Narduzzi on Cincinnati, expansion, clock rules, Pickett and more

Pat Narduzzi held his final press briefing of the week on Thursday and covered a lot of topics ranging from Cincinnati's defense to the new clock rules, Kenny Pickett's development and more.

Here's a full rundown of everything he said.

Narduzzi: Game number two, Cincinnati. Really excited. I think our kids are probably more excited this week than they were last week. Got a Big 12 team coming in here, a team that’s played in the playoffs, really good players, good athletes and it will be a challenge for us, so we’re looking forward to it. We’ve had a good week of practice, preparation, kids are fired about the game plan offensively, defensively and special teams, so we’re excited.

Looking at the quarterbacks on your roster, how do you go about getting a scout team look to emulate a mobile quarterback?
Narduzzi: You know, we’ve used our guys - we’ve got pretty good athletes over there, as it is. So we haven’t gone to that where we’ve gotten somebody, but if there’s one guy I’ve got my eye on when we really, really, really need it and there’s quarterback runs - they’re not a big quarterback run team, so we’re not worried about quarterback - but Cruce Brookins is my guy. I haven’t talked to him about being that guy at one point, but he will be a great quarterback when we get to that, when there’s a lot of quarterback runs. I’m sure we’ll face somebody like that this year.

So is Emory more of a run-to-scramble than a designed run?
Narduzzi: Yeah, if he scrambles out of the pocket and he doesn’t like it, he’s going to take off and run. He’s more of a run-scramble. They’ll have a little bit of option, but I don’t think there’s - not that he won’t, but it’s either handoff the option to the dive back or he’ll pitch it, but probably Saturday he’ll keep it, I guess, right? But we have not really seen him keep it. I think everybody’s got a plan to make sure the quarterback doesn’t take too many hits. You’ve got a long season, lots of games and nobody wants to get their quarterback knocked out early in the season. I think we’re the same way; you have to be smart about what you’re doing with those guys. But I wouldn’t be shocked if he carries it.

You guys have gotten used to different concepts that have challenged you guys over the years. How do you pass down the lessons that you taught to previous teams when new guys like Javon McIntyre and Philip O’Brien are now learning the position at safety without reinventing the wheel every year?
Narduzzi: Hopefully they’ve learned from the other guys. If you sat in our meetings every day, P.J. was the backup a year ago and sitting there listening, watching every day, so he’s in Erick Hallett’s shoes every day, he’s in Brandon Hill’s. So those guys are paying attention. They learn, they see and we go back and watch tape. If there’s a problem we have, we go back and watch tape with them and say, ‘Hey, watch Erick do it, watch Brandon Hill do it.’ That’s a good question. That’s what we are, is teachers. If you forgot some of the quizzes, if we have to go back and have a big test or a midterm, we go back and review the information. So there’s review sessions.

You talked about Corelone on Monday. What about the rest of their front seven? What kind of problems do they present?
Narduzzi: It’s an odd front. Briggs, No. 9, I believe he is, the defensive end. I think he’s really good, too. Both of those guys are guys. But they’re all Division I players, they’re all good. We’re trying to talk about the elite guys and we’ll miss some big guys, but we’ll find out Saturday who those guys are. They’re going to move and twist and our guys on the offensive line have to be really good in protection as far as some of the different stuff they’ll throw at you.

How fast is your defense performing right now when you’re watching them in practice and grading how they’re playing right now?
Narduzzi: I give them a B. I think they’re okay. We’ll find out Saturday. I think this will be a bigger challenge. It’s hard to say last week, everything was good, right? Except the last play. But everything was good and we’ll go from there.

On Saturday, you said there were times when Phil could have ran and he didn’t. Can you explain a little bit more about what situations you were thinking of?
Narduzzi: Yeah, there’s times in the game - and again, you know, that’s what Coach Cignetti thought from the press box during the game. Like, ‘Oh, he should have taken off, run, run, run.’ But then when you watch the tape, you’re like, ‘I can see why he didn’t run.’ Sometimes going through the coach’s eye in the box as opposed to the dude that’s on the field, it’s a little bit different. But Phil made good decisions, so we’re not worried about that. There’s times when you just - you know, if he runs, it just makes that defense pull up, and the next time they pull up, they think you’re running and then you throw it over their heads. So there’s those things. They know you’re always going to scramble to throw; you just don’t want to be that guy that’s 100% scramble to throw or scramble to run.

One of your coaching colleagues said that the new clock rules made the game feel like it was dramatically shorter. Did you feel like your game was dramatically shorter?
Narduzzi: We had 36 plays on defense. I think it was a hard game to determine that, just because the offense kept the ball for so long. But I’ve had ACC referees tell me it’s not going to be shorter; it’s about what they do, every first down will be a second but nothing new. Some people have said that. Maybe we’ll get a better feel. Standing and stressed on the sideline for whatever it was, it didn’t seem any shorter.

