Narduzzi on Veilleux, Louisville, bye week work and more

Pat Narduzzi held his final press briefing of the week on Thursday and talked about Christian Veilleux's prep, facing Louisville and a lot more. Here's the full rundown of his remarks.

Narduzzi: Going into Louisville week. Obviously, it’s a really good team offensively and defensively. You put the tape on, really impressed with the job Jeff Brohm has done in his short time there at Louisville. He’s got a talented team, brought in a lot of transfers and really, in all three phases they do a nice job. So our guys have had a really good week of practice preparing for all three phases and the thing I love about football is, you get another opportunity. Whenever it is, you get another opportunity to go out and show who you are and what you’re going to do.

What have you seen from Christian in terms of him leading the team for the first time this week?
Narduzzi: It’s hard to say what you see in practice every day. They’re trying to get the install - ‘Hey, what are we doing new? What’s the formations?’ I think a young quarterback is still learning. He needs to just, first of all, not worry about leading. He needs to worry about just doing his job to the best of his ability. I think that’s kind of what he’s done this week. I think it would be a lot to say, ‘You’re in charge of the offense, you better lead them, it’s all on your shoulders.’ And I haven’t said that to him, but that’s what I would say if he asked me. He just needs to go play his game and play like he’s practiced, and he’s had a really good week of practice. I’m excited to watch it. I’m sure you guys are, too. I’m excited to see what we have, and I think the only time - you’re not going to find out on Tuesday or Wednesday; you’re going to find out on game day. So we’ll find out on game day.

Last year after Nate’s first start, you talked about how you were really happy with how everybody else kind of stepped up to help him. Do you get a sense that they’re doing that again this week in practice, that guys are kind of taking it upon themselves to do a little bit more, knowing that they’ve got a guy making his first career start?
Narduzzi: I don’t know. It’s hard to tell if that’s the case. We’ll find out on game day. If I come into the press room afterward and say, ‘Everybody stepped up, we had good protection, we did this, we did that’ and if we’re running the football - if you can’t run the football, it’s going to be a long day for everybody. We’ve got to make it a long day for them where they’ve got to throw it and make them one-dimensional. We’ve got to be able to run the ball. So we’ll find out after the game if they stepped or not. I would hope so, but I would have hoped so last week or I would have hoped so this week and hope and hope and hope and wish - we’re going to find out how we execute. It comes down to execution, guys.

Is there a tendency to simplify the game plan maybe?
Narduzzi: Not really. If Christian was maybe on the scout field for the last three weeks - we did a little bit that with Nate at Western because he was on the scout field reading off of cards. I think going into Tuesday practice that week, I think he was the third-string quarterback. I think it was Derek - who else was there? It felt like there was a three-man race at that time and on Tuesday before practice even started, I was like, ‘Nate Yarnell’s going to be the guy.’ I just knew it. So maybe we simplified it a little bit. But there’s no reason to simplify it. We can do just as much or more with Christian. He’s really smart and he understands football.

Christian seemed like a pretty even-keeled kid when we talked to him yesterday. Have you sensed any kind of nerves or anything?
Narduzzi: No. But it’s not Saturday yet, right? He will be nervous. We talk about pressure and all of those things and anxiety and all of that, but when you’re prepared - you’re always going to have nervous, but it’s good nervous if you’re prepared, and he’s prepared right now. So I think he feels good with the game plan. He needs to go out and play his game.

These guys often talk about preparing like they’re the starter, but it’s human nature: particularly at quarterback, you know you’re not the starter, so there’s going to be a difference. Have you seen anything different from him?
Narduzzi: I see more reps. You’re exactly right: they can say they’re preparing like they’re a starter until the time comes and they’re like, ‘I wish I would have watched more tape’ or ‘I wish I would have done that.’ Being the backup is being the backup, whether it’s in the NFL or college football or peewee football. But when you know you’re the guy, I think you prepare a little bit different. You hope and wish that they wouldn’t prepare any different, but they do. Because you’re thinking, ‘He’s not going to get hurt, he’s going to be in there.’ But having that preparation will certainly help him.

