Narduzzi on the run game, room assignments, identities and more
Pat Narduzzi talked to the media at length on Thursday about Pitt’s offense, rooming assignments, identities, focus and more. Here’s a full rundown of what he said.
Narduzzi: We’ve had a pretty solid day of work today and, really, the last two days, so we’ve had three really focused days, maybe as focused as we’ve had. I don’t know if that equals out to anything. There’s no guarantees in anything you do. We’ve talked to our kids about being prepared mentally and physically. We got the physical work in and there’s still a couple more days of really getting the mental work in. So we’re ready to go.
When they run Jamie Newman, the quarterback, is it similar to what Duke was doing with Daniel Jones?
Narduzzi: They’ve got some of those, yeah. There’s similarities, and if they didn’t, they may. So they run some of the power read stuff, they’ll have quarterback runs, for sure.
Shawn Watson said yesterday that in almost every game, people do things differently to you? How difficult is that to adjust on the fly like that?
Narduzzi: It’s the same thing offensively and defensively. You practice what you see on tape; that’s all you can practice. But there’s always different stuff on every side of the ball and special teams as well. You prepare for a certain look that you’re going to block on kickoff return. That’s football. We do some different things that people don’t adjust for either, so there’s a little bit of that on both sides of the ball. And you have enough in that if they do this, what are we going to do? You’re always kind of - ‘What if they did that? What if we did this?’ There’s always that extra step that you have in case, and if not, then you go back to your bank and pull something out in the second half that our kids can execute.
It’s always like, ‘Hey guys, remember this.’ Randy Bates on defense called a blitz last week down on the 10-yard line that we hadn’t practiced that week. The kids executed it and it worked. I was like, ‘What? We don’t have that in.’ All of a sudden, there it was. But the kids remembered. So you go back to, really, what you do well.
You were talking about backup plans and obviously Qadree and Darrin are having phenomenal seasons; there hasn’t been a game where at least one of them hasn’t played very well. But if you run into a situation where a team is able to kind of neutralize that and maybe stack the box, how confident are you that you guys could win a game primarily with the passing game?
Narduzzi: We’ll find out. It depends on how much they pack the box. We’ve seen people pack the box and we’ve still be able to run it, but with what Wake did last week to North Carolina State, that’s your fear. But with Taysir being back healthy, I think Kenny and those receivers, I think their timing is better than I’ve seen it at this point. I think we’re going [up] in that category. If we can keep hitting a couple of those, they have to be afraid of the speed out there, too, because I think we’ve got some guys that are coming on. So we’ll see. Rafael is another guy, so we’ve got some weapons out there. If you pack it that much, we’re going to have to hit some shots. Then once you hit a couple shots, we become two-dimensional.
So how confident am I? I’m pretty confident. If they stopped it and we couldn’t do it, then we have to be able to make plays out there?
With how efficient he was on Saturday, do you think that was maybe Kenny’s best game?
Narduzzi: It’s hard to say. I can’t say Kenny’s had a bad game. He hasn’t had a bad game. He’s making good decisions in the run game and pass game, and as long as you’re not throwing it to the other guys, there’s nothing wrong with a punt either. Punts are good. Interceptions and turnovers are bad. Making good decisions is part of being a great decision-maker at that quarterback spot.
As teams have tried to load up in the box, have you been able to make that work against them? It seems like both Darrin and Qadree, as soon as they got through the line of scrimmage, there was nobody.
Narduzzi: When you load up like that, you better be right and you better make sure you have somebody to help make that play if he gets through. And again, the other thing is, if they can load up, we can load up. If they stick everybody in the box to stop it, we’re not going to line up four receivers when they’re loading the box up. If they load up, we can put everybody in the box and get into a boxing match. So we’re prepared to do that as well.
Receivers have the reputation of being divas now; how are you able to get your guys to buy in on the downfield blocking?
Narduzzi: That’s a good point. They are a lot of divas. We have tough guys. It’s Pittsburgh. I say that time and time again. But we’ve developed those guys - blocking’s important in big plays. I think after they watch those guys go and you start seeing it being done, you know how important that role is as well. If you want to play in the NFL, you have to block somebody. They block in the NFL, too. They get a paycheck to be a diva, but you better block in the NFL, too. I don’t think Coach Tomlin is real happy when the receivers don’t block for those guys, for James.
Was that one of those games when you look back and regret how you used V’Lique? I know you’re always cognizant of the redshirt rule and he didn’t play a whole lot.
Narduzzi: Yeah, we didn’t do a great job. I’m glad you pointed that out. I talked to V’Lique earlier in the week and just said we messed that up. I’m not worried about even redshirting him at this point; we’re going to play him if he’s capable. We’ll see what it looks like Saturday.
