Pat Narduzzi talked about spring standouts, what he's looking for in the spring game and more after Thursday's practice.

Here's the full rundown of what he said.

Narduzzi: We had the Blue and Gold teams matched up. You guys saw it yesterday. We had a few late trades - I don’t remember what they were. We’ll get E.J. (Borghetti) to get those to you. But good practice today, just cleaning up, making sure we’re sharp and we’ll be ready to go.

What are you guys looking for from the spring game, aside from staying healthy? Is there a position group or two that you’re really looking at and keeping an eye on?
Narduzzi: I think anytime - you guys hear me say this all the time - anytime you can get into Heinz Field, you just want to see the guys play sharp. What are we going to run on offense, what are we going to run on defense - we’re going to try to keep it pretty basic. But I want to see our guys execute. I don’t want to see a lot of false starts or guys jumping offsides on defense. I just want to see a clean game. I don’t care what the score is, I don’t care who wins, Blue and Gold; I want to see a clean game and as you know, I want to come out of it healthy. I didn’t advertise it last year, but Deslin (Alexandre) got hurt last year in the spring game and really missed all of his lifting and stuff, so Des is not going to play in the spring game. I’m not going to do it. If I was him, I’d wake up on the spring game morning and go ‘Oh my God, I hope I don’t do what I did last year.’ It was miserable for him, it was miserable for us, we all feel bad and don’t want that to happen. So we have to prevent that. I mean, Brian O’Neill got hurt in the spring game. So we just have to stay healthy. That’s the main thing. I know I always say it and it sounds simple. One of our players said, ‘Hey, we got through spring ball healthy.’ That’s truly what we need to do.

How have you seen your guys perform as far as procedural things this year? Every year, when you get that reset, sometimes it can go back a little bit; have you seen them go back or have you seen them starting on a better ground going forward?
Narduzzi: As far as what?

Procedural penalties.
Narduzzi: Yeah, we have too many of them right now. Too many of them, and I think that comes with a new offense. Last year, we went on one all the time. It didn’t matter; we just tried to snap the ball fast. But we’ve got a lot of different cadences, so it’s a learning thing for our guys and it’s a focus thing. They’ll be much better in camp and we’ll work on it all summer because we found out it is an issue right now. So we’ll fix those. I’m not worried about that.

Do you feel like it was a big improvement to last year? It seemed like two years ago, 2019 and 2020, you guys had a lot of procedure penalties and those kinds of focus things. Do you feel like you got a lot better at that last season?
Narduzzi: Yeah, we did because we went on one count, you know? So it’s like, what do you want to do? Sometimes your cadence helps you more than you guys know that you can see with your naked eye. We’re trying to get a look at the coverage when you’re going on two or three or you change the cadence up a little bit and have fake cadence where you’re really not doing anything but you want to see what a defense is doing. So there are some things that you don’t really see with the naked eye that helps you have a big play because you knew, as a quarterback, what the coverage was prior to the snap. So there are things like that that help you when you do that. We really didn’t do that the last three years; really, it was, snap the ball and go, which is another tribute to Kenny Pickett - everything was post-snap for him. There wasn’t a whole lot of, ‘Hey, let’s make them show their cards and then play football from there.’

What do you know about your team today that you didn’t know on February 28?
Narduzzi: What do we know? You find out - there’s just some players that you go, okay can play that are going to help us this year. I think that’s the main thing. Going into spring ball, you’re like, ‘Who is going to help us?’ I look around and Ryan Baer is going to help us this year. I don’t have any question. Jake Renda has done some nice things. Khalil Anderson has done some nice things. P.J. O’Brien is a lot better than he was. Bangally (Kamara) come out of, you know, being just a sometimes player to being an every-down linebacker. Solomon DeShields, there was a lot of unknowns coming from him coming into spring ball: was he a wideout, was he a linebacker, is he tough enough to play on defense? We found out he’s tough enough and going to be a really good player for us on defense. So I can keep going on and on. We find a lot about every kid, in a good way or bad way.

You named a lot of players there, but every year you’ve given us at least one or two guys and said, ‘This guy is taking practice or things more seriously this year.’ Do you feel like you have more of those guys this year because it seems like you’ve got a lot of younger guys stepping up into starting roles?
Narduzzi: Yeah, I think so. I think have a mature team like we did last year. We’ve got almost 28 seniors or something like that, and I don’t know if they’re seniors or if they’re coming back for another year. We don’t know that. Nice for roster management. Thank you to the NCAA.

But we’ve got a mature football team that is locked in and trying to get better every day.

Along those lines, you had an obvious leader last year; have you seen somebody kind of emerge in that role this year?
Narduzzi: Yes. Deslin’s a guy that’s obviously a returning captain, so Deslin on defense again has stepped up and been a leader there. Brandon Hill on defense. Offensively, I think Carter Warren has been a guy that’s led. SirVocea Dennis also on defense has been a leader and got chosen captain of, I believe, the Blue Team. Other offensive leaders - I think both (Kedon) Slovis and Nick Patti have shown that they can lead; they’re battling for that position so I think that’s their main priority right now without asking too much.

