Pat Narduzzi met the media before practice on Wednesday and talked about Pitt's most consistent players, how the depth is coming together on defense and a lot more. Here's video and a full rundown of his remarks.
Narduzzi: We talk about our kids every night. We sit in the staff room for an hour and go down through the depth chart - ‘How did he play?’ - and talk to our guys just about stacking days on top of each other. You see inconsistencies; that’s what we’re working on right now. You get into the dog days of camp, day 12, going through the motions sometimes, some guys. And then there’s the consistent guys that you see the same guy every day and most of those NFL guys are consistent guys that can put it together every day. A lot of the guys that don’t go to the NFL are guys that up and down a lot. So that’s where we are.
Who are the most consistent guys?
Narduzzi: Oh boy. I’ll tell you: Phil Jurkovec has been very consistent. You’re not sitting there looking at him going, ‘Wow, that was a terrible day by him.’ You know, Bub Means has been consistent. Daniel Carter has been consistent. C’Bo, I think, has been consistent. I think Matt Goncalves has been consistent.
Defensively, I’m trying to think here. Shayne Simon has been consistent. M.J. has been consistent. Maybe a little bit more inconsistencies on defense, now that you ask me. I’m trying to think of who else. But again, you know, a lot of guys on defense - like, Tyler Bentley has been consistent. I think Deandre Jules has been consistent. Again, is it every day? No. Some of those other guys I mentioned are every day consistent. But maybe out of 11 days so far, they’ve been nine or 10, and that’s important.
You mentioned some names there, but at the beginning of camp you said there was almost a dozen guys in the mix for the defensive line rotation. Who are some others that have emerged throughout camp?
Narduzzi: I would say D-line-wise, I mentioned Deandre Jules and Bentley and Devin and David Green; those are guys - Sean FitzSimmons, I think, has had a good camp - those are guys that stand out in my head right now. I may have missed one guy up front. And then D-ends, Dayon Hayes has been pretty good. Nahki Johnson has really stepped it up a little bit. Nate Temple’s been pretty darn good. He’s been consistent and, knock on wood, he’s been out there, which is the most important thing. He’s been inconsistent as far as just practicing through his career here, so we’re praying he stays healthy.
Those are the guys that stand out to me at those spots. I would say the top three D-ends are Nahki, Nate and Dayon right now.
In terms of the field safety position, when you think about knowledge and assignments and responsibility, is that one of the more challenging positions in this defense or maybe the most challenging position in this defense?
Narduzzi: I always say that the lawn guy is the most consistent guy over there. He consistently comes and runs toward us and has no idea with his headphones in.
But the safety position, in my opinion, still is the hardest spot out there. It really is because you’re playing off-man a lot in our quarters system. And certainly the corner position is no easy job at all as well. But we ask a lot of all of our guys. To be great on defense and to have consistently put pressure on a quarterback and create TFL’s and cause a lot of havoc on defense, I think it’s about the details. We could be looser and give everybody easier jobs, but we’re going to easily give up yardage and touchdowns.
Between M.J., Marquis and A.J., you have three corners that you know you can rely on, but who are some of the younger guys that you’ve seen kind of step up and be the next guys in?
Narduzzi: I’ll tell you, the two young guys that we’ve looked at and, really, are night and day from where they were before spring ball and even after spring ball is Noah Biglow and Crumpley. I mean, Tamarion - both of those guys have come a long way, as far as where they were prior to. And then Ryland Gandy; he might be the fourth corner right now. Crumpley and Noah are pushing the heck out of him at that spot and can beat him out, if they want to. And then the other guy, just to give you a position move that we made here in the last couple days was, we moved Jahvante Royal, who’s had a lot of experience at corner. We thought maybe he could help us on offense but with those young emerging, they just kind of got on top of him and Jahvante’s going to give us more depth at corner as well. He had a nice pick the other day; I think all the kids were happy for him. He had an interception on defense. It might have been his first ever. So Coach Tiquan Underwood taught him how to catch now, so now he’s a better DB.
When a guy moves that much, do you worry about him getting a little discouraged? He’s in his fourth year now.
Narduzzi: Yeah, I worry about the coaches getting discouraged in him. It’s his shot again, and I do worry about it, but we have to do what’s best for the team. Period. And I think that’s the most important thing - doing what’s best for the team, and certainly, I think that’s what’s best for the team right now. He can go be a scout wideout or he can come help us on special teams. And he’s also shown stuff that he can help us on special teams as well, so that’s an encouraging thing. Obviously he’ll get in more tackling drills on defense than he will on offense.
Yesterday Frank said that he thought the tight end room was the most improved from last camp to this camp. Would you agree with that assessment?
Narduzzi: There’s no question about it. I think Karter Johnson was the most improved coming out of spring ball, right? Gavin Bartholomew looks like a different dude right now. He’s blocking his tail off. He’s been impressive with what he’s doing out there. We’ve been excited about what he’s done.
You said yesterday that you want to see the defense make some plays, especially after the scrimmage when they gave up some deep balls. Did you challenge them a little more over the past couple days?
Narduzzi: Yeah, we have. They had a great day yesterday, so then there was none. Bu tit’s always going to be a back and forth - the offense has a good day, the defense gets mad and then they step up. That’s the consistency that we’re looking for. I have a lot of faith in our coaches and our players at that position that we’re not going to have that problem. We’ve been through those ups and downs and we have three really good corners out there right now and I feel comfortable with all of those guys.
How much work have you done on Wofford so far?
Narduzzi: None. I’m worried about Pitt. Worried about Pitt and being the best Pitt team we can be going into - you know, we’ll start a little bit next week. But I’m worried about Pitt right now.
How’s the punter battle coming along?
Narduzzi: It’s going good. I think Junko’s got the upper hand right now, I think. But it’s a constant battle. I think we’ve got two good punters right now that we can count on, so we’ll see. And it may go into the season. It may go into the - you know, find out what happens the first couple games and see who’s going to be the gamer.
Just on the consistency topic, punts are one of the things we can see and it seems like you’ve got a fair amount dropping inside the 15; are those guys being consistent in how they kick?
Narduzzi: Yeah, we haven’t done a lot of those dropping inside the - we haven’t done a lot of what we call sky punts. We’re just looking at spirals and different types of punts. I just want consistency: you have a 4.0 and a 40-yard punt, those are what we’re looking like. I would say maybe two days we’ve tried to put them inside the 10 is where we’d like it, not at the 15. So we’ve worked a little bit of that, not a whole bunch of that type of punt.
The turnover drill where you’ve got the stick -
Narduzzi: I got nine turnovers. Nine turnovers and a blister.
Is that your favorite part of camp?
Narduzzi: Not really. They finally did a little bit more of ball security drills there, so I wanted to take advantage of the time.