It’s one of those new rules, and you kind of think you’re going to be okay and we made a mistake of playing him on special teams. So today, one of my last things is to talk about all those guys - how many games have they played? Who’s going to play? Why are we going to play them? We’re not going to play them on special teams. We’re using them for offense or defense first, and if they’re playing on offense or defense, then let’s blend them into special teams. But they don’t play on special teams until we use them for why we brought them out. That will be a new rule that we did a bad job - we knew that Virginia Tech may have taken the sweeps away a little bit and Wake may do it, too, and if that’s the case, then we’d like to save him, so we’ll kind of play it by ear.
But if he can help us win and he’s got to play in five games or six games, then we’re going to - we’re playing to win. We’re not playing to lose. So I’m not worried about redshirting. I think when you think about redshirting, coaching as long as I have, you always see those, ‘When are you going to use a redshirt year?’ Who knows what happens in spring ball, first game of the season. Guys get hurt and guys are out. I always say, the good man upstairs will tell you when you’re going to play and when you’re not. When you have an opportunity to play, play. Because I’ve had guys that started as freshmen, started second year, third year, fourth year and - I remember this one guy in particular from Staten Island, New York, thirteenth play of his senior year, he breaks his leg. Flat broken leg, not a twisted ankle, broke his leg. Well, he redshirted that year. Who would have thought? Then he came back and started in his fifth year, played five years.
There’s so many different things that you’ve seen through the years that, when it’s time to play, you go play. I think that’s the main thing I have to look at. If he can help us win, then we’re going to play him. If he has another one of those games, how do you not play him?
You can still get some mileage out of that game that he had, right? I think one of the snaps he played against Virginia Tech, you got a big play because -
Narduzzi: Decoyed it, yeah. But we’d like him to be more than a decoy. I want him to carry the ball.
You’ve talked about being 1-0 every week and not really focusing on the standings or any of the other variables involved, but now that everybody knows what’s at stake on Saturday, have you seen anything different from your players and have you tried to guard against anything changing or altering the approach, knowing what’s on the line?
Narduzzi: Not really. I mean, I haven’t seen our kids at all. As a matter of fact, I had a meeting with our eagles today, our leadership council and I said, ‘So how’s everything going? How’s everything on campus?’ thinking that maybe they’re talking out there on campus and they’re talking about, ‘Hey, congratulations’ and patting you on the back. And they said something about someone’s watching some girl sleep or something, some guy’s sleeping around - I don’t know if you guys heard any of that. Some of the guys were like, ‘Bookser’s watching the news.’ I’m like, ‘Books, you watch the news?’ I didn’t know Bookser watched the news. But there was something going on campus. I was talking about the hoopla, are we okay? You know, are we grounded? And they were talking about something else that they watched on the news.
But no, I think they are grounded. We haven’t had a different approach. It’s the same approach. And I think they understand how it’s been done and I think maybe players are superstitious, too; they haven’t talked about it to this point, let’s not talk about it now. It’s like, hush hush. No one says a word. And it’s a good thing. They’ve been focused in practice and that’s all that matters.
Is that one of those things where maybe the naivety of youth, they don’t realize how tough it is to get there and you put more pressure on yourself than they’re putting on themselves?
Narduzzi: No, I don’t think there’s any pressure on the kids. We don’t put any pressure - it’s another week. If coaches started to approach these things in different ways, kids are really perceptive; they figure it out real quick that, ‘Oh shoot, Coach is tight this week.’ There’s no difference. We’re going to go out and have fun on Saturday at noon and we’re going to play loose, we’re going to play like we play, like Pitt football. That’s what we’re going to do. It’s not going to be any different.
With the way your O-line is playing and the deal you made with them, does Chris LaSala have to book that Miami penthouse a week in advance?
Narduzzi: We’re not looking at that either. We’re looking to see if we can get a W in the win column. We’re not worried about that.
You guys and the Steelers had similar blowout wins at Heinz Field last week and Tomlin’s message after was, you’d like to think you’re that good but you’re probably not. Did you have a similar message to your team?
Narduzzi: No, we didn’t have to talk about that, didn’t need to talk about that. I think our guys know who they are and what they are, and you better stay grounded. We didn’t have to say it; I think they know it and as you watch the tape and go, ‘What are you doing here?’ there’s so many things we can fix. So you’re never as good as you think you are. Period.
Whether you put those guys up in a nice suite or not, you’re about to spend a lot of time on the road away from home; what’s the approach you take to these road trips in terms of putting guys in rooms with their teammates?
Narduzz: What’s our thoughts there?
