Narduzzi recaps UMass, previews Tennessee

Pat Narduzzi met with the media on Monday for his weekly press conference. The Ptt coach discussed his team's 51-7 over UMass on Saturday, and also looked ahead to the game with Tennessee this weekend. Here is a complete rundown of his comments.

Narduzzi: Ready to roll?

Into week two. Just reflecting back on the UMass week, kind of thought -- you guys asked if I was worried about anything going into the game. Our kids were locked in, focused on getting their job done. They'll be locked in this week as well, obviously.

You talk about a four-quarter, 60-minute game, I really was happy with the way the guys came out. As we watched tape offensively, defensively, special teams, little things we can work on. Their attitude was great, focus was great, really their effort for the most part was pretty good. I could pull a guy here and there, caught some loafs in all three phases that we got to clean up. We're excited where we were.

Offensively just looking at one thing I take note of, they did a good job adjusting our offense. Coach Borbley, Coach Salem, we didn't see much if any three down going into it. They played a lot of man coverage, as far as man free. A lot more zone coverage, which was good. So we were able to adjust on the run. Receivers had to adjust on the run based on what we were seeing. It was a good starter for the season. That's kind of where we are there.

Moving into Tennessee, obviously the Johnny Majors Classic. I love it. I like it the best because I've had a relationship with Coach Majors from his time spent here at Pitt, the days he's been here to visit the university he loved here. Spent a couple flights with him. Spent a lot of time with him at some of the Nike clinics he was heavily involved in through his retirement years, I guess. I think it's a great thing in honor of the Majors family. We're excited about that.

Again, we got a Tennessee team that we haven't played the personnel there, but Josh Heupel coming from UCF, having two games with them, gives us a little bit of an advantage, gives them an advantage as well because they know who we are both sides of the ball. They saw ‘Pitt Special’ (in 2019). They'll be ready for the Pitt Special. We'll be ready for the tempo. I think it's going to be a heck of a game.

Open it up for questions.

How much does Tennessee’s offense resemble what you saw at UCF in those two games?

Narduzzi: It looks very similar. I'm sure they'll have some tweaks for us maybe that they didn't show in the first game. But very similar.

I think they're snapping the ball faster. Probably an average of 11 seconds they're snapping the ball on offense. Defensively they're a little bit different than they were in the past. Tim Banks came from Penn State, their defensive coordinator. A lot of look like them as far as playing a lot of man free, a lot of four down. A lot of different variations in coverage which I'm sure we'll see a few just to confuse Kenny a little bit.

What did you see from Milton and how does his size make him difficult to defend?

Narduzzi: His size and athleticism and that canon arm he's got makes it difficult. Obviously a transfer from Michigan. He's 6'5", 240, he can run. He's a big athlete that we're going to have to get down. One guy might not get him down. We're going to have to get two, three, four guys there. We are going to have to run to the ball, then we are going to have to get home quickly because they will snap it between seven and 10 seconds.

In trying to defend Milton, how much does it help to have an experienced linebacker group?

Narduzzi: It helps. When you look at our linebacker crew, they played in the tempo, especially Phil and Cam. They're used to that. How many of our guys went and played against them fast tempo-wise in our secondary. Damarri has played in it. A lot of other guys hadn't played in the tempo. We'll give them a good taste of how fast it's going to be this week. Our scout team, look team, has to do a great job this week of giving us a fast look, not only getting the plays off fast, but execute them as well so we can get the look we need.

You mentioned Tim Banks. Do you look at Penn State film from 2019?

Narduzzi: Yeah, he's heavily involved in the game plan. There's rumors he may have been calling some of it as well. I think he had a lot of input. Been a coordinator before. There will be a lot of similarities.

The numbers were good on the running game Saturday. What is your eyeball test?

Narduzzi: We got some guys that made some nice runs. We got a lot of guys involved in the run game. I was happy with the backs for the most part. They made the right reads. Sometimes that's as big a problem as anything, make sure you're reading the right things, especially during a different front that we had not seen. There was carryover from fall camp as far as the run game goes.

Again, our O-line did a good job. They did a good job adjusting to some of the things they were doing. They were lining up in three down, but moving things a certain way that they maybe had to combo a little bit different up to the backers, get a hat on the Mike linebacker. That's something you don't prepare for going into the game, you don't know what you're going to see, but you're prepared to make those adjustments as they go. Coach Borbely did a good job, even after that third and one, fourth and one, adjusting so we make sure we take care of that front, stunt, blitz they're giving us based on the formation.

You’d still like to have a bell cow at running back, though, right?

