Narduzzi on the spring game format and more

Pat Narduzzi met the media after practice Tuesday to about his plans for Pitt's spring game, the goals for the final week and more. Here's the full rundown of what he said.

Narduzzi: I hope you guys had a great Easter. The guys had a good practice number 13. Got a little fight out there today; I had to run them. It’s been awhile since we’ve had that, so they’re still on edge, which is good. We’ll get ready for the spring game on Saturday.

Who fought?
Narduzzi: Too many. I don’t know who yet. I have to go back and watch the videotape.

What did you decide, format-wise, for Saturday?
Narduzzi: We’re not going to do the draft, so there will be no draft tomorrow. Still debating on the format. The kids don’t know the format yet, so I’ll probably just hold and kind of sleep on it. It’s whatever’s best for the team. Just going to kind of wait and see. But it will be competitive. You won’t be watching individual drills. It will be a game.

Will you guys do special teams as well?
Narduzzi: Yeah, but it won’t be too much. We’ll punt, for sure, as we’ve punted every day this spring because we’re going to be really good at punt this year. So we’ll do every phase, but we won’t try to go block it and do all that. It’s just too hard to get that all fixed up when you’re going against each other.

Is part of avoiding the draft getting more matchups that you guys want to see as coaches?
Narduzzi: There’s good and bad. I love the draft. I think it’s fun to get them in here and do it. I’ve done it for years and years and years. But sometimes there’s just some mismatches that you don’t want to see, and I’d rather it be a cleaner scrimmage but stay safe at the same time. So the good thing is, the draft keeps them safer but I think guys are smart enough to do it the right way.

What things are you looking for from your quarterbacks, particularly from Phil?
Narduzzi: it’s all of them. I’m looking for decision-making, right? Making the plays and decision-making. That’s what it comes down to. You have to make good decisions in this game, so it’s going to come down to, who makes good decisions on game days?

You mentioned in past scrimmages, the play-calling would be more trying to figure things out rather than competing. Is that going to be the case Saturday or is it going to be more calls to try to win the game?
Narduzzi: It will be keeping it a little bit vanilla. You know, there’s times when we go out and do an inside drill and I tell the defense, ‘Hey, you can’t blitz.’ I want to see base. So that’s nothing unusual. We’re going to play our base defense, run our base offense. We can pretty much run anything we ran last year without doing too much junk. Anything new, we won’t do and obviously there’s new stuff on both sides of the ball.

You obviously want to keep it vanilla like you said, but this is also the only time your fans watch the team between bowl game and September. You kind of want to put on a show, right? Or maybe you don’t, but how do you balance entertaining the fans, giving them something to get excited about and not showing them too much?
Narduzzi: They’ll be more excited about this game - I would encourage everybody to come out. They’ll be more excited about this spring game than the past, I think. Just because you’re going to have, I think, a little bit different deal. I’ll leave it at that.

By different deal, do you mean better matchups?
Narduzzi: Better matchups. Better matchups.

Do you weigh more into battles throughout the spring game than you would say in the scrimmage or throughout a regular practice?
Narduzzi: I think, in the past, I didn’t care about the spring game matchups, but now I think we’re going to do a little bit of that, just change it up and see how it goes. So the matchups will be important in the spring game.

Is there a bit of angst from the offense because the defense won the first two scrimmages?
Narduzzi: I think so. I think anytime you get punched in the face, you want to come back and get a swing in. But that goes - I mean, every period is like that, a little bit. The offense will win this period, the defense wins the next, so there’s continuous adversity during scrimmages, during practice, from period one to period 18.

Are the stakes the same for the winners and the losers?
Narduzzi: Maybe. I think we can maybe do some - we’re still working on the details. I just want to take my time and do it the right way.

You have the veteran corners obviously and we’ve talked about some of the younger guys. Where’s Noah Biglow? How’s he done this spring?
Narduzzi: Noah’s had a good spring, and so has Tamarion Crumpley, as well. Those two guys have grown up a little bit. I’m excited about where they are. They’ve had a good spring. It was time for them to step up and they have, so they’ve done some great things this spring.

Is there a position group that maybe has come along further than you’d anticipated so far this spring and maybe one that you’re looking for to step up on Saturday?
Narduzzi: I think there’s been competition at every position; I can’t say there’s one more than another. Obviously, I’ve got Donovan coming up here. We’ve got four safeties that are playing well right now, and he’s the new guy back there but he’s playing well. There’s good competition back there. We have guys that can play. But I have to say there’s competition at, really, every position. There’s not one position that you look at and say, ‘Oh, that’s his.’ Maybe on the offensive line you can say, ‘Hey, those guys are the starters.’ But those two’s are competing to see who’s going to be that fifth or sixth guy in there.

How have your safeties rounded out as practices have continued throughout the spring, as far as their responsibilities and understanding how their alignment is very important to how you guys cover?
Narduzzi: Yeah, they’ve done a great job. Coach Sanders does a great job coaching them up. They know what they’re doing; it’s just consistency doing it right all the time. One day, you have that down and you’ve got that fixed, and the next day there’s new formations and new motions that you have to adjust to. So every day it’s a learning curve, as far as what you’re getting thrown at you. We’ve gotten a lot of motion the last few days, which is really good; we need to see it. That’s helped out. We got a new motion today in the run game, which I think, when I go back and watch the tape, it’s going to be, just again, adjusting the safeties and the ‘backers based on what they did to us today.

Are most of those guys cross-training at the safety spots?
Narduzzi: Yeah. They’re working both of them. I think maybe Donovan’s playing to the boundary more, just because he’s the new guy back there. But the other guys can flip from the field to the boundary.

Hall is part of that mix, too?
Narduzzi: No doubt. Steph Hall is having a great spring.

You don’t necessarily mind it when there’s fights? Or you’d rather not see them?
Narduzzi: If it’s one-on-one, I’m good. It’s when guys jump in, that’s when I have a problem.

Were guys jumping in today?
Narduzzi: Oh yeah. So then they ran.