Yeah, how do you do that? Damar said he rooms with Phillipie and Briggs rooms with Mathis; is there a method to that?
Narduzzi: There’s always a method. There’s a ton of methods. It’s sleeping habits, it’s ‘Does [one player] snore and he doesn’t, he’s probably not going to play so don’t put a starter with a snorer; that’s where it starts.’ Can you sleep with that guy? We had one of those today. So it’s snoring but putting Damar and a field corner together, they do a lot of communicating - ‘Hey, what if we get this? Are you going to call this?’ Just so they can talk checks. So there’s stuff like that. Put quarterbacks together so they can talk the same language.
In the summer, we put guys together just to get to know the other side of the ball, but we’re not - it’s defense with defense and offense with offense and who can help out who? If you’ve got a young Mike linebacker, let’s put him with someone really smart that can help him. And then there’s the other - you bring a young guy who’s never traveled before and he’s late for a meeting and the head coach is going to go berserk, you put him with somebody you trust who’s going to make sure he follows him around, just so we don’t have that issue. So there’s many different reasons for who rooms with who, based on what you’re worried about. You try to cover all the bases.
Speaking of snoring, I think you caught some teams sleeping in the years past. How much did being the spoiler maybe help this team prepare for anything? And maybe if there’s a team that’s not going to get caught sleeping or not get caught looking ahead, it’s you guys because the teams that you’ve beaten that had conference championships on the line and things like that - you’ve played that role so you know better.
Narduzzi: Yeah, you know. We kind of think one game at a time and never looking back and saying, ‘Hey, we were the spoiler, we spoiled somebody else.’ Because when you start to think that, ‘Hey, we won’t get spoiled,’ that’s when you get spoiled. But I think anybody can beat anybody on any given day. I don’t try to look back on what happened…we’re just worried about Wake Forest and what they do this Saturday and really focus on what we do. It’s the discipline, the communication and the details that we have this weekend that’s going to help us win a game. It’s not going to be that we were hunted in the past or not hunted or that we were the spoilers; it doesn’t really matter to us.
I’m curious how a coach acquires his football identity. You’re known as a run the ball/stop the run kind of guy; where did that come from and how far back did it go and why didn’t you become a run-and-shoot guy when you became a coach?
Narduzzi: I don’t know. I guess it starts probably as a graduate assistant coach and listening to Randy Walker; he was a smashmouth, he was an old running back back in the day and liked to run the football, and being around Kevin Wilson, who was the offensive coordinator at the time. And maybe it was growing up and watching Marschell Brumfield carry the ball and Robby Robson from down in West Virginia. Who knows? But running the football, you know, running the football is awful important. And Dwight Dumas, a big old fullback, No. 49 - maybe it’s all of those guys that you watch run the football and have a chance to win football games.
They were West Virginia guys?
Narduzzi: Robby Robson was. He was from right down the road. I don’t know where he was from.
You were a West Virginia fan?
Narduzzi: No. Heck no.
(Editor’s note: Brumfield, Robson and Dumas played at Youngstown State)
How much do you feel like this team has taken on an identity, that it’s kind of like when you line up against Pitt, now you know what you’re going to get? You may have some tricks up your sleeve, but there’s no disguising what we do, this is how we’re going to play and you’re going to have to stop us.
Narduzzi: We’re going to throw it this weekend. Okay? We’re going to throw it.
Your identity is based on what you do this weekend and not what you’ve done in the past. We don’t look for an identity; we have to do whatever it takes to win a football game. If it takes us throwing it 50 times, we’ll throw it 50 times. If they’re going to pack the box, it will all be dictated off that. I think our kids had an identity; I think that O-line wants to run the football. If I sat in a room with five receivers, five O-linemen, two tailbacks and a quarterback, the quarterback wouldn’t care, the running backs wouldn’t care, the O-line would say, ‘Coach, let’s run it’ and the receivers would say, ‘Coach, let’s throw it.’
So what is the identity? The identity we want around the country is to win football games and that we win. That’s what the identity needs to be. Not how we do it. It doesn’t matter.
If the identity is what you did last week, then you’re pretty good with that?
Narduzzi: I’m really good with that. I like the identity of running. That’s my identity but what’s our team identity, I think was the question. We want to run the football and we better be able to stop the run. Wake Forest is one of those teams that you look at them and you could get fooled by them liking to throw the football; it’s all run. It’s all run and throw and it’s RPO’s and they’re going to hit us on some slants, but when it comes down to it, if they’re handing the ball off to their tailbacks and gaining yards rushing, we’ve got an issue. We need to stop the run and we need to keep it at about three yards per carry, average, or we’re going to be in trouble.