Pat Narduzzi met the media after Pitt's practice on Tuesday and talked about the latest from spring camp and a lot more.

Here's video and a full rundown of his remarks.

Narduzzi: We just finished practice number 10. Last Thursday before Easter, got in number nine, had a great practice there. We had a good practice then, had another good one today. We were out in full pads, obviously; we’ll go out in shells on Thursday and then we’ll strap it up for a good scrimmage, which should be the best one of the year on Saturday at Acrisure. We got some great stuff in today, both sides of the ball. We worked a four-minute at the end; the offense won the four-minute drill when they leak the clock out, milk the whole thing down so we didn’t get a two-minute to go with it. It was one’s on one’s. It was good to see our offense get in an actual huddle and just learn how to eat up the clock. We had a critical third-and-7 where the defense jumped offsides, gave them a third-and-3, and then they go the first down and the drill was over. So, great job by the offense there. We had a great red zone lock-out period where we go down in the red zone, put the ball on the 11-yard line and let them play ball; the defense won that drill. I think it was about 24 plays inside the 11-yard line, unless there was a sack. But our guys are swinging and competing, going back and forth, and you see a lot of good things. You see improvement, especially on the offense, just with the newness of what we’re doing and how we’re doing it. You see big plays being made every day.

Nate and Kade said last week that Nate has to know what Kade is thinking and what he wants. As you’ve observed conversations between them, are you seeing Nate pick up on how Kade thinks?

Narduzzi: I think so. That times take time, too. I don’t know - if Nate can think just like Kade, Nate will be our offensive coordinator here in a couple years. But I think the more time they spend together, the more you get that. But there are a lot of things flying around out there for the guy sitting under the center compared to the guy standing on the sideline trying to think alike. It’s always better to have the marker last and be able to blow the whistle and say, ‘Hey, you should have done this, why were you thinking that way, I was thinking this way.’

Again, there’s a lot of learning experiences out there, and the only way you can learn is by success and failures.

Nate talked about maybe taking too many shots and it’s better to take what’s there. How have you seen him balance wanting to be aggressive sometimes but also taking what’s there?

Narduzzi: Yeah, you want to take those completions. When you talk about, playing fast tempo, those balls will be there. I think Coach Bell does a great job trying to teach them to take what they’re giving you, and you guys heard me say that for the last 10 years, as far as just, everybody would like to have the deep ball, but we want completions and keep the drive going. Completions, knowing where to go with the ball quicker and put it where we can catch it and run is a good thing. They call it a 50/50 ball, but the most of the time I’ve been around, those deep balls are maybe, maybe, 20%. I can go through the last 18 years of football and show you that it probably averages 13 or 14% if I added every year up for the last 18 years. So as a defensive guy, you like people taking shots, because usually they’re going to fall incomplete.

Some college coaches prefer to keep the spring game vanilla, so will this scrimmage coming up this Saturday be more important than the spring game?

Narduzzi: Yeah, there’s no question. The spring game will be on the ACC Network and nothing you guys haven’t heard. We’ll do our draft we didn’t do last year, so get ready for the draft. We’ll do a draft here. We’ll come back to that. The kids want to do it. They want to do it. It’s more fun that way. So the spring game will be a fun scrimmage. I don’t want to show everything we’re doing, because we have some new stuff in, obviously, on both sides of the ball, so we’ll just keep it a little bit vanilla and go play ball. It won’t be as fun, but at least our guys will get out there and play a game.

But this scrimmage, these inter-squad scrimmages when it’s one’s on one’s, those are - again, we want the guys to go out next week, they’re still getting graded on how they execute and how they block and how they tackle and do they make plays. But you won’t have all of your arsenal in offensively or defensively.

Looking at the defensive line with Tim Daoust, how have you seen them grow this spring?

Narduzzi: Yeah, without watching the tape today, I’ll go back to last Thursday’s. I see our guys attacking a little bit more, just a different voice in there. I just see more aggressive up front. We’re knocking people back and that’s something I love to see. I really like what we’re doing up front.

Sometimes, I say change is good. Charlie Partridge is a great coach. You don’t get any better. But hearing a different voice, a different way, I see our guys coming off the ball. It’s a different style of what we’re doing, which is more aggressive and there’s penetration and eyes and hands, and I just like the aggression. I can feel it, sitting back there in the pocket.

How has Dayon done this spring?

Narduzzi: Dayon has done a great job. He has grown up a little bit. He’s still a young child, as he walks in the back door. But he’s still a kid at heart and he loves to play the game, he’s playing hard, and I think you guys can ask him some Coach Daoust questions, but I just see more consistency out of him. There’s highs and lows, sometimes, in his game, and I want to see those highs all the time for him to be an elite player in the ACC.

There’s nobody on your roster right now that had more than four sacks last season, whereas in the past you had years with multiple guys getting seven-plus. Is there added pressure for Dayon and some other guys to get to the quarterback?