On Monday you talked about some concerns with the A-gap and how you guys went about blocking that on Saturday. How do you go about addressing those issues this week?
Narduzzi: The A-gap. You lost me.

You said about protecting the A-gap.
Narduzzi: Oh okay, I got you. We’re talking about pass protection and they’re big on letting the ends go ahead up the field but - you know, you want the quarterback to be able to step up in the pocket, but when there’s pressure in the A or B-gap, it’s hard for the quarterback to step up in the pocket and make a throw. So it’s just making sure you’re not getting beat inside, if that makes sense. You don’t want your tackles getting beat inside. Even Matt, there was a couple times where the guy came inside and the quarterback feels it. He didn’t get to the quarterback, but he still feels that inside pressure. So you practice it and it becomes and emphasis for the day.

I’ve been recruited to ask a Kenny Pickett question.
Narduzzi: You’ve been recruited to ask it.

Yeah. When did he make his most improvement? Was it from his first year as the full-time starter in ’18 to ’19? When did it come?
Narduzzi: Boy, that’s a tough question. I mean, he made improvements all the time. I can’t say there was this gigantic improvement. Everybody will say it came from ’20 to ’21, the ACC championship, everybody’s like, ‘Oh my god, what happened?’ But remember, Covid was ’20, right? So that was a tough year, the timing with receivers, receivers dropping balls and we led the country in drops. If you added all of those drops up there, you’d probably say there was no gigantic improvement from 2020 to 2021, except a championship. So I think it’s a hard question. You got recruited to ask a bad question. Check your source for those questions.

He made improvements every day. He’s going to make improvements weekly out here. He’s going to make a gigantic improvement from last year to this year. I think people will see a different guy.

Let me ask a follow-up that’s maybe a better question. He got voted an offensive captain next door as a young guy. He was in a prominent role here as a young guy entering his sophomore year. What is it about him that allows him to - he’s got much older guys in that locker room - what is it about him that allows him to command that respect of more experienced players?
Narduzzi: Well, I think the first thing is he works. He’s a worker. I bet you his car is one of the first ones here in the morning and one of the last ones to leave. He’s working at it. The players see that. When they see the guy in the office - supposedly he’s got his own little work station over there or office, I don’t know if it’s an office - but he’s in there. So that’s the first thing: he’s leading by example. But he just - he’s got a way about him. He’s not afraid to speak up. You know how some people see stuff and then they see it and they don’t say anything. It could be with your bosses. He’s not afraid to say, ‘Hey, let’s do it this way’ or ‘What are you doing?’ So he’s not afraid to speak up. He’s not going to step out of bounds or cross the line, but he’s not afraid to give his opinion on something, whether it’s with the coaches, which is what you want - I had a great Eagles meeting in here. I had some players say some stuff in here today and I’m like, ‘That’s good leadership right there. I appreciate you telling me that. I need to know.’ And I’m sure - it’s not only leading the players but it’s also the staff and personnel over there, the support staff, knowing that this guy, he has a good feel for what’s happening in that locker room.

I know it’s just a few months, but how much of that do you see in Phil?
Narduzzi: Um, too early probably to say that. I think we’ll see it as the season goes on. I think that’s something he demonstrated on the field. I have other indicators, just from our captains about him, that are really, really good. But it’s still too early for me to say as a coach - for me to say it.

How is Jake approaching the challenge of Corleone and why is it that he’s worked so well for you at center?
Narduzzi: Jake is an experienced guy in there, and I think Blake Zubovic could go in and do that center position as well. But Jake really wanted to do it. I think he’s got visions of being an NFL center someday. He’s really smart. If you heard him on my radio show last night, he’s unbelievable. He’s got a podcast. Noah’s got that going? Good move. He’s so smart. I give you credit there. He’s smart - I hope you pay him good. But he’s smart and he knows what he’s doing. He’s snapped the ball pretty good as well. It’s pretty important to get that ball to the quarterback.

I know this game is important because it’s the next game on your schedule. But with these inter-conference games, you saw it with Florida State and LSU - does it matter? Do these games matter in terms of affecting the perception of a conference?
Narduzzi: I think, for sure. I think there’s a respect factor. You look at - great win by Mack Brown down at North Carolina, great win by Coach Norvell at Florida State. I was excited for those guys. You hear so much about how, you know, how much money they get. The whole offseason is about how much money they make; well, how about, win the football game? That’s what it’s all about. And coach them. Coach them better. But my hat goes off to Norvell and those are big wins. I think it’s a pride thing. Some people think the Big 12 is bigger than the ACC right now; well, it’s our chance right now on the field to prove that. They’ve got numbers, but I’ll take our quality in the ACC.

