MORE HEADLINES - FREE ARTICLE: Pitt's newest TE might look a little familiar | Camp report: Tight ends, the OL and more | Narduzzi on the secondary, the OL, the hotel and more - free interview | Media Day survey: What do Pitt's players and coaches think of the facilities upgrades? | Partridge, Pitt players excited for the DL in 2017

Pat Narduzzi met the media Friday morning and discussed the second week of camp, defensive adjustments and more.

NARDUZZI: We finished up a great day yesterday and a little lighter today. These guys are excited about coming out in what we call ‘spider’ pads today. So there will be a lot less contact. Hopefully, they’re mature enough to practice in those; sometimes different teams, especially a young football team, think it’s going to be a day off. There’s no day off during camp. There’s never a day off, I guess. Sunday, I guess, is a day off. But they have to be able to maturely practice in those things. You know, we could come out in full pads today and scrimmage tomorrow; it doesn’t make any difference to me. We’ll try to mentally freshen them up today for a big day tomorrow. We get to go to Heinz Field, which will probably be the biggest scrimmage of the year. And I’ll probably say the next one is the biggest because it’s the next one. But it’s a big scrimmage to find out where we are.

YOUR DEFENSE, HAVE YOU MADE ADJUSTMENTS OR ARE YOU PRETTY MUCH STILL DOING THE SAME THING THREE YEARS IN?
NARDUZZI: You know, hopefully we’re doing it better. But we’re doing little things. There’s always - you know, you have to adjust. I don’t care if it’s offensively, defensively or on special teams; you have to adjust with the times. There are always different tweaks that we’ve got going on. We did a year ago, not that it mattered. But you’re always looking for different stuff. That’s how you evolve. You’re not going to change your overall structure, but there’s techniques and fundamentals that you try to do a little bit better. I think we’ve got some good stuff.

IS THAT MORE ON THE TEACHING THAN IT IS ON THE SCHEMATIC END? HOW YOU GET THE GUYS TO THE LEVEL YOU WANT THEM, AS OPPOSED TO DOING SOMETHING DIFFERENT.
NARDUZZI: No question about it. It’s called developing. I’ve been around a staff - I got hired at Miami of Ohio back in 2003 in March, seven days before spring ball started and inherited a staff> And when I got there, it was like, ‘Why are we doing this?’ ‘We couldn’t stop that so we started putting this defense in.’ You can’t just keep changing defenses to stop a play, a formation or a type of offense, because you don’t get any consistency. So you have to have a base fundamental background to go from, and then you tweak it.

Our offense does some crazy stuff. We face a lot of crazy offenses. It couldn’t be a better offense to go against, because you see everything. You see everything from a wishbone, three-back offense to an empty set. So you see everything, so our defense, really, when they come out of camp, will have a good base of all kinds of offensive plays.

WOULD YOU SAY YOUR OFFENSIVE LINE IS THE DEEPEST IT’S BEEN SINCE YOU GOT HERE?
NARDUZZI: No. I would say last year was pretty deep, even though we didn’t see a lot of guys. When you say deep, you’ve got some guys that are getting better every day, but last year we had a lot of older, deeper guys. I would say last year was pretty good. I don’t know if you can beat that one. I think in a couple years we maybe can get there. But I would not say that.

HAVE YOU SEEN HENDERSON MAKING THE IMPROVEMENTS IN THE PASSING GAME YOU’RE LOOKING FOR YET?
NARDUZZI: You know what, he had a great catch yesterday, and I think we have. I’ve seen little things out of him. It’s hard to say. You won’t find out until game day, but I have noticed he’s focusing on that and getting better.

IS MAURICE FFRENCH A GUY THAT YOU THINK WILL HAVE A BIGGER ROLE IN THE OFFENSE, A SIGNIFICANT ROLE, ESPECIALLY WITH TRE TIPTON BEING OUT FOR THE YEAR?
NARDUZZI: No question about it. Maurice is a great player, offensively and defensively. Anytime a guy goes down, it’s that next guy up, and whether Maurice beats out Tre Tipton in camp or whether Tre’s not there and the job’s there for the taking, Maurice is going to hopefully have a major part in this offense.

WE TALKED ABOUT THE HOTEL EXPERIENCE YESTERDAY; ARE YOU PICKING THE ROOMMATES FOR THESE GUYS, TOO?
NARDUZZI: Oh, yeah. And it’s a lot different than a year ago, because we were able to - you know, it’s like, Maddox is rooming with JD Drake. The first night, he comes up to me and goes, ‘Coach, really? I gotta room with JD?” Now it’s like his best friend; he texts me pictures of JD. It’s funny how that whole thing goes. ‘Coach, I don’t know that guy;’ well, that’s why we put you with different people. We try to always mix people up, but in Sutherland where we used to stay, we moved the freshmen in there and they had their freshman roommate for the rest of the year. Now we can put a senior with a freshman and really mix it up and get them a little extra.

HOW HAVE YOU SEEN BEN DINUCCI GROW AS A LEADER?
NARDUZZI: Ben’s doing a good job. Could he get better? Yes. But there’s a lot of things and we’ll go daily. But Ben’s grown a lot since he’s gotten here. I think he’s grown a lot since that bowl game. And we’ll see how much more he grows. He’s still got a ways to go.

ANY UPDATE ON ASTON, MOTLEY, HENDRIX, ANY OF THOSE GUYS?
NARDUZZI: Say that again.

ANY UPDATE ON ASTON, MOTLEY, HENDRIX, WATTS?
NARDUZZI: No, no. You guys know. Jerry, can you tell them? What do we not do?

WE DON’T TALK ABOUT THE I-WORD, COACH.
NARDUZZI: We don’t talk about the I-word. God, that’s a good way to put it. Guys, if there’s an update, I’m going to give you. But otherwise, their personal health is their personal health and I don’t talk about injuries. I’ll give you an update - if there’s an ‘out for the year’ type deal, I’ll tell you. Otherwise…

SO IT’S NOT AN ‘OUT FOR THE YEAR’ TYPE DEAL?
NARDUZZI: Heck no.