Narduzzi: Maybe. I'd like to have three or four. We'll eventually find one or two. But you're going to play two or three backs. You're going to keep them fresh. We go tempo, they're going to need blows. You'd like to have two or three of them you feel really good about going into the game. We feel that right now.

What did you think of the play of your two safeties? How important is it what they're going to do this week?

Narduzzi: Yeah, all 11 of them are important. Two corners are important as well because they like to throw some fade balls as well. Safeties are as critical as are the outside linebackers getting reroutes and stopping the run. Their fits are going to be important across the board.

Got a lot of confidence in Brandon Hill, Erick Hallett. Rashad Battle played okay, not as well as he wants to. That's his first game. I talked about the improvement from week one to week two. Some of those guys haven't played, been in that situation. They'll make the biggest improvement. Is it going to be 5%, 10% better having that game experience under the belt, on the hash, see what they did wrong in a real scrimmage, game situation as opposed to a scrimmage. I think that really helps.

How did you evaluate the offensive line?

Narduzzi: I mean, again, was happy with the O-line. We're blocking some different dudes up front. Going to see four down most of the time. We just got to play with better leverage and communicate all the way together. That's some of the things, just communication-wise with the different fronts, getting everybody on the same page.

How did Blake Zubovic and Matt Goncalves play?

Narduzzi: Played good. I mean, when I look back, Matt had some quality reps in there. So did Blake. Blake didn't get as many because of the different front. We were busy adjusting during the series. I know Coach Borbley wanted to give him a little bit more. I think he had like 27 snaps or something like that. Marcus Minor had 55 or something if I recall.

We wanted to get Blake a few more. We'll get Blake a few more this weekend. We were happy. There was nobody that had a losing grade, put it that way. And that's a good thing.

You said you wanted to see more out of the defensive ends. Looking at the tape, what did you see from them?

Narduzzi: I think there was a lot of thinking. The guys are not playing as fast. Again, Haba getting his first start, I think, maybe he had one start in the past. John Morgan played a lot of football for us. Just consistency and playing fast. Maybe they didn't play as fast as we needed them to play. Again, you're trying to prepare for everything. They have all these things on their menu, things to worry about. We'll get them playing a little bit faster this week. I think that’s the big thing, not thinking so much. React to what you are going to see. Don't think, ‘They're going to come with this next because of this set.’ There's a lot of things like that with all the things we try to cover the week before an opener that you don't know about.

Tennessee lost a lot in the portal. How does that make it harder from a personnel standpoint to scout them?

Narduzzi: A lot easier than last week when you have game tape. You got a whole game on who they are. Think their offensive line is big and physical. Look like an SEC offensive line. Those top five guys played a bunch, they're big, strong, know what they're doing. It will be a bigger challenge than Josh Heupel's team at UCF as far as the O-line goes. Their backs are good.

We've got enough tape on them to know who they are right now. I don't think they held anybody out in that game so we'll know where their speed is, where the concerns are, where they like to throw the ball, what they want to do in the run game.

s Deslin Alexandre ready to go?

Narduzzi: I think he's getting closer, yeah. We'll see. Might be a week out. I don't know.

SirVocea Dennis has played inside and outside, but is he basically a middle linebacker now?

Narduzzi: No, he's both. He's both. We only had 54 plays on defense. We had seven three and outs. We didn't get into multiple reps. When we do want to sub, we can play them both.

Are most of his practice reps in the middle?

Narduzzi I would say 75%.

You mentioned some of the defensive players that were thinking out there. John Petrishen seemed to be reacting, playing fast?

Narduzzi: John played fast, did some good things. John had his moments, too, from the coach's film compared to what you might see on tape. You look at production sometimes. Production doesn't say everything.

John played good. I look at where he was this year in the opener compared to how he wasn't ready a year ago from a switch from safety to linebacker. He is playing at a high level right now and it's great because you're able to get him and Cam out there at different times, keep them fresh. Keeping them fresh this week with the tempo.

We ran 54 plays on defense. I believe Tennessee ran 94 plays on offense. We're going to play two games this week. That's going to be the difference. We'll need substitutes.

Tennessee had 84,000 for their opener. Hostile environment. Will you be using crowd noise or anything like that at practice?

Narduzzi: Yeah, we'll have crowd noise. That will be the big thing offensively. But we worked that during camp as well. Not the first time we're going to work the loud crowd noise. We had it during camp, prepared for it already. That was just something situationally, whether it's third down, working the red zone, working noise, we've done it before.

