Narduzzi on run D, linebackers, the opener and more

NARDUZZI: Alright, game day. Game day. Fired up. Just finished with the third practice of the week. Obviously, we got more preparation in last week so we feel pretty good with where we are. Openers are always interesting because you never know what you’re going to see, they don’t know what they’re going to see. We’ve got a lot of new faces out there, as we’ve talked about for months and months since January, I guess. It’s going to be interesting to see how guys react under pressure. There will be a lot of pressure out there at Heinz Field and good pressure. Our guys are prepared. I feel good with where we are and it’s game time. So that’s where we are.

WE TALK A LOT ABOUT YOUR PASS DEFENSE -
NARDUZZI: You guys talk about it a lot.

WE ASK YOU ABOUT IT A LOT. BUT NEW D-TACKLES, NEW LINEBACKERS, WHAT DO YOU EXPECT OUT OF YOUR RUN DEFENSE?
NARDUZZI: Structurally, we’re set to stop the run, I think, and you’d like to be really good at it. That’s why I said, there’s going to be a lot of interesting things in there. You’ve got a new middle linebacker in Saleem Brightwell and Elijah Zeise played in the opener a year and you didn’t see him since then. He’s beefed up. He’s stronger. Seun Idowu’s been the constant out there; he’s like your veteran guy at the linebacker spot and I know what we’re going to get out of him. I don’t know what you’re going to get out of Elijah and I don’t know what you’re going to get out of Saleem. It’s just, game day.

But we felt good in the scrimmages we’ve been in. But scrimmages are different than the real game, so…you know, Keyshon Camp inside, I feel really good about. But again, he’s a puppy. He’s a man still, though. He’s a grown man and I expect great things from him and Shane Roy inside. And Amir Watts would probably be that third guy going in.

YOU SAID MONDAY THAT YOU FEEL REALLY GOOD ABOUT THE D-LINE. THE LINEBACKERS, WHAT ABOUT THEIR STRENGTHS REALLY STANDS OUT TO YOU? IS IT A FASTER GROUP?
NARDUZZI: It’s a faster group. It’s for sure a faster group. You talk about, really, Elijah Zeise in the boundary with some of the wheel routes you get to see, you feel really good with the speed he’s got there. He’s tough, he’s physical and he knows what to do. I think you feel better. You know, I love Mike Caprara, he’s a GA for us, but he’s faster than Mike Caprara. Okay? But now Mike is really smart and you knew you could count on Mike. I’d take Mike - I told him, he better be ready. If you see 30 out there, it’s Caprara coming back and we got a sixth year.

YOU MENTIONED ALL THE NEW FACES; PERSONNEL-WISE, WHETHER IT WAS INJURIES, DISCIPLINE OR WHATEVER, HAS THIS AUGUST BEEN ANY MORE ADVERSITY-FILLED FOR YOU?
NARDUZZI: No, not really. It’s the same. I mean, that’s what we do as coaches: you deal with it. As a coach, we sit in this staff room and behind that board is a depth chart and you’re always talking, ‘What if?’ If we don’t talk in what-ifs, we’d be shocked every day in practice. But that’s a coach’s world we live in, and that’s why we move things around. We get what-ifs in practice and practice those sudden personnel changes and…we just got done with a staff meeting talking all the details of how we play our players. Who’s going to get in? You know, ‘If he’s in, can you call that front or that coverage or that blitz? Can you call that pass protection?’ Those are all details that go into the what-ifs on the depth charts. There’s a lot of unknowns, and that’s why openers are so much fun.

MAX HAS TALKED ABOUT HAVING A CHIP ON HIS SHOULDER FROM WHAT HAPPENED AT USC; IS THAT SOMETHING YOU HAVE TO MONITOR IN THE FIRST GAME, THAT HE’S NOT TRYING TO TAKE OUT ALL OF THAT PENT-UP ENERGY IN ONE PLAY?
NARDUZZI: He’s so smooth. Max is a - you know, he can say he’s got a penned-up whatever, but Max is so smooth, you wouldn’t ever see it. He is locked in. He was locked in today in everything we did, the special little plays we’ve got in, offensively all the situational things; I mean, he’s locked in. I don’t think anything will affect him. He’s playing the game and he’s not going to let any emotions get to him, for sure.

SPEAKING OF WHAT-IFS, WHAT IF YOU HAVE TO PLAY THOSE YOUNG FRESHMAN RUNNING BACKS LIKE YOU HAD TO PLAY QADREE TWO YEARS AGO?
NARDUZZI: It worked out good for Qadree, didn’t it? We’ve worked those guys. AJ Davis would be the first young guy in if we decide to go that way. But Todd Sibley’s ready as well. So Qadree Ollison and Darrin Hall, as we’ve stated in here, are the two main guys right now, and we’re going to let it roll with those guys.

HAS KAM CARTER FOUND MORE CONSISTENCY SINCE THE LAST TIME WE TALKED ABOUT HIM; YOU SAID HE WAS SORT OF UP AND DOWN AT THAT POINT.
NARDUZZI: He’s bounced off here the last week, and it’s always interesting when you get to see game-plan weeks. You know, how do they adjust to a game plan? Because playing against the same offense every day for three, four weeks, and all of a sudden now, oh, it’s different; now they do this, so we have to do that. I think he’s done a good job there, so we’ll see. I expect him to play tomorrow. I don’t know how many plays. We’re playing to win and I’m going to put our starters out there. They deserve the majority of reps, but I could see rotating eight guys up inside. I shouldn’t say inside - on the front four there, from defensive end to defensive tackle.

