After Wednesday's practice, Pat Narduzzi was asked about Pitt's running backs, the safety leadership, his goals for spring camp and more.
Here's a full rundown of what he said.
Narduzzi: Day Two. Really good day again. One of the things our focus was, just the tempo, making sure our guys can practice. We’re out here in what we call spider pads, which is just a little sponge on your shoulders to keep them healthy. You’re coaching football but you’re also trying to teach them how to be healthy and make sure that nobody gets banged up unnecessarily. So they did a much better job of that and that’s my job as a head coach to make sure we don’t have any crazy injuries because someone fell down and someone tackled someone when they’re not supposed to.
Friday, we’ll heat it up a little bit, we’ll have full pads on and I think we’ve only got one, maybe two live periods in the day, so we’re not going to do a ton of contact even though next week is spring break and they’re going to have time. We just want to slowly get into it. We don’t need to bang. We need to know what we’re doing and get a little bit in. We’ll do some thud where we’re staying off the ground, again just trying to keep them healthy. There’s nothing good to having a bunch of guys in the training room.
But today and looking at the video tape from Monday, I was happy with a lot of the things I saw. It’s different getting back into it. Guys have to get their motors going, the effort part of it, but I would say for spring one, it was great, and spring two, I liked what I saw today.
Of your 15, how many will be padded practices?
Narduzzi: Probably 12. We got two in now and I believe, if I’m not mistaken, the practice before the spring game will be no pads. I think. And don’t mark me on that, I have to look; I believe that will be 12 - not full contact, did you say full contact?
I meant full contact.
Narduzzi: Full contact? There’s new rules out as far as how much contact you can have. It’s funny, the NCAA makes all these rules, like they think we’re idiots. It cracks me up. They make these rules and you look at the rule and you’re like, ‘We don’t do that much to begin with.’ You’re saying we can have this much contact; if we did that much contact, we’d all be in the training room, coaches included.
But let them do what they want to do. They think they’re helping the game. We’ll never get near the contact they’re allowing us to. Put it that way.
How have you seen your guys take on the new offense under Frank and what you guys are trying to install that might be different from last year?
Narduzzi: It’s a lot of good stuff. Obviously we’re seeing some of the same passing game and the same things we did a year ago. To me, it’s a different offense every week anyway, so it’s no different. That’s what we do. Regular season, West Virginia’s going to come in and it’s going to be a different offense. It’s going to be different people running the offense, it’s going to be different alignments, different skill sets that an offense or defense has, so it’s good. Our kids adjust to it. It’s not like they’re going, ‘Oh, this is a whole new’ - after two days, you better have it down. You better know what they’re trying to do.
But the interesting thing about spring ball is, every day it’s like a new install. It’s like a new team. Because there’s more stuff being installed offensively, new stuff on defense, so every day is like the first day of a week.
What does a coach take away from spring practices? A chance to be around your guys seeing them in something resembling practice or football; over these weeks, what do you look for?
Narduzzi: You look for a lot of stuff. The first thing you’re looking for is, you lose a guy - who did we lose? Did we lose our quarterback last year? Kenny Pickett, yeah, he’s not playing for us again. So you lose a guy like that and we want to replace him. You know, outside linebacker, we want to replace those guys. So we want to come out of spring ball and say, ‘Who is that guy? Who is that Star? Who is that SAM? Who is that boundary corner where Damarri Mathis was? Who’s our quarterback? Who’s going to replace Lucas Krull? Who’s going to be his backup?’ Those are things we’re looking for. We’re looking for guys that are smarter than they were last spring, they can pick up the offense, and again, you want to come out of spring ball saying, ‘I think we can be just as good or better,’ or, ‘Hey, this is a weakness, we need to go find another SAM linebacker.’ If you can’t run, you gotta get another one.
So those are all things we’re looking for: who can execute the offense, the defense and special teams, for that matter.
When you looked at it at the end of the season, your running back deployment last year, what were some of the things that stood out to you? What did you notice?
Narduzzi: You know what, I don’t have any stats in front of me, and again, stats are stats. And again, I know you guys always ask - ‘he got this many carries’ - sometimes you don’t know by carries because you’re going by series, so it’s not necessarily saying, ‘I want to get him 15 plays, I want to get you 12 plays, I want to get you eight plays.’ So it all kind of goes - if the series goes longer and you ran it a few more times, you get more carries. But the thing I see is, we’ve got three starting tailbacks, and Izzy right now going into spring ball is the number-one guy. I think he was last year, if I recall, but he wasn’t at the end of spring ball. Right? You guys remember that? But Izzy going into spring ball is the starter, but Rodney looks good, Vince looks good - like, we’ve got three starters and you never know when you need them. You watch even the NFL games and they’re playing two or three guys. So you want to keep those guys fresh, you want them playing hard and running hard and protecting hard.
The portal is still an option? You might be looking in the portal as we speak?
