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Narduzzi on Syracuse, Beatty, redshirts and more

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Pitt coach Pat Narduzzi held his final pre-Syracuse press briefing on Wednesday, and here's the rundown of everything he said.

Narduzzi: Another good week of practice. Kind of a Tuesday-Wednesday-Thursday practice on Monday-Tuesday-Wednesday. But I like where our kids are, we’re a little bit fresher, I think we look fast and now we need to go play.

You talked on Monday a little bit about discipline as it relates to flags. 28 over the last two games, do you think there is some discipline issue? I’m sure you don’t agree with every flag that was thrown, but do you feel like there’s some discipline issues?
Narduzzi:
I really don’t. I won’t get into it, but no, I don’t think there’s a discipline problem at all. Leave it at that.

Has that been a point of emphasis in the last couple weeks?
Narduzzi:
It is every day. It is every day. I mean, there’s just some stuff that is going to happen on game day that is bang-bang and there’s just some things you can’t do anything about.

Did you talk to anybody at the league office about the Paris Ford play?
Narduzzi:
No.

Would you like to at some point?
Narduzzi:
Not really. It doesn’t go anywhere.

What did you see in the play?
Narduzzi:
Am I allowed to talk about that?

I just saw a lot of shoulder. I saw a lot of shoulder. I didn’t see any head-to-head contact. Really, I saw a lot of shoulder by Paris Ford and I saw his head go in the side of our guy’s head; it wasn’t our head going into his head. So I don’t know what the penalty - I don’t know how to officiate anymore. I don’t know what the calls are. So I’m going to let them - you know, players play, coaches coach and officials officiate. Reporters report. That’s my quote for the day.

You obviously have talked about your depth at different positions; at that position with Stocker, how comfortable do you feel with him filling in for Ford?
Narduzzi:
I feel good. Jay Stocker’s doing a nice job and I think Jay will do a great job. He’s back healthy, too; that’s an important thing.

You talked on Monday about how Syracuse likes to throw short routes; do you guys want to limit those and make them throw deep balls more?
Narduzzi:
They won’t listen to me. If I tell them to stop throwing the short ball, they’ll throw the deep ball, and if I tell them to - you know, I mean, it doesn’t matter. They’re going to throw a little bit of both. They throw the deep ball. They will take their shots Saturday, I promise you. They’re going to watch UCF and they’re going to chuck it deep, so we practiced those, we practiced all the quick screens that they’ve got in their arsenal. It will be quick. They’re not going to do one thing. They’re not going to just throw three-yard passes all day. We’ll get a variety and DeVito’s got the arm count to do it.

My understanding is that Paris has to be in the locker room the first half; how difficult is that going to be to keep him under wraps?
Narduzzi:
He’ll be fine. We’ll have a coach in there with him. I didn’t even know that was a rule. Just another weird rule. So I’m sure the cameras will be on him when he comes out at halftime. Just another way to put the cameras on the kids.

The key to those short passes is tackling really well; as you guys have gone week to week and looked back at each game, how has your defense done and graded out as far as tackles go?
Narduzzi:
We don’t grade out tackles. I would say every week there’s going to be missed tackles. But I think our kids have overall tackled pretty well. I can see certain plays, you know, we missed a few at Penn State, one on a run on third down, but to me, that was more of the call, bringing a corner blitz and Dane’s got too far to go to get there and it just didn’t - it’s half-coach, half-player. You’d like to still make the tackle. We missed a couple on the edge with our corners on some quick routes outside that we have to make and we expect them to make those. But we’ve made a heck of a lot more than we’ve missed.

There’s still six games left -
Narduzzi:
There’s one game, Jerry. One game. Syracuse. It’s the last game of the season. There’s one game.

Considering the season isn’t over, is this the defense you kind of envision when you want to put together a good defense? Are they playing that way?
Narduzzi:
At times they do, and at times they don’t, so we’ll find out with this one game. It will be the one game. Nobody cares what you did the first half of Duke, which was really good, and the second half - we have to get stops. Great defenses play championship defense every play, every minute of the game, every quarter, and that’s what we’re trying to get to. It looks to be the best defense we’ve had since we’ve been here. What kind of defense is it going to be? We’ll tell in the end. Are we going to feel good about six games and then be awful in the next game? We’ll evaluate at the end where we are.

There’s more speed on the field, isn’t there?
Narduzzi:
I haven’t measured. I haven’t timed them yet. I don’t know. Wouldn’t that be, if we could time all 11 at the same time and see how fast they are. I don’t know. I feel good with our talent, but you’ve got to make plays.

