Narduzzi on Clemson, the no-name Panthers and more

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Pat Narduzzi met with the media on Wednesday to preview Clemson, talk about his team’s preparations and more. Here’s a full rundown of what he said.

Narduzzi: It’s an exciting week here in this facility, when you look at, really, the opportunity that our kids have earned to play in this championship game. Pittsburgh’s never played in a championship game, that is, the University of Pittsburgh. To me, it’s a great opportunity and we’re going to have to buckle them up and go down there and play a football game, because I have a lot of respect for Dabo and the type of team he’s got, number one, as far as the players and the coaching they do. It’s a good football team. Rightfully so, they’re number-two in the country, maybe number one in the country; I think they’re really good. When you watch the tape, both sides of the ball, really all three phases of the football, they are a complete football team. They’ve got players all over the place and, again, they’ve got a great scheme. So they’ve got things going down there.

But it’s a great opportunity for our guys to go down there and take a shot in Charlotte.

Do they do anything, as far as their program’s concerned, that other schools don’t do? Do they have any kinds of perks that you guys don’t have or other schools don’t have?
Narduzzi: Maybe you can go ask Dabo. You know, I don’t know. I’d like to go down there and spend a couple days here this week, but I haven’t been there so I can’t tell you. I’ve never gone down the slide. They’ve got perks; I’m sure they do. Everybody’s got something special.

What makes them so good against the run?
Narduzzi: The defensive line. We’re going to face a very similar, if not better, D-line than we faced last week. We’ve got to play well and we’ve got to communicate as a unit up front because their front seven is active, they put them in good positions and they’re big and they’re physical and they’re fast.

When you think about recruiting, is the ability to go get multiple 300-pound defensive tackles something that does separate a team like Clemson from a lot of other teams around the country?
Narduzzi: No doubt about it. You look at it, there’s a lot of skill guys out there, everybody’s playing seven-on-seven and there’s a lot of skill guys. But the difference in some of these football teams are the up-front guys, the O-line and the D-line. It starts up front. They’re really good on both sides of the ball, and if you can protect your quarterback and you can put pressure on the quarterback with three or four guys, that’s the difference. And there’s just very few of those big dancing bears around the country. There’s just not many of them, period. I don’t care where you go, there’s just too few of them and it’s hard to get. That’s why some people go to different defenses because you can’t find them. I know, for the last 30 years, it’s finding those guys that’s the hardest thing. They’re just going so quickly and they’ve got them. They’re getting them at Clemson.

How much different is it when you’ve had games where you played the spoiler, and you’re going into this as a championship game and both teams know what’s coming, both teams know what’s on the line; how much different of an approach or how much different of a circumstance is it?
Narduzzi: Yeah, I mean, it’s a championship game. We know that going into it. They’re the number-two team in the country. It’s still a football game, okay? There’s 11 guys on the field that have to make plays. I’ve told our guys: you have to go make plays. They’re going to try to make plays. So it’s going to come down to that and we’ve got to be prepared, but there’s no difference: it’s Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday practice, travel down and let’s go.

How much does having beaten number-two teams in the country twice now serve your team, though, that they’ve done it?
Narduzzi: You know what? I don’t talk about it. I can tell you that. Because it doesn’t matter, really. It doesn’t really matter. They’ll be more prepared this time because of it, they’ll probably be angry and our guys will have to come angrier, period. It really doesn’t matter. Deep down, maybe it gives our kids a little bit of belief when they’re sitting back in their dorms or sitting in class daydreaming that, ‘Hey, we’ve done this before, we can do it again.’ But that’s not going to help us when that whistle blows for that opening kickoff.