We'll be prepared and we'll be ready to go. Any time we've had noise issues, noisy games for our offense, our guys have stepped up and done a nice job. They'll be prepared for it. Should not be an issue.

How did you evaluate the kicking game?

Narduzzi: You know, we got two kickers out there. Start off with the kicking game, the kickoffs, I think Ben Sauls did a good job. First one he knocks out, I don't know how many touchbacks he had. Wasn't as consistent. Would like to have a little more hang time when he doesn't kick it in the end zone.

Sam was good. Was he great? I wish he wouldn't have missed an extra point. That will be something we have to look at. I think they both have the ability to kick field goals. Again, Sam will go into it being our starter again this week at the kicking spot. We look for those guys to have that first game under the belt, get some kicks in. Really didn't want Sam's first kick to be a field goal. We wanted it to be an extra point right down the middle. We were able to get him comfortable, he was able to hit his first field goal.

Is the physicality of the O-line better than last year?

Narduzzi: I didn't go back and look at it. They did a lot of movement up front. I mean, physicality. It's hard in this game when everybody is moving. You'd like it if they just would sit there like statues and not move. You can be a lot more physical.

When people are moving around, you're going to have to make sure you're in position not to just whiff on the block. You go freaking crazy trying to knock them off the ball and he goes that way, and you are going that way. Back in the day you used to have white knuckles. Nobody has that anymore because things are moving. You're not getting the physicality that you really like because people move all the time. Our offense is used to that with as much pressure and movement we give them in practice every day.

They've got movement and the back has seams sometimes.

Last year when Calijah Kancey got off to a strong start, you said he needed to bring more intensity to practice everyday --

Narduzzi: He's there. He is there. He played really well up front. He was our player of the week on defense. You watch him play with good feet, lock out, shed blocks. He looked like an All-ACC performer on Saturday night. Have to do it again against an SEC opponent this week.

How did Abanikanda grade out?

Narduzzi: I don't have all the grades in front of me. But he played well. He was probably high average. I don't think any of our tailbacks we could say were winning (grade). He played well.

How nice is it to have Kenny and other seniors who have played in this kind of road environment?

Narduzzi: It's really nice, especially that quarterback spot and on offense. They're going to have to deal with the crowd noise, everything that goes with it. I know Kenny is looking forward to that kind of atmosphere and playing big against a big team.

He missed the Miami game last year. Played in the Clemson game last year with just two offensive linemen that were starters (due to COVID protocols). I know this is why he came back, for one of those games.

Petrishen says he loves coming in on third downs. Is that something he lobbied for?

Narduzzi: Yeah, I mean, he's a former safety. He's a hybrid-type guy, as Cam is. He's done more of the secondary stuff. We feel good with some of the skill things he does back there.

Again, we have other guys that go in that role as well. You may see a different package with maybe him not in the game, putting another DB out there with all the skill we're going to see on the field. Maybe a nickel package just to make sure we can handle the speed.

We're not going to go in there and play three linebackers or four linebackers the whole game. I don't think that would be smart.

What is Krull’s ceiling? Not in the NFL, but for this season?

Narduzzi: I think he'll have a great year. I'm not worried about the whole season, worried about just this weekend. Think he has a lot of confidence. He was in early watching tape today with the quarterbacks. I think he's got confidence.

That's the main thing. You come out there, he's feeling good, he's healthy. He did a good job blocking, a great job catching the ball. Didn't have any drops. That was something he did a year ago. I think he's feeling great. I think he's got a big upside. He could be an All-ACC tight end.

How about Krull as a leader?

Narduzzi: Yeah, he's on our leadership council, our Eagles. He's in charge of those guys. He's an older guy that does a great job communicating. He will voice his opinion in meetings with those tight ends. He's helping develop that whole room, just like we have someone in each room that is really in charge of that room to take care of any loose ends that we might see in that room.

How and when will you utilize the crowd noise during practice?

Narduzzi: Our team periods. We usually do three or four team periods. It will be loud, whether it's inside, skelly will have noise as well. It will be anytime we're together as a team. We don't need an individual (period) when you guys are there, but we'll need it during the team periods, for sure.

Did you come out of the game pretty healthy?

Narduzzi: My knee's a little sore. No. We feel pretty good. You're always going to have your bumps and bruises. It's a physical sport. We came out good.

What did you see from your tight ends and receivers in the run game?

Narduzzi: Tight ends did a pretty good job of blocking. Gavin, for a freshman, he came in and had some licks on some people. Again, the receivers are going downfield making their blocks as well.

I think their secondary felt the receivers a little bit and they're going to have to feel them this week, too.