When you look at what your defense has done in getting to the quarterback and you look at what their offense has allowed, do you expect them to try to change things up this weekend?
Narduzzi:
Good coaches change things up. I think they’re got to do what they do as well. It’s hard to change everything up. But they’ll have some different stuff. They’ve thrown some Y-screen on us in the past. I guess three years ago they ran a Y-screen with the tailback going vertical out of a trips set and then the tight end running kind of a screen that got us, so I could see some of that. We practiced. Obviously, they love their T-screens; I could see that. A year ago, two years ago, three years ago, I don’t know how many years ago, we’ve watched it all. They’ve ran - tackle arc-released to block our corner and run a quick now route. So we’ve practiced all the different things that they can do to get the ball out quickly. There’s only so many things you can do. But I’ve never seen a tackle arc-release to go block a corner on a bubble. I’ve never ever seen that before. That was a heck of a scheme by them. So I’m sure they’ve got more tricks, too, to get after us.

What has Chris Beatty brought to that room and what are some of the things you see from him?
Narduzzi:
Six months ago or whatever it was, how many months ago it was, we felt like we needed to change - we needed to be able to throw the ball this year, period. We knew we were losing two tailbacks so I thought it was important that we throw the ball a lot better. We just couldn’t survive if we think we can run the ball and can’t and then we have no passing game. So the addition of Whipple and Chris Beatty have been really good. Everybody talks about Whipple and what he’s done with the schematic part of it and the fundamentals of Kenny Pickett and getting him where I thought he could have been two years ago, to be honest with you.

And then Chris Beatty has done an incredible job with those wideouts. They’re catching the football, they’re playing their tails off him and I think that’s the important thing: they’re playing hard for him, they’re making plays and they have a lot of confidence. All of them do, not just Taysir and Ffrench, but they all have a lot of confidence. Shocky came up and made some huge catches last week, Jared Wayne had a nice one over the middle, so they all have confidence. They just have to wait their turn. And the tight ends; let’s not forget about the tight ends.

Could you see Shocky get more involved as the season goes on?
Narduzzi:
No doubt about it. I think he was a little bit banged up early in the year. He just wasn’t 100% right, for whatever reason. And we have some other good players - Aaron Mathews made a few key catches as well - but yeah, I could see Shocky getting involved more as well.

Mark and Kenny, is that as much about finding the key to Kenny, finding what resonated with him?
Narduzzi:
No, I think it’s not really a key. It’s schematics, really. It’s knowing what makes him tick. It’s just the coaching part of it, the relationship part of it. So much goes into - you can have a good quarterback and a good coach and nothing can click. But it’s Coach Whipple knowing what Kenny likes, Kenny understands what he’s asking, there’s being familiar with the offense and where the ball’s supposed to go. And also teaching him what’s going on back there in the secondary. Kenny just knows where to go with the ball quicker, which eliminates sacks when you do that. Just like that touchdown pass last week against Duke: they’re bringing max pressure, a year ago, I believe he might have got sacked and who knows what else happens. But he knows where to go with the ball, he’s making quicker decisions and our receivers expect the ball to come out.

Do you plan to hold back any freshmen who’ve played in four games?
Narduzzi:
Um, maybe one or two, but no. There’s seven or eight of them that have played so far, we have them charted. We’re playing to win, you know? We’ve got one game to go and everybody’s got to go. So we’ll worry about that next year. We’ll just keep recruiting more guys and turn the roster over a little bit quicker. But things happen, whether it’s a Keyshon Camp and Weaver, just feel like if these guys can help us win, even if it’s just on special teams, let’s use them because guys get that injury in their junior year and all of a sudden they still have their redshirt year that they didn’t use.

You guys aren’t doing it and I don’t think you would, but what do you think when you look around college football and see there are teams looking like they’re not going to have a great season and they take a guy who hasn’t redshirted yet, maybe a quarterback or a key player, and say, ‘We’re just going to sit him down, save him for next year’ - effectively tanking the season.
Narduzzi:
Quitters. Quitters, I guess. I’m hearing about it a little bit. I don’t know why or what. But, man, I’m glad I’m not on that team, I can tell you that. It’s not our mentality. It’s just not. We’re a no-quit football team, and I don’t care what the record is, what the score is, I just don’t ever see - I mean, it’s got to be tough going out there on Saturdays, it’s got to be tough to practice every day. It’s got to be a tough culture around that program. I don’t think the culture improves. If you have a bad week the next week, guys are all saying, ‘Hey, I think I’m going to -‘ or next year, what are you going to do then? Take it again two years in a row? What does that say for our society?

Any update on either of the Davis’s?
Narduzzi:
No update.

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