Narduzzi on Virginia, punters, workouts and more

Pat Narduzzi talked about facing Virginia, which punter will start, the value of early morning workouts and more on Thursday.

Here's the full rundown of what he said.

Narduzzi: Alright. What week is this? Week Ten? Wow. Season’s flown.

We had a good practice today and a really good one on Tuesday and Wednesday, so a good week of practice. We’re playing a good Virginia team that seems to be getting better as the season goes on. Obviously, Brennan Armstrong is the guy that’s the focus on offense and they have a lot of targets that I think will be fresh and ready to go from not playing last week. Defensively, they’re strong. They’re another good defense that our offense will face this week, so we have to go out and execute and play football.

When you look at the numbers, their offense ranks the worst in the ACC in efficiency; with that, do you consider being more aggressive when you guys have the ball knowing that your defense might be at an advantage?
Narduzzi: We’re going to play football. We want our offense to go and we want our defense to play well. That’s not going to change how we do anything.

You guys have lost games when quarterbacks have gotten outside and gotten mobile. You did better against that last week, but you’re facing a guy in Brennan Armstrong - you’ve faced him before, but now he leads the team in rushing; what have you keyed on this week to make sure it doesn’t happen again?
Narduzzi: Well, again, you hopefully learn from prior mistakes, whether it’s North Carolina, you know, Louisville, which, I think their longest run, there was a major holding call on that play where Calijah got tackled on the right side of the line. So you just have to go make plays and do your job. That’s what it comes down to. When guys start to press and go, ‘Oh gosh, what’s going on here? I have to do something new.’ I think they learned that a little bit from last week, I think.

You saw them press a lot less and that led to the aggression that you saw?
Narduzzi: I think so. I think just kind of everybody did their job and good things happen when you do that. When you start to think about, ‘I need to go make a play’ is when things collapse.

You said this team is getting better week-by-week; what makes you say that?
Narduzzi: Virginia? Just put the tape on. If you look at the yards they’ve gained throughout the year, it’s gotten more productive. They’ve had some turnover issues which, I think, is maybe made them less efficient. You take those turnovers out, they’re explosive on offense and they have weapons at the receiver spot. A year ago, that was the most talented receiver-slash-tight group that we faced. And a lot of those guys are back. They have a tight end playing for the Colts, I forget his name, number zero, but besides that, all the rest of the guys are back.

When you talk about those turnovers, from what you see on the film, do you think that that’s Armstrong trying to do too much? Is it maybe what you talked about on Monday - the struggles of having a new system and a new coaching staff and maybe not having everyone on the same page?
Narduzzi: You’d have to ask Tony Elliott what the reason is. I just see it as - you know, sometimes they come in droves when you get them and sometimes you’re giving them up. I know they’re coaching them hard not to turn it over, just like we are, and sometimes it’s just ball security and sometimes it’s luck. Sometimes it’s a helmet on the ball here or there that you really can’t coach.

When you see a successful coach like Bronco Mendenhall walk away from the game, what goes through your mind as a coach and what does it say about your profession?
Narduzzi: You know, Bronco’s a great guy, a great football coach, a great person. The profession’s changing a lot, I think. You’re seeing more and more people step away - why are they stepping away? Obviously there are a lot of pressures that go into the Power Five coaches and what you deal with every day, the kids you deal with, you know, it’s a different ball game. There’s a lot of different issues going on in college sports with the NCAA, and I think that’s part of the reason. I think you’ll start to see more and more of it.

Do coaches spend more time in the office than maybe they did when you played?
Narduzzi: No, I don’t think so.

That was one of the reasons he gave - he wanted to reconnect with his family.
Narduzzi; He’s a big family guy, as a lot of coaches are. I don’t know what the real reason is. It was almost a year ago. But everybody’s got their reasons and I could see Bronco getting back in it this year. I don’t know exactly what the deep-down issues are, but I think it’s overall stress and I don’t think - you know, coaches, we don’t spend any more time in the office when you win, lose, whatever you are. You spend what you need to, and we spend a lot of hours, period. So I don’t think that changes. There’s only so many hours in the day. You can’t spend much more than we do or what Bronco did. I don’t think it increased from his last year at Virginia to his first year at Virginia or when he was out west.