I’m trying to think of anybody else. Nobody in the backfield. I would say Carter Warren is the main guy right now.

How much will your top two quarterbacks play on Saturday?
Narduzzi: I don’t know. Depends on what the coordinators on the two teams do. But because they’re in red jerseys, we’re not really worried about them, although knuckleheads could get too close. We talk about the halo - the D-line’s supposed to stay this far away so that when I throw a pass, I don’t hit a helmet. That’s what I’m worried about. I might call some penalties myself. I might throw a flag and just call a halo penalty for those guys getting too close. Because they all want to show everybody, ‘I got a sack.’ But they’re going to play, I don’t know, 20 snaps or whatever, whatever they want to, we really haven’t talked about that yet. We’ll talk about it this afternoon, but we hope the quarterbacks stay healthy.

What are you looking for from them on Saturday?
Narduzzi: From the quarterbacks? I’m looking for them to make plays. Lead the offense, first of all; again, those pre-snap infractions, unforced errors, whatever you want to call them, start in the huddle. Get your guys together and lead that huddle. And then breaking it together and going out there and making plays. We want to see the quarterbacks throw the ball - when they do throw it - accurately and put it where it’s easy to catch, don’t make it a hard catch, and get us in the right play, which the quarterbacks are going to have more opportunities than they’ve ever had before to change plays and get us in the right play.

You have a pretty deep wide receiver group vs. a pretty deep cornerback group, guys that you’re excited about like Ryland Gandy. Who have you seen kind of win out so far through the scrimmages and practices, as far as receivers vs. corners this year?
Narduzzi: I think it’s a mix, 50/50. The receivers have made some great plays and the DB’s have made some great plays. You’re not going to win them all, so I would say it’s 50/50. I couldn’t tell you - put it this way, Jordan Addison wins a lot, okay? It’s just like, watching him is fun. You probably won’t see him play as much either. So I would say it’s 50/50, but there’s the one guy that’s going to make plays and gets open. There was a play yesterday or Tuesday - two-minute situation, the offense needed a touchdown, Jordan Addison is double-covered on a fade route, and my man just went up in between both of them, timed it right, snatched it and scored. He was at about the five-yard line. Both DB’s just looked at each other like…’What just happened?’ They both got beat by Jordan.

So you’re looking for guys to make plays and it’s been a 50/50 deal, I’d say, but there are some guys that are elite.

After the season, were you ever worried or concerned that Haba (Baldonado) would leave or try to test the NFL waters? And what have you seen from him this spring and what do you hope to see from him next season?
Narduzzi: Yeah, me and Haba had discussions, for sure. He’s a smart kid. He’s smart enough to know, ‘Hey, let’s check it out, tell me where I’m going to be.’ But I think Haba looked and said, “I want more than that.’ He would have got drafted this year, without question, but I think coming back for another year was a smart move by him. So we had those discussions and it was probably best for him to come back and have another dominant year.

Is part of Saturday just about, ‘This is how you come out of the tunnel, this is how you go to Heinz Field’? Is that part of it for the young guys?
Narduzzi: It is. It’s good for the young guys. It’s good for the new coaches to see how we do it, so if there’s any adjustments we want to make going into fall camp, we can make those. So I think it’s a little bit of both. But if it’s a game, we’re going to play it like a game. We’re going to do headsets and be ready to go.

On Haba, Charlie (Partridge) told us earlier this spring that there was maybe a half-dozen sacks that he was within inches of getting -
Narduzzi: Yeah, maybe eight.

And that’s kind of where he needs to go. Where did you see him grow last year for him to step up and have the kind of season he had last year and now to this year to get those extra sacks?
Narduzzi: Last year to this year and this spring, he’s just become - he’s so smart. Again, he’s one of the smartest guys in there, like a Jaylen Twyman, like a Patrick Jones and Rashad Weaver. He has that intelligence, so that’s always going to make him better. And like I said, the key is him finishing the play. You’re there and you’ve got the opportunity to make the play, but in the NFL, they are going to want to watch you finish the play, and we’ve just seen his motor and that attention to detail. Because it takes details. It’s the right angle at the quarterback. Did you go inside shoulder or outside shoulder, upfield, where were you and what are you doing to make a play?

Who is Justin Cullins?
Narduzzi: Justin is a walk-on running back. I wish I could tell you where he’s from. He’s a great kid. I guess you guys saw him yesterday and go, ‘Who is this guy?’ I think everybody was just excited. He came in mid-spring ball, he tried out a couple years ago and we tried him out two or three times and we had a need, we had a couple running backs go down and we just needed a tailback to hand the ball off to and he’s come in and done a nice job for us.