Narduzzi: No question about it. We know sacks are important and we didn’t get many last year, but we saw so much more run than we saw pass. When you’re in a tight game, even if we’re down by seven, we’re getting run at us. Nobody was being aggressive; they were just like, ‘Hey, they can’t score on offense; we’ll just grind it out and run it.’ So that hurt us as far as getting sacks last year, I think. I think if we can be more explosive on offense and play complementary football - offense scores more and we can get up by 14 on someone, the sacks will come. But it’s hard to get sacks when they’re handing the ball off to the tailback.

But also from a technical standpoint, Calijah could do so many different things versus needing the guys that you have winning these one-on-one matchups?

Narduzzi: No question. No question you’d like them to win those one-on-ones, and transitioning from the run to pass is hard. If you’re constantly seeing run, and even when it’s third-and-7 and they’re running the ball against you because they’re like, ‘Hey, let’s gain four and go for it,’ you get into these sequencing periods, so it just makes it hard. You’re not getting a chance to pin your ears back and go. But certainly when there’s a pass, you’d like to win that one. But when you know it’s 100% pass, that makes it easier than when you haven’t stopped the run and you need to stop the run.

How has Nahki done inside, and is that a permanent move?

Narduzzi: Yeah, that’s a permanent move. He’s permanently there. He’ll never move back to defensive end. He’s doing a nice job. He’s got that Kancey ability to be twitchy at the three-technique, and he’s got a chance to be pretty good in there. We like what we see a lot, and he’s just going to keep getting better. If we can get him to keep his thigh boards in - he goes out to practice without his thigh boards, not good. Get a thigh bruise, you’ll be sitting on the bench.

How is the offensive line doing?

Narduzzi: I think they look pretty good. We gave a little pressure off the edge, which I haven’t seen the last few days, just getting some pressure in the red zone in a couple periods. But I thought the offensive line has improved as well. You think about some of the young guys we had a year ago, they’ve grown up and they’ve got another year under their belt and Coach Darveau has done a heck of a job, I think, of coaching those guys up. They’re coming off the ball in the run game as well, so some good stuff to see. Especially in that four-minute drill today, you know, the defense knows we’re going to run the ball, the defense had four timeouts and they couldn’t stop the run, so that’s a tribute to our offense and the run game.

Nate Matlack said he was excited to play in this kind of defense to show what he could do. How has he done this spring?

Narduzzi: Nate Matlack’s done a nice job. He’s twitchy. He’s what we thought we’d get out of the portal. We’re fired up that he’s here and he’s going to make some plays. He was whining today that I didn’t give him a sack, but I think he had a couple sacks for sure. He can create off the edge. He’s a great addition.

What has Desmond Reid added to your running back room as someone who has played in this offense?

Narduzzi: I don’t see the recall of what he did and all of that stuff, and he came in a little banged up, but the last few days - you go back to Thursday’s practice, he popped a run, took it about 85, as a matter of fact, in a coming-out period. He took it like 80 and he jumped in the end zone, so it wasn’t really a touchdown because he jumped before he got to the goal line; it cost him 15 yards and no touchdown. But he’s explosive. He’s a guy that can take it to the house. If he finds a hole, he can go. He’s got different wheels than anybody back there, so the good thing about that running back room is, different guys have different tools. Derrick Davis had a nice Thursday, I’m assuming a nice Tuesday today. But I’ve seen some nice things out of him. I saw him step up and block an A-gap with Brandon George humming down his throat and he anchored that thing down really well, so he’s been really good in pass protection for a guy that’s half the size of my podium.

The quarterback has to process fast in this offense, but also the center position has to process fast. What have you see from players being in charge of making calls for the offensive line?

Narduzzi: Well, Terrence Moore and Lyndon Cooper, obviously, those guys, but they all five of them up front have to make those calls and they have to make it quick. We’re a little bit different on defense; as fast as they’re going, we’re going to give you different looks. They’ll see a lot more vanilla look when they get to the season, I would imagine. But we’ll prepare them as well as anybody, just for all the different stuff they’re going to get at a fast tempo. But we’re more multiple than anybody that we’ll play all year, I believe. And when they get to the 3-4 stuff, maybe they’ll see different movement there. But they’ve done a nice job so far.

Have you seen a Jimmy Morrissey type of guy that sets the tone for everyone else on the offensive line? Or is it more of a collective effort?

Narduzzi: I think it’s a collective effort. They’ve all been in. But like I’ve said, I think Branson Taylor would be the guy that’s leading the show right now. I think he’s still leading, but we’ll find out when the fall gets here.

What has Sean FitzSimmons shown you this spring?

Narduzzi: Sean’s had a great spring so far. Coming out of 10, he’s made all 10, he’s been healthy. That was kind of one of his issues last year: he could never get healthy with that ankle. But Sean’s had a good camp. I think - did he talk last week? Yeah. I put him in here for a reason. Sean’s been productive, he’s sound, he’s coachable, he does everything the way you’re supposed to do it.