On the note of preparation, does the forecast Saturday go into the mix here when you’re considering a new quarterback and bad weather - does that go into the game plan?
Narduzzi: You know, I sure hope not. We don’t coach like that. Advantage: Pitt. We play on grass every day. This grass out here is wet. As you guys walk out here on a Tuesday, it’s always sloppy out there, muddy. We’re mudders and we don’t play on field turf, so advantage: Pitt. Let’s hope.

We’ve heard a lot about getting back to basics this week - offensive line focusing on running off the ball, defense focusing on tackling. How have you seen your team respond to the challenge of getting back to those fundamentals?
Narduzzi: You know, I don’t know where you got that. Did I tell you fundamentals?

Just talking to the players and coaches this week.
Narduzzi: I mean, every week - the bye week, because you’re not preparing for anybody. You know, we had - last Wednesday, we had one team period on Louisville and then on Thursday we had three team periods on Louisville. On a normal Tuesday, Thursday, we have probably five periods on Louisville. So you have more time to get into the basics. But we talk basics every day. We’re tackling every day. I think the best tackling drill for a defense is how you practice in those team periods. Are you going to let the running back run right through you and run by you or are you going to thud them up? Sometimes if you have guys banged up and he’s got a shoulder or a yellow shirt on or something like that, we don’t - hey, just get there and we’ll finish it later on and you play it like that. But to me, the best tackling drill is to thud that stuff up during team periods. And the same thing on offense, making people miss on the rocks. So fundamentals are a focus every single day. We never get away from our fundamentals. And every one of our individual - we’ve got at least 21 minutes a day of individual, some type of what we call ABC’s on our schedule that we’re working on stuff that we need for this game, whatever the need is.

I even talked to our eagles the other day about, ‘Hey, D-line, David Green, what do we need? Quarterbacks, what do we need?’ Asking every position, ‘Hey, what do you need and we’ll put it in practice. Tell me what you feel like we need.’ Sometimes what the coaches think you need and what the players think you need is different. If the players think, ‘Hey, I need this or I need that,’ then we try to give it to them.

What has the offensive line felt like they need?
Narduzzi: Just protection. They didn’t talk about the run-blocking, but they talked about protection, which is, you know, pretty accurate. But you can always get better at run-blocking, so we’re working on it. But, you know, ‘Coach Borbs, they said they need more protection,’ so okay, we’ll get you a little more of that but you’re going to get this, you know? And they asked to get the rocks down for an extra period down there, just to get the D-line - more speed, them working against each other. So it’s just little stuff like that. That’s easy. That’s a coach’s dream.

What other feedback did you get from the players, not just the O-line but other positions of what they felt they needed?
Narduzzi: I’m not going to get into it. I’ve got it written down. But it’s just fundamental stuff. It’s nothing secretive. It’s common-sense stuff that you’re like, ‘Okay, we’re going to give that to you anyway. We already know, but it’s good to hear you say it.’

What do you think is the biggest reason for Louisville’s surge under Brohm so soon?
Narduzzi: Um, I’ll let you know Saturday after the game. Ask me that question after the game; I’ll tell you.

They’re a good football team. They’ve got talent. They’ve got a veteran quarterback that he’s worked with before, he’s making good decisions, things have just gone well of them. They’ve got a tailback that’s explosive. If you put on their explosive plays, if I put them up on the screen for you here, you’d be like, ‘Wow.’ And the dude, give him a crack and he’ll take it. Throw him a T-screen and he’s going 70. When you have a guy that can do that - you guys saw what Izzy was last year. Are we a whole bunch different offensively than what we were last year? Izzy - you look at who your MVP was a year later, you look back and go, who do you miss? I miss that speed. I miss that pop through the line of scrimmage - go. I haven’t seen that yet. I saw C’Bo go down on the T-screen last week, but you kind of miss that.

Speaking of Jawhar Jordan, he’s coming in averaging 7.5 yards per carry. How much more of a challenge is it to defend against a guy like that who’e explosive, especially coming off a game against Virginia Tech where you missed 25, 26 tackles?
Narduzzi: Did you count them up?

Yes.
Narduzzi: Thanks, Amanda.

