Narduzzi on the scrimmage standouts and more

Who stood out in Pitt's scrimmage on Saturday? Pat Narduzzi broke down the standouts and more prior to Tuesday's practice. Here's the full rundown of what he said.

Narduzzi: Great weekend. I guess the last time we talked was Friday, and since then we had a nice scrimmage on Saturday. 124 plays offensively and defensively, and I think we got 40 snaps in on special teams, so a pretty extensive scrimmage. A good day. And then we had kind of an evening practice Sunday night and then we had a day off yesterday.

Good scrimmage. I’m happy with where we are. I think anytime you go into a scrimmage, you go, we’re going to need to have a good scrimmage, stay healthy, which we pretty much did, and really get a lot of work in and you kind of have an idea of where you are. I’m happy with where our guys are right now coming out of that scrimmage.

Who won the scrimmage?
Narduzzi: The defense won 56-54, if I recall. At first, I said the defense got beat, but I think the offense was ahead the entire scrimmage and at the end, the defense won a four-minute situation, which was get the ball back, and then the defense won a two-minute and came back. So the defense won. And I thought the defense had gotten beat because the score was that much, and I told the team the opposite.

Who stood out on both sides?
Narduzzi: Like I said, it was one of those clean scrimmages where there was no stars; it was just kind of solid throughout. It was just clean ball, not many unforced errors, which is what I wanted to see, as far as jumping offsides and all of that with all the different cadences we have in. I can’t say someone stood out. If I had to say someone stood out, I thought Bangally had a heck of a pick. Shayne Simon had a heck of a pick in some things that we’re working on. Those were two interceptions on the day; I won’t tell you which quarterback threw them. But there were two nice interceptions, I thought, were just like, ‘Wow, that was a big-time play.’ And actually Rashad Battle had a nice play as well on an interception.

How do you keep score in that scrimmage?
Narduzzi: Oh, it’s crazy. It’s crazy. I don’t keep score. I try to ignore it. The coaches will yell from the sideline, like, ‘Hey that’s a sack.’ So the offense scores like they do, except they get points for first downs and they get points for big plays. Defensively, you get the same thing: if you go three-and-out, you get points, if you get turnovers - usually, it’s hard for a defense to lose if you get turnovers, it’s hard for an offense to lose if you don’t turn the ball over. If the offense doesn’t turn it over, they get beat by 25 points, at least. But you have to protect the ball.

You mentioned Bangally and Shayne; how much better do you feel about those outside linebackers now than you did eight months ago?
Narduzzi: I felt good eight months ago because I knew what we had there. But Bangally is really playing at a high level. Shayne Simon is playing - and obviously SirVocea. Tylar Wiltz is playing really well. He’s what we thought he’d be. He’s not going to be a bust. You’ll be watching him on game days. Solomon DeShields has taken a step forward; he’s going to play a lot of football for us. So we feel pretty good.

And I’ll tell you what: another guy, Nick Lapi, has had an outstanding camp. He’s strong, he’s physical, he’s twitchy, he runs around. Nick’s been impressive. He was going to help us on special teams to begin with, but he’s made some strides and he’s become a really good football player for us.

Those scrimmages, are those total approaches like a game day, a true game day, wake up and go through that routine?
Narduzzi: It is, but it was a little early. It was a 10 o’clock scrimmage or 10:30, I don’t know what it was, so that’s the only thing that’s not. But that’s an interesting question: it’s like game day and we’re treating it like game day. We didn’t get to go to our game field, but trying to get our guys’ minds like it’s a game day. And when they broke down after we were warming up, I was like, ‘These guys are kind of dead, or they’re just totally locked in.’ Because there wasn’t much messing around. It’s hard as a coach to feel a team: ‘Are they ready or not?’ I preached for a day and a half about being ready mentally, and they were locked in. There was no question about it: they were ready to go. And that was good to see.

Do you limit the snaps for the first-teamers, just to keep them healthy?
Narduzzi: We went saying we wanted to get 50 snaps with the one’s, 50 with the two’s and about 20 with the three’s. We got 20 with the three’s, exactly. I think I got more with the two’s than I wanted to and less with the one’s, but I really wanted to get them - 50/50 was the goal going in. I just couldn’t - I tried to get it, but we’d go three-and-out somehow and I’d go, ‘Okay, period’s over.’ I tried to get more for the one’s, because in the scrimmage I’m counting the reps, saying, ‘How many do we have?’ I just couldn’t get it done unless we kept going, and I didn’t want to do that.

Were there more three-and-outs than you wanted to see in a normal scrimmage?
Narduzzi: Not really. Not really. I don’t know what our three-and-out percentage was. A scrimmage is easy to have three-and-outs because you have so many series, so I wouldn’t say there were a lot of three-and-outs.

When you’re evaluating players, how much do you weigh a scrimmage versus what you see in a regular practice?
Narduzzi: You weigh every day. It comes down to consistency and our guys know that. How consistent are you? Erick Hallett got up and talked the other day about his fundamental was consistency. It was like, ‘Wow.’ I don’t know if there’s anybody more consistent. Like, every day, Erick Hallett comes out and he’s like this: he’s never had that great day and that bad day. That’s what you want.

But you certainly do measure the scrimmages more than the practices, for sure. To me, that’s game day. Like, if you’ve been average all week and all of a sudden you have a great game, it’s kind of like, hey, I’d rather have that than a guy that’s great in practice every day and then he gets out on game day and he can’t play. So we certainly measure the scrimmages. It’s time to go. That’s why it’s good to get our guys locked in, and guys were locked in.

You had a busy day on Saturday. After the scrimmage, you went down to Acrisure to watch your former quarterback have a pretty good ball game.
Narduzzi: Yeah, that was fun. Our team enjoyed going down there. That was special. I didn’t talk to Kenny prior to the game, I didn’t know when he was getting in, I’m not sure if he did either. But that was a special day. I’m happy for Coach Tomlin and Coach Canada and Mr. Rooney.

Were you on the sideline the whole game or did you go up in the stands?
Narduzzi: No, we were down for pregame and watched the first series and then went up with our kids.

Will you have a scrimmage on Saturday over there?
Narduzzi: We’re supposed to have a scrimmage on Saturday.

Over there? On the North Side?
Narduzzi: Yeah.

What did you tell Kenny before the game?
Narduzzi: I just said, ‘Hello and how are you doing?’ ‘Good.’ ‘When are you getting in?’ ‘I’m not sure.’ ‘Hey, have a good one. See you later.’ Basically.