Narduzzi: 'Overall, not happy'
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Pat Narduzzi met with the media following his team’s 17-6 loss to West Virginia on Saturday night. The Pitt head coach discussed his team’s failures and also touched on the quarterback position.
Here is a complete transcript of everything he had to say.
Narduzzi: They fought their tail off again, like we always do. A hard-fought football game, they got 211 yards and we got 211 yards. The game was turnovers. They made some plays on the ball and we didn’t. Ten of their points they went one-play, seven yards for a TD off of a turnover. They went four plays and six yards and kicked a field goal. That’s ten points right there. It’s hard to win a football game when you kick two field goals and don’t score touchdowns. Give them credit. It was a great atmosphere playing here and too many penalties, I guess, as well. We’ll look at the tape and we'll see more when we watch the tape. Overall, not happy.
Questions?
Was there any consideration of switching quarterbacks?
Narduzzi: No, Noah. Unless you can play? We’ve got a lot of faith in Phil and you’ve got to give defenses credit and took the opening drive down and got down to the three yard-line, you’ve got to score touchdowns and we don’t, and our kids didn’t stop.
Where did the struggles initiate tonight?
Narduzzi: I don’t know, we’ll watch the tape. We’ll watch the tape and I thought we protected him better today than we did the other day, a week ago. So we’ll look at the tape, I’ll have to watch the tape to see exactly what we’ve got to do. I thought the performance was better.
Will Phil be starting next week against North Carolina?
Narduzzi: I’ll have to watch the tape, but I believe so, yes.
What were your impressions of CJ Donaldson?
Narduzzi: He’s a big back. He’s physical. He’s a good tailback. I was proud of our defense. I mean, like I said 10 points on 13 yards to gain to score ten points. So we can’t put them in that position, but they hung tough all the way down to the end. Had some great fourth down stops, I thought the defense played well.
You guys opened the game with ten straight running plays on that drive that led to a field goal, was that the plan going in?
Narduzzi: We didn’t get to run it last week and we wanted to run the football and we thought we could run the football. I thought we did effectively at times and we did not want to get into what we did last week where we weren't running the football. We wanted to establish it and play with an attitude and I thought we did that. But did we consistently do it? When you turn the ball over, bad things happen. When we ran it, we didn’t turn it over.
During training camp we saw lots of deep throws, what is not there? This is two straight games we haven’t seen efficiency in the pass game.
Narduzzi: There’s no question about it. They play a lot of off-coverage where they didn’t give it to you, if you watch those corners playing soft and not giving it to you. We’ve got to go back and look at the game plan and look at what we’re doing and how we’re doing it and fix it.
Was the offensive line and issue in pass protection?
Narduzzi: I’ve got to go back and watch the tape, when you’re standing on the sidelines it’s hard to tell, Noah.
Is there any update on BJ Williams?
Narduzzi: He got hurt during practice last week, and no update, but he’ll be back next week I’m sure.
Do you feel you’ve got Rodney Hammond the ball as much as you needed to tonight?
Narduzzi: We started off, and I don’t know what we had, but that was the Rodney Hammond drive. But again, we’ll try to keep those guys fresh. I thought C’Bo played well as well. When you talk about critical plays in the room, Daniel Carter on a fourth and one and you’ve got a quarterback sneak called. He can just stand in his stance and not jump offsides and give up the ball. We’ve got to punt it but could have had a first down and who knows what happens after that. Just little things like that can’t happen. That was a critical play in the game, jumping offsides on a quarterback sneak.
Do you see any issues with Phil’s mechanics?
Narduzzi: Again, I’m not a quarterback guru, but we’ll look at it.
There were a lot of similarities in this game: same amount of yards, same amount of sacks, but except the quarterback play. Does that make this game even tougher to swallow with the lack of points at quarterback?
Narduzzi: No question about it, but we’ll look. Like I said, there’s always 11 guys out there and we’ll see what he had. Until you watch the tape, you don’t know exactly where it was. So we’ll look at the tape, evaluate it, and I’ll have more answers for you on Monday.
What do you say to your team after a loss like this?
Narduzzi: They played hard, but what do you say? Hang in there, we still have ACC play. That’s where it counts. We’ve had a tough non-conference schedule and the last two weeks are not easy. We’ll get into conference play here and let’s get it rolling.
What is Goncalves’ status?
Narduzzi: I don’t know, Jerry. You know I’m not going to tell you anything about injuries anyway.
Is there confidence in Christian Veilleux? Like if he’s needed, can he handle the situation?
Narduzzi: We’ve got a lot of confidence in Christian Veilleux. We’ve got a lot of confidence in Nate Yarnell as well. We’ve got a lot of confidence. You guys are all fast to want to pull the plug on somebody, but that’s not how we do it. I’m a positive guy. I try to stay positive, and when you start dumping people whether it’s a corner or a tackle, or a quarterback, it’s not good for you. We’ll look at the tape. It’s never one person. You guys want to point the finger at one person and it’s not. We all have a part in it and it starts with the game plan and we’ll get it right.
What do you think changed defensively when WVU had to go to a different quarterback?
Narduzzi: Well I think the only thing…they’ve got Donaldson and I think they wanted to hand it off. 51 rushes, they wanted to hand it off to him. Probably a little less quarterback counter, probably the only thing they didn’t have. They did a good job at outside zones at times and again, we can clean that up too. There’s no reason for them to gain even the yards they got. 211 yards, I haven’t lost too many football games when you give up 211 yards.
You mentioned the game plan could be part of the problem, were you happy with the game plan?
Narduzzi: Obviously not. You’re not happy in anything you do when you don’t win. It starts with the game plan, it starts with the coaches…
But you were alright with it coming into the game?
Narduzzi: No question about it. We had a good plan going in, and we’ll look at it. Things change, they change, and they do different things, and you’ve got to adjust and make moves.