Owen Drexel dressed last week for the first time since his injury. Where do you feel he is in terms of progress and how close is he to consistently getting back on the field if he isn’t already?
Narduzzi: He’s getting really close. He’s getting close. Last week was his first week back practicing a little bit, so I think he’s closer this week than he obviously was last week.

How has Kradel done since he moved into that center job?
Narduzzi: He’s done a nice job. Obviously it’s a brand new position for him and I don’t think he’s ever started there before he had to make that move in there. But Jake has done a nice job. We probably think he’s a better guard than he is center, but he’s done a nice job. We haven’t had too many problems there. We had one problem at Louisville at the end of the game, just a snap issue, timing issue and all of that, but that happens sometimes whether you’re an experienced center or a not-experienced center.

You’re focusing on your team, but at this point in the season, you’ve seen just about everybody in the Coastal, either playing them or scouting. What has surprised you this year, from what you expected in August that hasn’t gone the way you expected it to this year?
Narduzzi: We’ve seen about every team. I haven’t watched a lot of Miami yet. Duke has been in some crossover games. So has Miami, a little bit. But we’ve seen a lot of teams.

Nothing surprised me. There’s a lot of competition going out there. Probably the biggest, biggest, biggest surprise was Maye at North Carolina. That was a guy that you were thinking would may be a step down but really has been a step up with his play and performance through the year. They might be the best team in the ACC.

Will you miss the divisional format?
Narduzzi: I will. I will. Is that over next year? Yeah, I’ll miss it. But nobody cares.

What was your reaction when you saw what you guys got assigned with Syracuse, Boston College and Virginia Tech?
Narduzzi: I didn’t even know who it is. Good. I don’t care who we play. I just think the two divisions, there’s an opportunity to be a Coastal champion or an Atlantic champion. I think there’s something to that, and I think it helps build a team. Which I’ve said before. But that’s what it is.

You mentioned the things that Virginia has improved; what’s an area that you feel like you guys have really improved as the year has progressed?
Narduzzi: I think there are a lot of areas we’ve improved. Obviously, we’ve improved our run game from a year ago offensively. I think our pass game continues to be improved as we’ve had some consistency at the quarterback spot. I think we started off throwing it pretty good coming out of camp against West Virginia and Tennessee. Then we get a hurt quarterback and we just never got back in the groove. We started running it a little bit more and liking the run. But Kedon was as sharp as he’s been last week and he’s had another really good week of practice. Game after game, I think that’s gotten better.

And then obviously our run defense has gotten a lot better from the West Virginia game. Let’s go back to that game, which I thought was awful that day, to be honest with you, compared to where we are now. It was young linebackers and fitting it and game experience and someone scheming against you. But we’ve gotten a lot better there.

Is Izzy still on track to play?
Narduzzi: I think he is. I think so. We’ll find out.

Given what you saw last week from C’Bo and Rodney, would you be more willing to have him on a pitch count?
Narduzzi: I’ll defer that question to Jerry. He’s my assistant running back coach. What do you think Jerry?

Let him loose. No pitch count.
Narduzzi: No pitch count?

We think they’re all good players, they’ve got a good offensive line they’re running behind, and we’ve got a pretty good scheme as far as what we do. Again, playing a good run defense this week, so we want to keep Izzy healthy. We know Rodney’s good, we know C’Bo is good, we know Vince Davis is capable as well. So it’s a good problem to have, I guess.

How many hours a week in a game week do you spend - what time do you go home Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday?
Narduzzi: Whew. Is it a night game or a day game?

Sundays, we’re in at 11 o’clock. 10:30, 11 o’clock. And we go home at 10:30 at night on a Sunday. Mondays, we’re in at 6 am and rolling heavily at 6:30 until probably 10, 10:30 at night. So what is that? 15, 16-hour days. Monday and Tuesday are about the same. They are the same, exactly the same. Wednesday, I would say the guys are done about 7 o’clock, so that’s an early day. You don’t get home for dinner. We still eat dinner here for all those days. Wife doesn’t have to cook. Got the radio show on Wednesday and then I get everything I need to get done at home after that radio show is over. Thursdays, we’re in at 6:30 again and our coaches kind of have the afternoon off. I’ll be here until 5 or 6, but everybody can work on their own.

So it’s basically 12-hour days during the season.
Narduzzi: No, they’re not 12-hour days. They’re 15-hour days on - maybe Sunday is a 12-hour day. That’s your easy day. But you’re talking 6:30-10, what is that? Somebody count it up.

