on us. But you know what? Our kids hung tight and we got the W. That’s really all that matters.

Where does this rank for weird games?
Narduzzi: There’s a lot of weird ones. Last week was weird. Again, it just shows character: our guys going on the road and getting a victory. It’s hard to get a win, period; it’s even harder on the road. You’re an underdog coming in against a really good Duke team that had one loss against Alabama, had given up one sack. I don’t know how many sacks we got today but we certainly - I guess he was sacked three times, so we tripled their sack total for the year and our kids made plays. And that last play by Patrick Jones, just forcing his way through there, heck of a rush and it ended the game because who know what happens on that.

14 or 15 penalties, how do you explain that after you had some against Delaware, too?
Narduzzi: We have to be more disciplined. We’ll look at the tape. We’ll turn our plays in and go through the ACC protocol. It doesn’t seem to help but we’ll send them in and look at them. I mean, you know, that’s all I’m going to make a comment on the 15. And again, it comes down to our guys being more disciplined, period. The kids played with a lot more passion today, they played hard, and sometimes there’s going to be aggressive penalties but way too many. It started with a first down, down at the 13 or 9-yard line, it gets called back for taunting or unsportsmanlike. We have to cut that out of our game.

Did they explain to you what they saw on the targeting call?
Narduzzi: No.

Does V’Lique just like playing against Duke?
Narduzzi: You know, V’Lique’s a playmaker and I guess he does.

What was the inadvertent signal? Did an official blow the whistle?
Narduzzi: He didn’t blow the whistle, but he made the, ‘Hey, it’s not good,’ so they had to repeat it over again. They thought that was fair. I said, ‘He didn’t get in.’ We were going to wait and never ever blow a whistle on that play and he agreed, but the official made a ‘It’s not good’ on the two-point play, so the official said it was an inadvertent signal, they have to repeat the down.

You give up 30 points but really just one longer drive. Are you seeing your defense rise to the occasion week after week now? It seems like a trend.
Narduzzi: They were outstanding. Then they got us in the triple-option in the one series after they scored. You know, short field and they just kind of wore us down with some of that and really just ate the clock up and ran the football a little bit. But our defense is playing well. But we can play a lot better, I can guarantee you that.

How do you try to eliminate the short-field situations with the defense?
Narduzzi: We can’t turn the ball over. When you look at what we did, we threw a pick to a D-tackle down there one time. I can go through them all, but we have a muffed punt, that’s a short field, five-yard drive there. Then Butler-Jenkins fumbles the ball with 2:33 in the third quarter. We throw an interception on third-and-5 at the minus-25. It’s just self-inflicted wounds and we have to be more careful with the ball.

Patrick Jones had maybe 1.5 sacks prior to today, something like that, but he seemed to be getting into the backfield a lot. Did you feel like a game like this was right around the corner for him?
Narduzzi: Yeah, he’s been playing well. He’s been playing well all year. Whether you get the numbers or you don’t, he’s doing his job for the most part and those things come. Just like turnovers. I mean, our defense, I don’t know how many turnovers we had coming into the game, three, maybe two plus a blocked punt. Then we get six in one game and guys made plays.

Are you happy to be 4-2 in the bye week?
Narduzzi: I wish we were 6-0 but I’ll take 4-2 going into the bye week. We’re halfway home right now, first half of the season is over, we get a rest period, which we need desperately. We’ll have our tailbacks back for the Syracuse game and we’ll be as healthy as we’ve been all year.

Do you think Kenny was rusty at all after having the week off?
Narduzzi: I don’t think so. We’ll look at the tape and look, but he wasn’t rusty on that last drive.

You said the running backs will be back. Do you expect Chase and Elias to be back as well?
Narduzzi: We’ll look at it, but I sure hope so.