Narduzzi on Day Two, newcomers, OL, the portal and more

Pat Narduzzi talked about Pitt's second day of spring camp, the newest Panthers, the transfer portal and more on Wednesday. Here's a full rundown of what he said.

Narduzzi: Another good day. We talk all the time about trying to three percent better, and I think overall, if you look at it, we did. I talked prior to practice with our kids about where the bar was set, based on what we did yesterday. Some guys were here, some guys were here and some guys were up there, so we just have to continue to stack practices off of practices.

To start off, I thought the kids came out with a lot of enthusiasm. There was more juice today than there was Monday, for some reason. I think there’s always that nerves coming back out. But today they had a little bit more fun, I think, a little bit more enthusiasm, and I think when they start to just play, I think that’s where things are going well.

Listening to Coach Bates, he’s pretty inspirational out there, isn’t he?
Narduzzi: You mean during practice?

At the end there.
Narduzzi: Oh, at the end. I missed that. I was talking to some recruits there. Coach Bates is always like that. That’s Coach Bates. He’s got a motor. If you expect your kids to play with enthusiasm, you better have some juice yourself.

We just talked to Tre. What does it mean to get a sixth year for him?
Narduzzi: Yeah, we anticipated it. It’s great. It makes our receiving corps that much better. I’m praying that he gets through a full season. It doesn’t help if he makes it through two games - I guess it helps you with two - but the goal is to get him through a season. I think that’s his goal. We had long talks whether he even wanted to, you know, go after his sixth year. I just told him, you know, when you’re 40 years old and you can’t kneel down to play with the kids and get them off the swing, whatever it may be, it’s different.

So we talked about that, I think, through the last couple months, and I just made him think long and hard about, ‘What if you get hurt again? How are you going to feel?’ Because it’s not easy. It’s not easy being injured. But he’s got the right mindset and we’re going to pray and cross our fingers he stays healthy.

You talked about Grant and Gabe a little bit the other day; how do you see the reps at right tackle shaking out this spring? Who else do you feel like is in the mix right now?
Narduzzi: Without having a depth chart in front of me, I know Gabe is out so it’s Grant and Van Lynn over there right now. Those are two guys working, but we can swing guys out there. Goncalves can go flip over to that side. So it’s great for Grant; it’s great that Gabe’s out right now and those guys are getting those opportunities. It just builds your depth. We know Gabe can play. He’s got a season under his belt at right guard and right tackle, and it gives these other guys a chance to find out where they are on the depth chart.

Nick Patti was telling us in the second spring under Mark that he noticed he expects more out of them. Where do you see that in Mark’s coaching?
Narduzzi: I think that’s - in every position, in every year that goes on, whether it’s a new guy you coached a year ago or whether it’s an older guy that’s been here for two or three years - and Kenny, he expects more out of Kenny. You come in, you install a new thing - that’s what I said, year two, you hope we’re better at everything on offense. I watch skelly and we’re throwing the ball as well as I’ve seen us throw the ball in skelly. The team periods don’t go as well as the skelly does; there’s no pressure on the quarterback, it’s easier to throw the ball, right? But we expect guys to get better and that expectation should be there for every coach and every player.

What does it say for your program that Tre wants to come back for a sixth year? A lot of guys would just move on with their life’s work, and yet he wanted to come back and play for you and play for the team; what does that say about what you’ve done here?
Narduzzi: I don’t know. I guess I didn’t screw it up, maybe? I don’t know. It comes down to culture. I say this all the time: it’s not easy. You look at that transfer portal going around the country and it’s ugly. It’s an ugly - they really should call it the ugly toilet portal. It’s not good for a lot of kids. We’ve got NFL guys that come back that could just take off and leave, and there’s going to be, you know, 40 or 50 of them that go undrafted and they should have stayed. But our guys are smart and I think they like what’s going on. They feel like they could come back and get better, and Tre’s the same way. If practice was not fun, he may be in the real world. If he felt like we weren’t treating him the right way, you know, these guys might all leave. So I think that’s a big thing. You can look at wins and losses and you can evaluate a lot of things, but doing it the right way and building relationships with your kids is important.

What’s been your first impressions of Lucas?
Narduzzi: Really good. You know, every year you’re happy when you get a grad transfer in, but I really love a lot of our newcomers. I haven’t really had a chance to talk about them. I saw them through some of the workouts, but I’ll just talk about a couple of them while we’re at it.

Lucas is special. He really is. Now, we’re going to see the pads come on, but he’s got great speed. We’ve had some grad transfers in here, Carrigan - or, excuse me, Flanagan - and then last year, but this kid’s special. He might be the best one we’ve had in so far. But we’ll find out on game days what happens with him. But we’re excited about him. We hope we get an element of a blocking tight end as well out of him, because he is big. You watch him out there and he looks the part. He looks like the guys that are playing on Sundays.

But some other guys, like Jordan Addison has been spectacular. Really. I mean, he’s opened up a lot of eyes, not only by the coaches but the players’ eyes are opened up as well. Solomon DeShields, he can run. This guy played receiver in high school and we thought he could run but we were like, ‘He can’t play receiver; he’s a linebacker.’ But when you watch him run, you’re going, ‘That guy could go over and play receiver as well.’ So he’s going to help us. I’m not saying this year, but he’s special. Izzy’s another guy at tailback that you just see he’s got a different gear to him.

So there’s a lot - I’m probably missing somebody else - Aydin Henningham has been really good. Smart, picking up the offense. We’re excited about a lot of guys. Buddy Mack. Buddy Mack’s another guy. I like him. If he’d come out with the right shirt on - he had his own different shirt on today, but if we get him dressed properly, that guy’s going to be really good, too. So we’re excited about - it’s unusual for us to get eight midyears, but it’s been good.

When you say the ugly toilet portal, are you saying guys are coming from ugly situations or maybe ending up in it?
Narduzzi: Ending up in that portal is - I think it sounds good. It sounds really good. But I don’t think it ends up being good for a lot of kids when you look at the amount of kids that will transfer from Power Five, how many will make it back to Power Five? They don’t. They’re going down. Or they’re asking to see if they can come back here if they did go in the portal. It’s like, once you go in that portal…

The other misconception - I read a lot of those articles where the kid leaves, you read through the article and it says he’s got a chance to come back. I mean, there’s not really a chance to come back. If you do that, you open up a can of worms that you’re going to let a guy back. We’d let a guy come back if he wants to walk on, but anytime you put him back on scholarship, you let the team down. That’s what it is. I think that should be across the board: you want to jump in the portal, you’re in the portal.