IS THAT THE CASE THROUGHOUT THE DEFENSE, THAT YOU’LL PROBABLY USE A LOT OF GUYS?
NARDUZZI: I think D-line you play four; I mean, in four spots, play eight guys up front. At the linebacker spot, I could see playing four of five guys; not six. In the secondary, probably four safeties and at corner, probably four corners - three or four corners. We feel good with those guys and we need to find out what they’ve got. Damarri Mathis is going to get in the game; I’m going to find out what he does on game day because he’s been awful solid out there.

WITH THIS BEING YOUR THIRD SEASON, WHEN YOU LOOK AT YOUR PERSONNEL AND THE GUYS YOU’VE GOT, HOW MUCH MORE OF A SENSE DO YOU HAVE THAT, ‘THIS IS MY PROGRAM, THESE ARE THE GUYS THAT FIT WHAT I REALLY WANT TO DO’?
NARDUZZI: You know what, we had some great players in the past. Those guys two years ago were my guys. I don’t look at it like that - ‘my guys’ or ‘our program now.’ If they’re a Pitt guy, they’re our guys. I don’t look at it that way. Paul Chryst did a great job recruiting and we won a lot of games with those guys and we’re going to find out what we can do with these guys. But they’re younger; that’s the difference.

DOES YOUR APPROACH CHANGE THE LONGER YOU’VE BEEN IN THIS WHEN YOU’RE APPROACHING A NEW SEASON AND OPENING DAY - HAS YOUR APPROACH CHANGED AT ALL?
NARDUZZI: No. I think the best thing you can do as a coach, whether it’s an assistant, a coordinator or a head coach, is keep it consistent. Nothing changes. Consistency is key. If we come out there and do things differently, the kids would be looking at - we want them knowing what’s going on. I think there’s a process you go through and try to keep things consistent in preparation so they’re not shocked. I don’t think we want to ever shock our kids at practice by, ‘Hey, we’re going live on a Thursday.’ Those certain things - we try to stay consistent in what we do.

HOW MUCH BETTER ARE QADREE OLLISON AND DARRIN HALL NOW THAN THEY WERE TWO YEARS AGO?
NARDUZZI: We’re going to find out. I think they’re both better. I think they’re both stronger, they’re more physical, they understand the offense better. I always laugh at Qadree Ollison - he got his first playing time against Youngstown State in that second half and exploded through the line a few times. But if you went back and watched every game and analyzed it, he had a lot of times where he got taken down by the first guy or tripped up and fell down. There’s a lot of trip-up-fall-down where he could have taken it to the house. He could have rushed for 2,000.

So we expect him to be better now and I expect it to be a 2,000-yarder. You know, 1,000, he did that already. That’s just staying the same. We expect him to make people miss and it better take two or three to get that big dog down. He showed that in the scrimmage one day: he had a run that was like, whoa, get him out of there.

YOU’VE COACHED AGAINST A LOT OF FCS SCHOOLS, BUT HAVE YOU SEEN AN FCS TEAM LIKE THIS WITH AS MUCH FORMER D-I TALENT AS THIS?
NARDUZZI: No. They’re talented. Bo has done a great job recruiting. I mean, 25% of their roster are Pittsburgh guys. So they’ll be cranked up, ready to go. In their two-deep, there’s 23-25% of them are Pittsburgh guys. They will come here - I’ve told our guys, they will come here fired up. They would like to wear that Pitt jersey; probably a year ago, two years ago, three years, four years ago, a lot of those kids probably dreamed to play at Pitt. They’re playing there and they get an opportunity to come to Heinz Field. Some of them played at Heinz two years ago, 2015. So they’ll be ready and we’ll be ready.

YOU WANT TO WIN AND YOU WANT TO STAY HEALTHY, BUT WHAT ARE THE OTHER THINGS THAT YOU’RE LOOKING FOR TO SAY IT WAS A SUCCESSFUL WEEK ONE?
NARDUZZI: You’re looking for execution. It comes down to execution. You want to see guys play like you’ve seen them play in practice and scrimmages. And I’m sure there will be disappointments. I’m not one of those guys that says, ‘We’re going to have a perfect Saturday.’ There will be things that we’ll need to correct and fix and ‘Oh my gosh I can’t believe that.’ There will be those plays and there will be those days. I guess we’ll find out on Monday.

WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON SOME OF THE GAMESMANSHIP TACTICS THAT SOME OF YOUR FELLOW COACHES ARE USING BEFORE THIS SEASON. YOU’VE GOT TEAMS THAT AREN’T SAYING WHO THEIR STARTING QUARTERBACK IS GOING TO BE. YOU’VE GOT A TEAM IN THE BIG TEN THAT DIDN’T EVEN RELEASE ITS ROSTER.
NARDUZZI: Yeah. I mean, I don’t really care. The only thing I know is they can only put 11 of them out there and I don’t care who they are. I know who my 11 are. I don’t know if it’s gamesmanship - maybe there’s too many ‘OR’s’ - but I’m just giving it straight. We don’t try to hide anything. It’s straight-up what they are, and whether theirs are straight-up or not, I don’t - you know, it doesn’t matter. We’re going to look at the 11 guys that are out on the field, and it doesn’t matter. It really doesn’t matter.

I guess that’s the way it’s going. Everybody wants to be sneaky. We just want to play football. This is Pitt.