Pat Narduzzi held his final press briefing of the week on Thursday and talked about the play of Pitt's cornerbacks, defending Wake Forest's offense, the quandary of transfers and a lot more. Here's video and a full rundown of his remarks.

Narduzzi: We took into account what Will was talking about coverage-wise - we’re playing all off corners this week, because of Will. We kind of changed up our defense this week because we kind of got scared from talking to Will on Monday.

But we had a good week and we’re ready for Wake. We’ll get ready to travel down there tomorrow.

What would it take for you to really do that?
Narduzzi: More conversations, I guess.

I was going to ask you on Monday when you were talking about the press and the way your corners play - do you get a sense that NFL scouts look at your corners a little bit differently or maybe give a little extra credit that they can sort of survive playing this way?
Narduzzi: There’s no question about it. In the NFL, you have to press. You look at Damarri Mathis and Dane and the guys that we’ve put out, Avonte Maddox - it takes a different animal to be out there. You’re exactly right. When you can press up and you’re not scared - there’s guys that are good players, maybe faster, bigger, stronger, all those other things playing in different conferences that go play, that get to the NFL - they don’t want to go up there and press. Our guys don’t get - you just imagine, you get into an NFL camp and you get in there and - I didn’t think we were going to talk corner play; I was just kidding - but you get in a game or get in practice, get in preseason camp and you’re pressed, you feel comfortable. Guys go through three or four or five years of college and they feel comfortable with what they’ve been asked to do, what they’ve been coached to do, what comes natural to them. And those corners that are playing off coverage, I don’t know what the success rate of it going to the NFL and then now have to press and they’re going, ‘Shoot, I haven’t done this before.’ It’s new. And I would say it’s the same thing for a corner that presses all the time that’s going into a system that’s got to play off. But people are going to draft guys that can press and play man and feel comfortable, because half of it’s all in the mind: whether you feel comfortable doing it or not or you kind of get nervous. We always talk to our guys about being in ‘cool school’ and sometimes they’re not in cool school. Cool school means - like, last week, we didn’t have very good cool school mechanics which means, hey, play it cool; we’re in great coverage, we don’t need to hold anybody. You get into that thinking that he’s going to get you, but we’re right there; we have to play it better.

When you’re facing an offense like Wake Forest with their RPO’s, how much more emphasis is on the rest of your defense to still play at the speed you want to play at consistently, even when they’re trying to make you hesitate a little bit more, which would put your corners at a disadvantage because they have to cover longer?
Narduzzi: It’s a different deal. Playing Wake Forest’s offense is like playing the triple-option, kind of. The quarterback is riding at the line of scrimmage; he can hand it off and pat the guy on the back and say ‘Go’ after he lets the ball go. Or he’ll ride it in there, and if he feels like the RPO is not there, then he follows the guy into the line of scrimmage. So it’s really a combination of tackle the tailback on the run, the quarterback may follow right behind him or he gets all the linebackers sucked up in the box because they’re riding it in there so long and then he’s dumping it off to 12, 15 different variations of routes you’re going to see: an out by number two, a bubble by number two, we call it a missile route - a 10-yard out by number two, which they ran a ton of them in the championship game, so we worked the heck out of that. So they’ll come back to something else. We’ll have slant routes or glance routes on either side. We’ve worked everything. They’ve thrown RPO posts. They’ve done it all. They threw a fade.

So they’ve got that whole repertoire of RPO’s off of the number one receiver on either side or the slot receiver.

It sounds like that takes a lot of eye discipline across the board to watch so many different things in that situation.
Narduzzi: The thing is, the corners have to do their jobs. All they have to do is worry about their fade or their post or whatever - or they run digs. The safety - it’s really that safety that’s put in a bind, to be honest with you, because that ‘backer’s uncovering him at times, so we’ll switch it up as far as what we do with the outside ‘backers, as far as attacking the box or not attacking the box. If you’re not running the ‘backers in the box - you’ll see, our ‘backers will hold at times to sit in those windows, which will make the quarterback a little bit confused, just to see what we’re doing. There’s nothing that I’m telling you that they don’t see on tape either, so we’re holding those guys but you’re guessing, but if we’re not holding them and they’re running in the box to stop the run, then our guys have to make plays on the ball.