You’re welcome.
Narduzzi: I don’t know how many were on tailbacks. It’s a whole lot different - I talk about that Drones kid was a big dude and we missed tackles on him in the backfield. I think the biggest difference is we’re going to - hopefully in the run game, I think - Plummer will have - they’ll run a little bit of option at times, but we’ll see if they like option against us. It’s a little speed option, just a way to get him the ball in space on the edge. But we’re defending 10 guys as opposed to - we have to defend 11 in the passing game, but in the run game, we’re facing 10 this week, I hope. As a matter of fact, I don’t hope; I hope that it’s 11. If they want to run it with him, we’re fine with that. I don’t know if you like the Drones kid running the ball, but we know he can throw the ball really, really well.

On the note of explosiveness, is it fair to say this is the fastest team you’ve faced this year across the board, when you look at what they have in the secondary and skill?
Narduzzi: Yeah, they play fast. It’s hard to see it just on tape, but North Carolina was pretty fast, so I wouldn’t say that they’re faster than North Carolina. But you don’t know until you see it live.

Is your problem with the run defense more physical than mental or more mental than physical?
Narduzzi: That’s a great question, Jerry. We talk about mental, physical and structural. I would say it’s physical; we physically have missed tackles or whatever it may be. And I’ll go back: 59 rushes a week ago at Virginia Tech, defending 11 guys, and they averaged 3.4 yards per carry, correct? That’s not terrible. I felt like it was 12.5 per carry. That’s how I felt on the sideline. That’s why I say sometimes you have to watch the tape to see exactly what it was. We bled but we didn’t bleed out. We’re used to stuffing the run and we haven’t done it this year. But again, MVP on defense - you look at Deslin Alexandre and some of those guys we lost at the defensive end spot were critical. So you’ve got new guys out there that you thought were ready as the preseason started and maybe aren’t as good as we thought they were going to be.

That physicality being back into your game, winning against the run like that, can that be the key to unlocking you guys playing faster again and being more aggressive to create the turnovers that you guys were creating last year?
Narduzzi: No doubt about it. Like I said, if they can be two-dimensional, which Virginia Tech was, kind of, when you think about the three big passes they had and then they’re able to just run the ball and stay in front of the sticks as opposed to - when you’re behind the sticks, it’s easier to play defense. But when they’re in front of the sticks and its second down and four, it’s like, what are they going to do here? Are they going to take a shot? They can do whatever they want.

So our dominance in the run game in the past has helped us and we’ve got to get back to that. But again, some of these offenses - West Virginia, they were built to run it with 11 guys and so was Virginia Tech, so it comes down to who you’re playing against. And we played against better - when you think about Drake Maye and what we gave up that day, we played pretty good against him compared to what he’s put up on - look what yards he put up last week, just think about the defensive performance. We have to get them off the field. When you’re on the field for 40 minutes - that’s the other thing, when you’re 38 and a half, 39 minutes on the field, you’re going to give up more yards, period. The more plays you’re on the field, the more yards you’re going to give up. So scoring and keeping our defense off the field is critical, too.

Bam Brima is a starter at defensive end this week; what have you seen out of his growth so far this season?
Narduzzi: Bam has been a pleasant surprise, I would say. He’s been physical and there’s little mistakes he makes during the games that, you know, that the normal eye would not catch but we know what he was supposed to do, whether it’s spill or not spill, some of those things. But I’ve been happy with where Bam is. We’ll just keep getting better.

On the other end of that line, I’m sure you were hoping for more than two sacks in five games from Dayon. It seems like he’s getting into the backfield; the last game, he missed a number of tackles. Do you feel like he’s close, though, to having one of those games where he starts breaking out a little bit?
Narduzzi: I think so. Dayon’s - again, it’s called finish the play, right? Dayon knows it and there’s nobody that feels worse than him about not finishing some of those plays. He’s had opportunities. The big thing as coaches is, it’s our job to put them in position to make plays and then after that, you have to finish it. Dayon will get better. It’s his first year starting, too. It’s his first start. He’s had some guys in front of him the last couple years, so this is his opportunity to shine and he’ll get better as the year goes on. There’s still a lot of football to be played.