With so much talk concentrated on what the SEC was doing in expansion and what the Big Ten is doing in expansion and what the Big 12 is doing in expansion and you guys kind of come in at the end, was there part of you that’s like - do you think the conference is still viewed as lesser by those standards?
Narduzzi: You prove that on the field. You can add whoever you want. We can go add UConn and all these other schools; does it make you better? It’s about adding quality and adding quality things that make sense. To me, the SEC did the best job because they still got a regional opponent that still makes sense when you look at a map and you put all the schools on a map, you go, ‘That makes sense.’ And they got quality, too.

What do they do on their defensive front that you guys have to account for to get the run game going?
Narduzzi: No different than anybody else. It’s a three-down - a lot of times they’ll have a four-down look, which looks just like we do. But nothing abnormal that we haven’t seen before.

Andre talked about how something to the effect of, ‘They’re big, they’re fast, but other than that, we have no problems.’ What is it about their size that you have to account for?
Narduzzi: They’re big and physical. Their nose tackle, the godfather there, Corleone, he’s a big guy, he’s an All-American, and Kradel will have his hands full. But I’ve got my faith in Jake and our offensive line to do their job on him. I mean, every week we’re facing good players. It’s not going to be one week; it’s every week. The next week will be the same thing. There are good players every week that are big and fast and we have to do a good job blocking them.

Is this your biggest offensive line?
Narduzzi: I don’t know. I don’t know. Brian O’Neill came out to summer camp; he was 305. Right tackle for the Minnesota Vikings. Does size really matter? I don’t know. You have to have good feet.

You guys had a very active defensive line rotation last Saturday. Will it be as active this upcoming week or will it be slimmed down a little bit?
Narduzzi: It will be slimmed down a little bit. It will be slimmed down a little bit, based on how the game is going. We’ll play eight guys up there, for sure. Will we play - I mean, we got more guys in. I don’t remember how early they got in, but the score got out of control early, where you were like, ‘Yeah, go ahead, go in.’ But there will be a little bit more detail this week as far as, just, we’ll see how it goes.

You’ve faced Scott Satterfield a few times. What kind of identity does his team tend to take on and did you see that kind of identity from watching the tape from Week One?
Narduzzi: Yeah, it’s identical to what they were doing at Louisville. Defensively, they have the same identity. Offensively, you see the same stuff. They’re going to be a big 11 and 12 personnel football team, they’re going to get into a lot of two-back sets. They like their two-back sets. But it’s stuff that we see every day in practice here with our offense, so there’s a lot of carryover from summer camp to what we see this week when they go into that 12 personnel, so we’re pretty comfortable with our game plan versus some of that stuff.

Because you’re familiar with them, do you think you might see more wrinkles from them than you might normally see?
Narduzzi: Yeah, I’m sure we’ll see more wrinkles, and they’re going to see more wrinkles, too, right? There’s going to be wrinkles all over the place, so that’s part of the adjusting that you’ll do during the game to find out, ‘What are they doing, oh, they did that, okay’ and then we have ways of making wrinkles during the game. Our stuff is simple enough that we know how to adjust, offensively and defensively. We have enough in offensively and defensively that you have the adjustments - if they do that, we’ve got this. So hopefully we adjust.

Throughout your tenure as head coach, you’ve had a lot of big Week Two games. Penn State three times, Tennessee the past two seasons; what do you take from your preparation for those games?
Narduzzi: I hadn’t thought a thing about it. That’s the first I’ve heard of it. I appreciate you letting me know that. I didn’t realize we had big Week Two games.

Every game’s a big game. Last week, as I sat here, it’s like, ‘That’s a big game.’ This is just a big game. It doesn’t matter. I don’t look at the opponent. I always tell our guys: It’s about us. It’s not about them. It wasn’t about Wofford. It’s not about what Cincinnatis’ got this week. It’s about Pitt. It’s about what we do, not what they do. Because if we worry about them too much and we don’t worry about ourselves, we’ve got issues. We better worry about what we do and how we do it. It’s not who we play; it’s how we play.

Did you notice the size of the student body on Saturday?
Narduzzi: The Panther Pitt was unbelievable.

Okay, but are you aware that there was another five sections in the 500 level?
Narduzzi: I know they’re up high.

The Panther Pitt is unbelievable. And I think they’re going to be even better. It’s 6:30; we had to wake them up a little earlier last Saturday, but the Panther Pitt was unbelievable. We appreciate them. We appreciate all the fans. The fans, even last week, were really, really good and it’s gotten better every year. At the bonfire the other day, I talked about, the last three years they’ve been - the three classes, those people that have been here the last couple years, have been unbelievable. So I think that support continues to grow.