Narduzzi on the third week of camp, the OL and more

Pat Narduzzi met the media before Pitt's practice on Thursday and talked about the grind of camp, movement on the offensive line and more. Check out the full rundown of his remarks.

Narduzzi: Beautiful day. Number 13 for us. We’re out in shells. Got to get them going today. To me it’s about the energy that we bring as coaches and lead these guys and get the best we can out of them.

Do you have tricks and things you’ve developed over the years when you get to this third week of camp and things start dragging?
Narduzzi: Not really. I think our guys are fired up. They sing in every team meeting. I mean, we’ve got a lot of actors. They think they’re all musicians, I guess. So they’ve got energy; we just have to make sure we get it out of them in the details. I think they’re just ready for the season to start and all of that stuff, but we’ll get it out of them. We don’t need any tricks. If we need tricks, we’ve got issues.

How’s that left side of the offensive line looking?
Narduzzi: I like both sides - the left and the right, really, to be honest with you right now. I was just actually talking to Coach Partridge this morning around 6:30 and he was like, ‘The double teams and the movement up front is the best they’ve been.’ So just hearing from a D-line coach, you know, watching that every single day - the double teams and the zone up front to him seems harder, so I think that’s an indication of where we are on the offensive line right now.

Have any of those four freshmen separated themselves?
Narduzzi: The receivers there? The four freshmen? We’ve got a bunch of freshmen, but I know what you’re talking about. The four, right? The four. You know what? They kind of have, but we’ll see this second scrimmage, find out. You’ve seen a little tail-off the last couple days. I think you get to that point, these freshmen hit a little bit of a wall. As a matter of fact, I asked one of them yesterday, ‘Hey, did you hit the wall yet?’ And he said, ‘No, Coach, no.’ So we’ll find out here in the next few days. I’ll have a better indication on Monday.

Matt Goncalves played at right tackle pretty much all last year; are you looking at him more on the left this year?
Narduzzi: We like him at both. We’re just kind of playing around. We don’t know if he’ll be left or right. We like him at both. He’s played both in the past. So we’ll kind of see.

I noticed before practice yesterday that Ryan Baer was leading the team breakdown. Is that something unique where you see a redshirt freshman have a presence like that?
Narduzzi: He’s one of our eagles; we vote so many guys from the senior class - super seniors, seniors, juniors, he’s one of the younger guys, so you’re getting down near the end of those younger guys but he did a great job yesterday. We give him those opportunities to lead and it will help us in the future when we develop those young guys where it doesn’t become a junior and all of a sudden he’s got to get out there and go, ‘Oh.’ We’re not expecting him to lead our football team but we do expect him to try to be a leader. We try to teach that and I think the kids - you know, hearing from a different voice is good for them.

Who among your running backs are standing out in pass protection?
Narduzzi: Pass protection, you know, we talk about these guys every day. Coach Powell will tell you, Derrick Davis has really done a nice job in pass protection. But they all better be good. We have obviously a ton of confidence in Rodney to do that and Daniel Carter’s done an excellent job. You know, Daniel Carter’s had an outstanding camp. And I’ll tell you, Montrvius Lloyd - I don’t know if you guys have heard from Montravius yet, but Montravius is - you know, we’ll do a showtime at the end of practice and go about eight minutes live; today we’ll just go thud because we don’t have kneepads on. But Montravius has stepped up. He’s getting better every day, so there’s another tailback that you go, ‘Hmm, he might be able to play for us this year, too.’

With Baer showing leadership and the talent he has, is he going to be tough to keep out of the starting lineup?
Narduzzi: I don’t know. I mean, leadership is great; you have to go put it on the field. Is he blocking that five-technique? Is he getting a good double team on the three-technique? All of those things matter. It’s not just about talking and leading.

How is he doing?
Narduzzi: He’s doing great. He’s doing great. We’re excited about him. We’re excited about Jacoby. Jason Collier’s had a good camp as well. So there’s a battle going on for the guard spot, the tackle spot, what’s going to happen, Branson has had a good camp as well. So there’s a battle going on.

A lot of coaches look forward to seeing some of their best players on either side of the ball lock horns and test each other. Who are some of your favorite offense-vs-defense rivalries so far in camp?
Narduzzi: You know, when you say ‘lock horns,’ I can’t say there’s a lot of those going on. Just the one-on-one battles -

Yeah, not fights.
Narduzzi: I know, not fights. I knew what you meant. Sammy Okunlola has actually really come on just as a pass-rushing guy and obviously stopping the run as well, but there’s some battles. I would say Dayon Hayes and Matt Goncalves is a battle. That’s one of those ones you’re looking forward to seeing. That’s one of them. But we hope there’s individual battles all over the place. There’s good competition out there from top to bottom.

You mentioned Montravius Lloyd; he was a guy in high school who was more of an all-purpose. Is he transitioning to more of a tailback role and how’s he doing with that?
Narduzzi: Oh yeah, he’s a tailback. He’s a tailback but we’re going to throw to the tailback out of the backfield. He’s caught a couple nice wheel routes out of the backfield, so he’s an athlete who can do a lot of different things.

Will you have a chance to see Damar this weekend?
Narduzzi: Yeah, we’ll have a chance to see Damar. We’ll take the team. We’ll scrimmage Saturday morning here and then we’ll head over to the stadium in the evening. We’ll see Kenny, too. And Dane Jackson. Bills versus Steelers. Everybody should be there.