Would you say your quarterback, in terms of the way he’s unafraid to sort of set big goals but also sort of try to win a game any way he can, reflects your personality? Was that important for you as a coach to have that type of guy?
Narduzzi: Yeah. I think you want 22 guys out there that are on the field that can play for you and really…Kenny’s a competitor. He’s going to do what it takes. He’s not turning down anything. So I think you need that. Period. Any time I’ve been around good quarterbacks, it’s a guy that’s got that type of attitude. If you have a guy who’s not sure about doing something, keep him on the sideline next to me with a clipboard.

You talked about how this will be the biggest game in a lot of these kids’ careers; do you almost worry about the nerves for someone like specialists in a game like this, more so than the offensive or defensive guys?
Narduzzi: No, because again, it’s a game. There’s fans in the stands. You can call it a championship game; it’s still a football game. It has a different name brand above it, but it’s still a football game. You still have to go out and execute and that’s what we do all week. Our specialists will prepare of that stuff.

You compared Clemson’s defense to Miami’s defense; do you think the experience of playing against a disruptive defense last week kind of informed Shawn or gave Shawn some extra insight into what could work this week?
Narduzzi: Yeah, I mean, you know, you still have to have the tools to go do it. You can draw up anything you want on a piece of paper, and it comes down to blocking them, throwing the ball, catching it and running hard. But I think it gives the kids up front - I think when you talk about Connor Dintino and Bryce Hargrove, just being together for one more week, I truly believe that first week, I mean, that’s the first game, really at a different position. You can say Connor had 12 games, but it doesn’t matter. He’s playing a totally different position. So we’ve got to do a good job up front of executing and making plays.

Did you consider trying any different O-line combinations in that Miami game at all?
Narduzzi: We did. And we’ve talked about it this week, so we’ll see what happens.

Overall, is Clemson a better team than it was two years ago?
Narduzzi: It’s hard to say. They’re really good. They were really good, obviously. Geez, Williams had 15 catches, he was like a circus, that guy. I didn’t realize how we really didn’t stop them much. Our offense really scored a lot of points. They were unbelievable. They had a great offense and a great defense. But I really can’t evaluate them. They’re good. They’re still really good. So they just have different numbers and different names on the backs of their jerseys.

The one thing I do see is, we’re better when I look at what we’re doing, at least defensively, watching a lot of that tape - the offense will take care of watching the other side of the ball, and James Conner was playing for us and Nathan Peterman and we had some different guys on offense. But defensively, watching some of the guys we had on the field, I mean, we have a lot of guys still in this program right now who played in that game. I mean, Damar Hamlin was playing corner, if you can imagine that. You know, Saleem Brightwell gets an interception. So there’s a lot of guys that played in that game that are better now than they were. So I feel like, at least defensively, we’re a little bit better structurally and we’ll see what happens on offense.

Are you sorry you didn’t get Wilkins to go to Michigan State?
Narduzzi: Yeah.

I’m sure you couldn’t care less about coach of the year stuff, but you had a lot of guys honored by the ACC but no one got the first-team nod. Were you surprised by that, given that you won the Coastal?
Narduzzi: You know what? We’re like the no-name Pittsburgh football team. We’ve just got a bunch of guys. That’s what we are, right? The no-name Pittsburgh Panthers. They have a lot of them. We don’t have many of them. So it’s kind of what it is. But we’re in the championship game and we must have done it with smoke and mirrors, I guess.

Do you embrace that? Do you embrace that kind of underdog, no-name -
Narduzzi: Yeah, I do embrace it. That’s kind of what we’ve been and who we are, I guess. So yeah.

Do the players embrace that?
Narduzzi: You’d have to ask them.

In terms of building a program, this is the culmination of a goal you set at the beginning of the season but it’s also probably a building block. How much do you weigh that one versus the other in terms of reaching one goal but also setting future goals?
Narduzzi: I think we talk about goals all the time and I think it’s important as a program. We talk about four program goals: the relationships we have with our players, getting a degree, giving back to the community and winning and getting to the ACC Championship Game and a New Year’s Six game. Those are four program goals that we talk about all the time. We give back to the community, our guys graduate, okay? I think the reason we’ve had success and we can fall down and lose and come back and win is because of the relationships in this room that we have with our players and our staff.