We don’t get paid by the hour. We don’t punch clocks.

How do you avoid burnout from just the sheer tonnage of the workload?
Narduzzi: It’s just, you’re so used to it, you don’t get burned out. Maybe it’s what happened to Bronco, I don’t know.

A workout in the morning. At 4:30, I’m getting a workout in, and that helps me, I think.

4:30 in the morning at home?
Narduzzi: Oh yeah, at home. Get a workout in and cruise in. Get ready to work.

You guys have been one of the best third-down defenses in the ACC. What have you guys done right? What have you guys have to keep doing right to keep that up in the final weeks?
Narduzzi: We have to execute and make plays. I think that’s what it comes down to. We spend Tuesday nights, probably two hours, game-planning third-and-short, third-and-medium, third-and-long, and just locking into those different situations and I think we do a good job game-planning and putting our kids in position. You have to execute. I think what we do is good and I thought we had a great plan last week against Syracuse; have to have another good one - it always changes every week, who you’re defending and what you have to do.

Has that Delta package changed a lot in the last eight years? The personnel you’ve largely kept the same look, but the things you guys do out of it, has it changed a lot since you got here?
Narduzzi: We tweak it every week. It’s the same package; it just gets tweaked weekly on what we’re going to do. Like, last week, we had some great tweaks that kind of got after them a little bit, took away Gadsden a bunch - those are just fine little tweaks that our guys can handle. We change up our blitzes. Some weeks it’s this, some weeks it’s that. There’s a lot of different things we do. So we have a whole list of different things and we pick and choose what we want in, what’s good versus the protection, what do we need in - just a lot of things that go into it.

On Monday, you talked about how this week you were looking to find some answers about the punting position. Did you find answers? Do you know who you’re going to roll with the rest of the year?
Narduzzi: Well, we’ll find out. I think it will be week-by-week and see who goes. But right now, Junko is going to start at the punter. He’s had a good week and Cam is ready to roll if he needs to and the sky punts - we still have to watch the tape from today; we got a lot of work at that individually, just to see who, but right now we have a lot of confidence in Sam but I think Junko could possibly do it, too.

So those are the two that are going to be going to Virginia?
Narduzzi: All three are going. Cam’s the holder, too. We’re bringing three punters, one’s a holder who’s done a heck of a job all year.

Were you pretty good at it in high school?
Narduzzi: Punting? I was pretty good.

I thought you said you were the backup.
Narduzzi: I was the starter. In college, I was the backup. But I was decent. I can coach punters. I coached them for a bunch of years, so I’ve spent a lot of time this week. We’re going to get it right. Usually, during dynamic warmup, I go with the guys to see the majority and let the specialists go over there. I probably made a mistake and should have spent more time over there, so I’ve spent more time with the punters this week, just to look at the details and look at what they’re doing.

It feels like every coach from Youngstown loves punting. Why is that?
Narduzzi: I have no idea.

I’ve heard numerous coaches who are from Youngstown - Stoops, Tressel, all these people who either coached there or are from there - they all talk about how the punt is the most important play in football.
Narduzzi: The punt play, I think every coach in the country, whether they’re from Youngstown or Alaska, knows that the punt is an important play. We’ve been average with it and obviously coming out of not having Kirk anymore, we’ve had some growing pains there and some drops and some two-yard punts and some other things. But it’s not an easy position to play. You’re sitting back there catching that ball and making good decisions, so it will take time. But I think it will continue to get better.

But the punt is the most important play in football. Period.

You’re talking about long days and getting up at 4:30 to work out - how much are you sleeping then?
Narduzzi: Five hours, six hours, whatever it is. I don’t fall asleep as soon as I get home, either.

You know, the workout helps you. If you guys get a workout in the morning, it makes you feel better. So if you guys are struggling with energy during the day, get a workout in the morning and it fuels you for the rest of the day. To me, that’s the key.

You mentioned the physical workout helps; what do you do mentally to get away from all of this, just for 15 or 20 minutes during the course of a busy day?
Narduzzi: Nothing. Just coaching what you love to coach. That’s the key. Getting around the kids, I think, is key. It’s not a stressful day. It really isn’t. We’ve got good kids.

That workout is the mental workout. That’s the key.