SYRACUSE - Pat Narduzzi talked about another close game, Pitt’s defense, the running game and more after Friday night’s win over Syracuse. Here’s the full rundown of what he said.

Narduzzi: We definitely wanted to get you guys your money’s worth, that’s for sure.

Great team win again today. Our kids find a way to win. We don’t do it the easy way. A lot of critical mistakes in the game, obviously. A muffed punt gives them a short field and we drop a ball in the red zone there for a first down, probably going to score, just trying to score instead of catching the football. But when you dot all the I’s and cross all the T’s, I’d rather come out with the win.

I give Dino Babers a lot of credit. They’ve got a tough football team. They never quit. They’ve got a good football team, and there’s no easy games in the ACC. We know that. Hats go off to our kids in that room there.

Great four-minute drive at the end, running the clock out. We got the run game going when we needed to.

Talk about the defense; nine sacks on their quarterbacks today.
Narduzzi: Yeah, nine sacks. It’s what we’ve done all year. The most they’ve given up is eight, which is a lot in 2019. But our kids have been relentless. And Baldonado’s like, ‘Coach, I missed three sacks,’ so we missed some, too. No. 11, I wish I knew his name; I hadn’t seen him all year, but he came in and gave them a little spark, threw some nice deep balls and kind of surprised us with some of the runs that he did have. But that’s what it is.

What did you make of all the defensive pass interference and holding calls against you?
Narduzzi: I’ll go watch the tape. It looks like we were handsy out there at times and then at times, I don’t know. The last one really bothered me, the fourth-and-25 where we’re what we call ‘two-dog’ and we’ve got a safety over top, there’s no reason for it. But it sounds like we just wired him out of bounds. So I don’t know. We’ll watch the tape.

Is that a play where you say, ‘Whatever you do, don’t put your hands on them?’
Narduzzi: No, they have to go out and play defense. You know, don’t get your hands on them - we don’t want to play with our hands behind our back. I have to look at the play, but obviously a critical play in the game.

When you guys go up 24-6 at the end of the second quarter, how are you feeling at that point?
Narduzzi: I’m feeling like we’re still in a battle. There’s nobody in that locker room or coaches that sit there and take it easy. Kenny Pickett did a nice job at halftime, too, just talking to our team, showing a lot of leadership with our quarterbacks. Obviously, you feel like you played a good first half, but I told them at halftime, we want to play 60 minutes. We just did some little things that we can’t do, whether it’s PI’s or dropped passes; we had a few of those on third down that we’ve got to make a play.

Did Syracuse’s defense adjust much in the second half?
Narduzzi: We’ll look at the tape. It’s hard to stand on that sideline and tell you if they adjusted. I’m sure they made some adjustments, like we did, and we’ll look at the tape.

What did AJ Davis bring in the running game?
Narduzzi: AJ, obviously he was back and healthy and we’re glad to have him back. But he did a nice job, ran hard. That last run he had, he was bulling through people and got the first down, which really ended the game. It was a nice, hard run. AJ’s a good tailback. He’s our starting tailback that we hadn’t had for a few weeks and it showed out there.

You guys have been trying to get the running game going; what you saw today, does that encourage you for what it could be?
Narduzzi: It does. I’ll look at the stats; I don’t know what we rushed for. But we still want more.

That throwback pass, was that something you guys had been sitting on or was there something specific you liked about that play this week?
Narduzzi: We’ve had it in for awhile, like we’ve got some other ones in. But it was the right time. Coach Whip’ did a good job with those play calls and…great play by the entire offense on that play. Great execution.

No game is going to be perfect, but do you think that playing the full 60 minutes is the biggest thing that’s holding you guys back right now?
Narduzzi: Again, give them credit; they played, too. They have a lot of guys on scholarship, too. I think they’ve got 85 on scholarship, so they didn’t quit last week. You watch that North Carolina State game and they came back in that game, too. So Coach Babers does a great job. He can motivate those guys and he got them going. Give them credit and we’ll look at the tape, but 60 minutes is always something. We talked about wanting to finish at halftime and we finished them but not particularly the way we’d like to.

You guys had nine sacks, six came on third down. Some of that is going to be situational with what you try to dial up, but do you feel like those guys especially the linemen and linebackers are starting to turn their game up a little bit in those situations?
Narduzzi: Yeah, our kids love - you know, that third-down package we have, we call it Delta. It’s an elite force. Our guys have been good on third down all year. That doesn’t surprise me. We’ve been turning it up. If we can get them in third down and six-plus, we feel pretty good about what we can do.

Kenny got hit about four times in the first drive; his toughness level, did he show it in coming right back after that?
Narduzzi: Yeah, Kenny’s tough. That guy’s like a linebacker playing quarterback. He’s relentless, he’s going to fight for his football team and he wasn’t coming out; I can tell you that. He shows a lot of courage.