It feels like we’re seeing more freshmen and sophomores play each week as the season goes on; did you expect to have so many young guys playing, starting and playing in key spots by this point in the season?
Narduzzi: Well, last week, you saw Jordan Bass get four snaps on defense, and we’ve slowly got him in there. Rasheem Biles is a guy that played a lot of special teams; he’s a football player and he’s going to be really good. We’re going to probably get him some snaps this week as well - just little by little, get his feet wet and then see what happens. I’m trying to think of the other guys. Kenny’s been out there for awhile. Izzy’s played two games; we’d kind of like to hold him to four if we could, just hoping we stay healthy at the receiver spot. I’m trying to think if there’s anybody else.

B.J. made his second start.
Narduzzi: Yeah, B.J.’s, I think, played six games already, so he’s not going to redshirt. We need him.

Has your philosophy on redshirts changed at all in the last couple years where, with the way the game is now, you don’t know how long guys will be around at one school - are you less likely or are you less inclined to try to hold a guy and try to hold onto his eligibility because you don’t know if he’ll be here three years from now?
Narduzzi: I mean, some people would say, ‘We’re going to play him because we don’t know if they’re going to be here.’ We’re not trying to do that. We’re still trying to save and protect the kids’ year if we can. If we need them - like, we would love to play Izzy Polk at receiver. We just had a conversation here at noon like, ‘Okay, what if?’ It’s like, ‘Izzy’s only going in if someone’s out for the game and maybe out for the next two or three weeks.’ But we get two more games and you’d rather play a guy in 40 plays as opposed to four. We don’t want to do that to anybody; I just don’t think that’s fair. So it’s not just about us; it’s about the kids, too, and I think kids see that, that we’re trying to protect them and we’re trying to keep their years.

They want to play, most of the time. I’ve had kids come in after four games and go - you know, young guys a couple years ago like, ‘I want to redshirt, I don’t want to use any more of my games.’ I’m like, ‘Okay.’ As a matter of fact - yeah, we’ve had that. I won’t give any names.

I remember I asked you about quarterbacks after you made the change and you said, ‘Hey, we like developing guys and we like bringing guys along,’ but at the same time, you’ve had to bring in - not had to, but you’ve brought in older, more established guys. When you look at the conference, North Carolina’s got a homegrown guy, Duke’s got a homegrown guy, Travis has been at Florida State for four years, so he’s essentially a homegrown guy; do you have to maybe change your philosophy on how you look at the portal with quarterbacks going forward and maybe try to get guys that you know are going to be around a couple of years?
Narduzzi: I mean, you’d like to have four years. You look at Nick Patti, who did a heck of a job for us, and it’s great. You just want a guy. The big thing, I don’t think anybody cares if he’s here for one or two or three or four, it’s just like, let’s make sure he’s the good one, right? You guys all want the good quarterbacks, right? Nobody would be happy if he’s the bad quarterback. ‘Hey, that’s great, he’s been here five years and he stinks.’ Nobody wants that guy either.

But we’re looking for the right quarterback. You can’t sit here and paint yourself into a corner saying ‘We’re never going to take a transfer again,’ because Christian’s a transfer. Again, everybody would like to have the four-and-a-half year, the four-year/four-game Kenny Pickett; that’s a perfect situation. But it doesn’t always work out that way.