Narduzzi: You know, you’re always looking in the portal. You’re going to dip in there and look. What are your needs? I think we’re going to come out of spring ball and say, what are our needs? And some players may go, ‘Hey, what’s my needs?’ Everybody’s got different needs, and if someone’s not getting enough reps - you know, I don’t think we talked about Johnny V. (John Vardzel) just not feeling like he’s - you know, he wants to play more. I’m like, ‘Hey John, I think it’s a great idea. You’ve been on scholarship for two years, you’re kind of an emergency guy.’ He can go to some different places and play a lot, depending on the depth chart.
So those are things they’ve got to make and kids have to make decisions that are best for them and we have to make decisions that are best for us. Sometimes those things happen.
We’re not going to recruit a high school guy. I can tell you this: we’re not going to recruit another high school kid coming out of spring ball, so it’s portal. It used to be, ‘Oh, I’m going to go get a junior college guy,’ but you’re staying out of the junior college. So that’s when the portal can help you, but I’d rather go with 83 scholarships instead of 85 instead of taking some guy that doesn’t fit our culture. I want a good kid, I want a guy with character and someone that will fit in with us.
The past two years, you’ve seen Vincent Davis grow up from being a younger running back to a guy you guys can trust. Same thing with Izzy. And you’ve told us how a lot of that is embracing the details and doing the little things, not just showing up on game day to be a big playmaker. Has Rodney been the same way in growth this year? Or has his approach been different because you guys used him a lot last year?
Narduzzi: He wasn’t here for spring ball, so this is his first spring. We saw him in fall camp. He’s missed him a couple classes, I think, so we had to get the paddle out and bring him in the principal’s office. So I can’t compare his approach last spring to this spring, just because he wasn’t here. He came in August, or he came in, I guess, late June or early July, so it’s hard for me to answer.
But I think you can see it from August that it’s important to him. He’s played; now it’s even more important to him. But I think that’s every kid. That’s not just that spot.
You bring back the entire starting offensive line but you have guys like Ryan Baer. What can a first-year kid do in spring ball to involve himself and push the guys for a starting position?
Narduzzi: When you look at the Baer, and you guys saw him when he said something about the Cleveland Browns, which I would never have said that, but classic; you’re a hero in Pittsburgh forever. I think that will be replayed, especially in the Steeler-Brown week. But the first thing is he’s got to come in and pick the offense up. He’s big. You saw what he looks like. He’s strong. He’s benching over 400 pounds. Some of his numbers are ridiculous. But the game is a little faster than it was in high school, so he’s going to have to get into the speed of the game and pick up things. There’s different defenses, they move faster, the offense moves faster, there’s more checks and different things that they’ve got to be involved in. So it’s a progression for what Ryan’s going to go through. He might look good on Day One, but what’s he going to look like on Day Seven or Eight?
How is Jacoby fitting in?
Narduzzi: He’s fitting in great.
Tackle?
Narduzzi: He’s been at guard all last year and I think he can do anything. You might see him play fullback. Who knows?
How have you seen Erick and Brandon grow from last year to this year? Last year, they were the new safeties you guys had to depend on with Paris and Damar gone. This year, they’re the experienced guys and Erick having a huge ACC Championship Game.
Narduzzi: Yeah, those guys just play with a little bit more confidence all the time. Even P.J. O’Brien and you see Steph Hall making some plays out here as well, just with some speed. I saw him run around yesterday - I saw one play where he went from this end to that side and it was like, holy cow he’s flying around. He’s been banged up a little bit.
But Erick and Brandon have done a great job of really leading the secondary. I think those are the two leaders back there. Brandon, probably a little bit more vocal, Erick, a little more by example, I think. But it’s like having Damar and Paris back again. Two experienced guys and we got them for another year. That’s the beauty.
You said a few weeks ago you were going to the Senior Bowl. What did you see, what did you hear about your guys down there?
Narduzzi: You heard great things. What, are they going to tell you bad things? But you’re not getting any inside - there is no inside stuff. Who’s going to tell you, ‘Oh yeah, we’re taking Kenny in the sixth pick’? But everybody loved how they worked down there. I guess it was the Jets had Damarri and just loved him, what he was doing. Cal did a great job down there. And obviously they spoke greatly of what Kenny did. He’s doing interviews right now in Indianapolis and I guess tomorrow’s the Combine, which will be fun to watch, prime time, I guess. Kind of a little bit different.
Just heard good things. Went down there and, like I said, they’re not telling you things that you need to know. But that will all come out. Those are three great players that are going to, um, you know…
Did they pick your brain, some of the NFL guys?
Narduzzi: They asked, ‘Tell me about this.’ But they’re going to dig around. I always tell our kids all the time, NFL guys aren’t going to come to the dad. We have nothing bad to say about our kids. We love them. But they’re going to go dig around. You know, how are you treating the custodian? How are you treating Jules that’s in the cafe? How are you treating the equipment guy? They’re going to go around and find out who this guy is and how he treats people. That’s the big thing. They’ll watch the tape and see. The tape speaks for itself when it comes down to all of these draft-able guys this year.
