Narduzzi: Spring game will be 'better than what we've seen'

After Pitt finished its final spring practice in the South Side on Thursday, Pat Narduzzi broke down the format for the Blue-Gold Game. Here's the full rundown of everything he had to say.

Narduzzi: You’ll see actual football on Saturday. It’s going to be kind of a jersey scrimmage. Obviously it’s the spring game - it’s going to be the spring game but it will be graded like we do our jersey scrimmage. So you’ll see, it’s kind of modified a little bit, because usually in jersey scrimmages, I’ll kind of make up situations; we’re not going to make up situations. We’re just going to play the game. It will be offense versus defense; the offense will be on one side, defense will be on the other and we’ll play ball. I think it will be a good look at what we’ve got and I’m excited to try something different. Our guys will go out and compete. It will be pretty good. It will be better than what we’ve seen. We’ve just got to stay healthy.

How do you score those scrimmages?
Narduzzi: The scores will go up there - they’ll put it up there. EJ will give you a copy of how it’s scored. It’s modified from what we normally do, but basically - I don’t keep score, because they’ll yell at me during the scrimmages - but the offense scores like they score, except I think we give them a point for a first down. So offense gets a point for a first down, defense gets a point for a three-and-out. Defense gets points if they get turnovers. You lose points if you have penalties, so if you jump offsides, it’s going to cost you a point plus five yards. So that’s how it will go. TFLs and sacks, defense gets points. There’s only so many ways a defense can get points.

It’s like I tell the offense all the time: if you don’t turn the ball over, you don’t lose. I think you get 11 points if it’s a pick-six or a scoop-and-score for a touchdown. That can be drastic. But in a game, if you turn the ball over, you lose. That’s kind of what we do.

Is this format going to have less mismatches than you had in the past?
Narduzzi: Less mismatches. Yes. It won’t be a problem where the right guard can’t - you know, just draft-wise, and we have plenty of numbers to do it the way we usually do it. I think some programs around the country are not doing it with the draft - we could do it. We’ve got plenty of guys to play and keep our guys healthy which, knock on wood, hopefully you don’t step off a curb tonight going to class. We could do it that way. It’s nice to have that offensive line - mainly the offensive line playing together. The defense doesn’t care because guys go in and out. But to have our O-line play together, you know, the one offensive line, the two offensive line to protect the quarterback is primary.

You often talk about playing clean and playing disciplined football and you talk about that a lot in the fall. How are your guys looking this spring compared to other springs as far as penalties?
Narduzzi: Yeah, we’ve worked on it. We have an accountability period after every practice, just penalizing guys. Unforced errors, those are the ones you have to eliminate. You’re going to have aggressive, you’re going to have a few of those a game, whether it’s a PI or a holding call on the right tackle. But we want to get rid of the unforced errors, and we’ve gotten better. If I gave you the numbers from the first practice to the 14th practice, we’ve gotten better. We kind of modified it as the spring went on: if you have six or less in a whole practice, we didn’t have to do anything after practice, and we did that - we probably didn’t do any accountably the last four or five days. So we’ve gotten better there, but it’s got to carry over into the fall.

You mentioned the offensive line; what other reasons did you want to change it up this year?
Narduzzi: That’s the main reason, I would say. Because I love the draft. I love coming in here and seeing the kids pick and all of that. But mainly just for matchups and keeping the unit together, where it’s not all over the place. I thought last year, I think we had bad draft coaches, so they kind of made it worse than it should have been. So it’s their fault. But I think it’s for a good reason. I thought about it last year after the spring game and I’ve been thinking about it all offseason.

What do you think about the proposal of an FBS team against an FCS team in the spring?
Narduzzi: Yeah, I think we talked about that five or six meetings ago. But I think it would be great. They asked me about it on the ACC Network last night as well; I think it’d be great to get a team to come in here and play, or us go on the road and play. I don’t care. We’ll go on the road. I think it’s just for health purposes, more than anything. It gives you a chance to go out and play somebody else, and again, anytime there’s a snap and someone falls down and falls into your knees, things like that happen in spring games and practice every day. But when you get 22 of them out there, as opposed to 11, that’s what I like it for: it helps your depth and it helps the other team’s depth. And it gives you a chance to go compete.

Some of the reasons I don’t think it would happen is, you know, you’d start recruiting guys off of someone else’s team. It’s like, ‘Oh, that guy’s pretty good; let’s go get him.’ Which is bad. We don’t do that, shouldn’t have to worry about it, but it’s the world we’re living in now.

Will you be on the whistle as far as sacks or will you leave that up to the officials?
Narduzzi: I will be on the whistle. Our quarterbacks will still be in red, just like a normal jersey scrimmage. That’s how I call it. Sometimes I call it and it’s not a sack and maybe the quarterback’s going to escape and make somebody miss, which is usually half the time. But I’ll blow the whistle early to make sure the quarterbacks don’t get hit.

How has Izzy Polk done so far as far as fitting in and going into a receiver room that has a lot of vets in it?
Narduzzi: I think Izzy’s done a great job. For a freshman coming in here, he’s picked it up. You’re not seeing a bunch of M.A.’s. You can almost say he’s been ahead of some of the guys that have been here for a year. He’s done a nice job.

How did the players react when you told them it was going to be offense versus defense?
Narduzzi: I just told them after practice. I didn’t give them a chance to react, so I don’t know. You can ask them when they come in. There was no reaction. Today they wanted to go out in spider pads instead of going out in shells. That was the reaction today. We went out in shells. They have to know what’s good for them.