Is it hard, though - is it a chicken-and-egg thing where you want to develop guys, but at the same time, if you keep bringing in guys from outside that may be more established and pop the freshman on the depth chart - you’ve had guys here who have come in and not stayed because they felt they felt guys were above them. Is that tough?
Narduzzi: It’s tough. The situation we’re in right now, the situation we’re in in recruiting right now is, it’s wide open. Kids are transferring and you have to just play it by ear. There’s no exact science for it right now at this point. Would you like a quarterback more than one year? Yes. You’ve just got to play it by ear. If Caleb Williams wanted to transfer and he only had one year left, are we going to take him or are we not going to take him? Heisman Trophy.

So you play it by ear and you get who you get.

Pickett starting for five seasons - do you think we’ll ever see anybody do that again?
Narduzzi: Boy, that’s a great question.

At one school.
Narduzzi: At one school. Yeah, that’s a good question. I’d probably say no.

I can’t remember if it was before Virginia Tech or Louisville, but you talked about Bub and how hard he works and what a positive guy he is. How rewarding was it to see him have the kind of game he did against Louisville and break through a little bit?
Narduzzi: It was great. It’s good to see all of those guys get their opportunities and throw the ball and you hope you can get a little bit more of that every week, whether it’s play-action or drop-back, whatever it may be. But I want to see everybody have success: that’s why they all came here and it was good to see Bub, really, the last two weeks have two big-time routes down the field for touchdowns.

Tiquan told us that Christian’s been spending a lot of time in the receiver room. How unique is the time that he does that and what do you see as the value of that?
Narduzzi: He’s in that receiver room - again, I don’t see when he’s in there. I know he was in there at 5:50 this morning watching tape in the receiver room. He’s in the receiver room because Coach Cignetti’s in the other room and he can’t get to the film himself. We don’t really have a quarterback room, so he just placed himself in there so he can find a place to watch videotape. Other than that, I’m not sure if he’s been in with the receivers; when he was in there this morning, there was nobody in there except him. So I couldn’t answer whether they’re together.

Well, he said he’s with the receivers, he’s been spending a lot of time with them in that room.
Narduzzi: Good.

Do you see that -
Narduzzi: I haven’t seen it because I’m usually in my room watching my tape. But I think that’s huge if they’re doing that. I’ll have to talk to Coach Underwood about that. But again, that doesn’t shock me and it wouldn’t shock me if Phil was doing the same thing.

You talked about the importance of the outside linebackers being in the right passing lanes, being in the right spots; how have you seen Solomon and Bangally - I know Bangally just came back from injury, but Solomon seemed like he was in a lot of the right places last week. How have you seen him grow in his understanding how he fits in your defense?
Narduzzi: Yeah, DeShields has been really good. Bangally was rusty last week; I hope he’s not rusty this week. He needs to play really good for us to have a chance on the road. But DeShields has really been - he’s been sharp. He’s bought into the linebacker position, he’s physical, I’ve been impressed with him a lot. He’s doing the right things. This is one of those ones where you start to attack a gap and then you think it’s a pass and then you pop out to try to help - it’s one of those, you’ve just got to keep going, blitz the quarterback and go sack him. Don’t get sucked up.

Does Donovan’s role - he’s such a good tackler, does he give you a chance to be a little more flexible, not necessarily him being a linebacker but maybe like a dime ‘backer where you guys can use that but also use his athleticism to play safety at the same time?
Narduzzi: I’m confused what the question is. You want him to play some nickel back?

You can use him not in a traditional safety or linebacker role but sort of in a tweener role to help in situations like that, where he can help against the run but also maybe be quicker than some of your linebackers to help against the pass?
Narduzzi: That would be hard to do. We couldn’t put that in on Thursday. But you’re saying use a nickel back instead of a linebacker out there that’s quicker. I think they’re still in a run-pass conflict. It’s called a conflict, and if you’re a step faster, I don’t think it’s going to help you at all. Fits take a long time to work. That would be something we wouldn’t get into, just because of all the run that they’re going to at least try to do against us. So it’s a good thought, but it’s not what we do.