The last one is to win and to play in an ACC Championship Game, so really, when you look at those goals, we’ve met our goals here. But the job’s not done. It’s never done.

Because it’s one of those things - getting there is one thing, winning it is another - how much does getting there help you win that, whether it’s this year or in the future?
Narduzzi: I think you need an opportunity to get there. You don’t have a chance until you get there. I’ve preached in recruiting for the last four years that we have a chance at Pittsburgh to play in a championship game, okay? And when we get there, now we’ve got a chance to win a football game, now we’ve got to go prove that we can win a championship game. The first step is to get there. Once we can get there, then we can get there again and our kids can believe even more as we preach that.

What do you think you’ve done better this year as a coach?
Narduzzi: Nothing.

Most coaches -
Narduzzi: I’m just an average dude, man. I’m like the no-name head coach. There’s no name over here. As a matter of fact, people don’t probably even know.

Is there anything that you feel more comfortable with in Year Four as a head coach? You had a lot of experience as a coordinator; you’re in Year Four now, the team’s taken strides, is there anything there that you can feel, ‘Hey, that’s more in my element now?’
Narduzzi: I really don’t. I mean, maybe dealing with you guys, I guess. You guys make me happy every day I get to see your smiling faces.

I mean, I really don’t. I’ve been comfortable the day I walked in here and stood right here for the press conference the day after Christmas. I feel the same. I don’t - it’s day by day, I don’t feel like I’m better-equipped or less-equipped; it’s the same, the same old no-name head coach, I guess.

Do you take anything from what South Carolina did or what Syracuse did or A&M did offensively?
Narduzzi: Syracuse knocked out the quarterback. Bentley played really well.

They moved the ball. But because what you guys do is so different, is it kind of hard to compare -
Narduzzi: You draw a lot from what BC did because they played Boston College. But you can’t invent a new offense or a new defense. You can’t. You just don’t invent it in the middle of the year. You do what you do. If we try to - just imagine, ‘Let’s go out and run the wing-T, let’s go run Georgia Tech’s offense this week and see how we do. Let’s put that in; Georgia Tech rushed for 500 yards - let’s put it in.’ We would get slaughtered. So you do what you do and you try to taper it, tweak things offensively and defensively to make some plays.

How would you characterize their offense? It doesn’t seem like they’re the same kind of tempo, spread-focused team that you see so often in the ACC? It seems like they’re a little different. What do you feel like they’re trying to do?
Narduzzi: I think they are the typical spread offense. I think they’ve got a great plan. They’re just - they’re going to run inside zone, they’re going to tempo you at times. It’s not blazing fast like a Syracuse or a Central Florida, but they’re going to snap it in 20 seconds a lot. There’s not going to be any seven-seconds - I shouldn’t say there’s not going to be any; there’s been one or two of them from our clock. But it’s not going to be 40 plays in a game like that.

But they run inside zone, they do a great job running the counter play and they run a lot of RPO’s and throw it to those receivers that catch everything. They catch everything.

How did South Carolina get 600 yards?
Narduzzi: They threw the ball and made some big plays down the field. Their O-line did a great job protecting the quarterback and they made some big plays.

Two years ago when you played them, Deshaun Watson was at quarterback. Now, as talented as the guy is, they have a freshman quarterback; are there things that you can do as a defense to try to rattle him?
Narduzzi: You know, he doesn’t get rattled too much. You thought he might get rattled in that South Carolina game, big rivalry game, but he didn’t get rattled. The guy is smooth. I mean, this guy is really good. This guy is a future first-round quarterback, period, number-one pick, I think. I’ve never seen - he’s got the best release I’ve ever seen, so…what have they given up? 12 sacks all year? He’s just sitting back there, hanging on to the ball and throwing it where he wants to. He’s special. He’s really special.