Did you get a kick out of watching the last Wake Forest game? Or was it just another game that you had to study?
Narduzzi: No, I didn’t get a kick. Not really. You saw some of the big plays, the interceptions, the Erick Hallett catching balls - you saw them as you go and you sit there and say ‘Great play’ but you’re not thinking about, ‘Oh, we won that game.’

But we watch 2018 as well, when Jimmy Morrissey got run up underneath and we lost him for the next game and the next game but we clinched the Coastal down there in ’18. Those have been fun games and a lot on the line; this one, there’s not as much on the line except a chance to get victory number three.

So the fake slide is not in the playbook this week?
Narduzzi: Fake slide, we did practice that a couple times out there today. I mean, the fake slide. What a joke. Have you seen anybody else do it since? And not because it’s illegal; it’s because it was - whatever.

Clawson wasn’t happy about it.
Narduzzi: Yeah. You saw my tweet after that.

With the report out about an investigation into Michigan with potential sign-stealing, what kind of work do you guys put into protecting your program from anyone that does try to sign-steal? Is that something you guys even think about?
Narduzzi: Well, you see our tarps out there. Let me tell you: I’ll throw it out there. Maybe the NCAA will read your article today on that question. I think it’s ridiculous what goes on. That doesn’t shock me if that happened. I’m not accusing anybody but, you know, to me, that’s been happening for awhile and I think it can happen with someone going to other games and watching stuff and stealing stuff. You can sit in Acrisure Stadium in row 5 from the 50-yard line and take Chris Peak’s camera right there and video their sideline the whole time, and I’ve heard of people doing this, where they match up the video - ‘Here’s the signals for play 1, here’s play 1; here’s the signals for play 2, here’s play 2.’ And they go, ‘Oh, okay, when he taps his nose, it’s an inside zone, when he taps his ear, it’s an outside zone. Hey, outside, inside.’ Right?

So there’s a lot of that going on, and I wouldn’t be shocked - when I was at Cincinnati, I mean, this is how far it goes back - when I was at Cincinnati, there was a team we played in the conference, in the Big East conference, that we heard was filming during the game. So if you go play at, I’m just going to say, at Chris State, because of you - if you played at Chris State and you have a home game, you’re up in the press box from Acrisure Stadium - we played Louisville last week, we could have a camera facing and videoing everything they’ve got, so for the next year when we go there, we’ve got all their stuff. So I’ve heard of that stuff going on. There’s been other teams that have gotten busted for that. It’s crappy sportsmanship. It’s not what’s supposed to happen, whether you travel to a stadium and do it, whether you do it in your own stadium. I think it’s tough. We worry about our signals all the time. We change our signals up, we change who’s signaling. I think we’ve got a pretty good bead on that. That’s why offensively we do wristbands. That’s why Whipple used to bring them over and talk to them and you couldn’t steal that signal. So there’s some merit to it. It’s hard to steal a wristband number, I think, but maybe I’m a knucklehead and I don’t know they’re stealing numbers. But there’s a lot of numbers.

It definitely happens and it would be nice if someone put a stop to it, because it’s not good for the game.

I think we forgot to ask you about this Monday. Nate Yarnell bumped up to number two on the quarterback depth chart; what went behind that?
Narduzzi: Just because he’s working. And again, it could be anything we want to do. But we just moved it up in there and he’s been good in practice every day and just kind of where we’re moving.

Looking at the Wake Forest quarterback situation where their starter got benched and they brought in a backup and when the backup got injured, they had to bring the starter back in. How beneficial do you think it is for your quarterback room to wait until the bye week to bring in Christian instead of having to maybe come into a game?
Narduzzi: You know, I don’t think it was beneficial. I’m not going to sit here and say that was a good call. It all depends. Everybody’s got a different situation and I don’t watch tape with their quarterback and see what Clawson sees or Ruggerio sees, so it’s hard for me to answer that. But everybody’s got to make their own decision based on their own timetable and knowing their kids in that room and what’s good for them.