Pat Narduzzi held his final press briefing of the week on Thursday and talked about Pitt's injury issues, penalties, the run game, facing Louisville and a lot more.

Here's the full rundown of everything he said.

Narduzzi: We had a really good week of practice. I think the kids’ energy and enthusiasm was better than it was the last couple weeks. You think it’s good, they’re locked in, but just a little bit more pop in their step, I guess. Which is good. That’s what you hope an open week does: get them a little fresh. So we’ve had a good week. We have to go out and execute in all three phases and go down there and play a very talented Louisville football team.

On that topic, a lot of people inside this building and outside this building think you guys haven’t played your best game yet. Do you agree with that?
Narduzzi: I agree with that.

Do you think it’s coming?
Narduzzi: I think it’s coming. I don’t know when. But I think we’ve played solid, but I don’t think we’ve put it all together like I’d like. But that happens. We played good enough to win four and should have won six.

Is injuries a part of that?
Narduzzi: No. No. You know, could you say it was part of the Tennessee game? Yeah. If Kedon plays the whole game, I think we win that one. If Nick Patti stays healthy, I think we’ve got a much better chance. They didn’t put 52 up on us, I can tell you that, right? So I think we played pretty good, but we just didn’t get it done.

How would you say Malik Cunningham has improved as a player since the last time you saw him?
Narduzzi: You know, it’s hard to tell on videotape. I’ll tell you after the game. But he’s a good player. I can tell you this: he’s more confident, he can run, he’s athletic. I’m sure he knows what he’s doing more than 2020 during Covid, the lack of practices we had that year and guys getting traced out and all that. So I’m sure he’s gotten more talent around him and they’re running the ball with him. They’ve got more designated runs with him, I think, now than they did in the past. So we’re going to have to really know where he is and have our eyeballs on him.

Do you expect them to continue with those designated runs even though he’s coming back from a concussion?
Narduzzi: You don’t know. You have to prepare for them. You sit in the staff room and you go, ‘Hey, are they going to run that?’ But a lot of these are protected runs, whether he runs to the sidelines and tries to get out of bounds or tries to get his 10 yards on a keeper and slide - I’m sure they’ll be smart with him. But I think they’ve got a lot of faith in their next guy, too.

They’re going to try to win a game. They’re going to try to win a game one at a time. If I’m them and I know I’ve got a really good backup that just won a game a week ago, they’re going to do what Malik likes to do, which is run the football.

On the injury question, do you feel like you’ve had more injuries this year than in previous years?
Narduzzi: No question about it. I jinxed myself in the spring; I told you we had one soft-tissue injury, and then all of a sudden - and I think a lot of people have them around the country. I don’t know what it is, but yeah, we’ve had more injuries than we’ve ever had. Ever. It’s eight years, my eight years here, I feel like we’ve had more of those than we’d like. And there’s - you don’t know, nothing you can do about it.

Are things getting better in that regard?
Narduzzi: I think so. Sometimes they get better. Sometimes they get worse. It might be worse after the game and better before the game. We’ll see. We’ll see who can play. We’ll see who’s ready to roll.

Through the spring and in August, you guys talked a lot about Konata and what he was showing you in practices and the plays he was making. He hasn’t had that breakout game yet; what does he need to do to maybe blow up one of these weeks?
Narduzzi: You know, we’ll find out. He didn’t play, obviously, last weekend, but I think in the Georgia Tech game we started getting the ball in his hands and we started getting him going on some bubbles and all of that. He’s going to be a game-time decision to see if he goes or not, but if he is available, we’ll see if we can get him involved a little bit early and see if we can get him going. But he’s a talented player. We just have to get the ball in his hands and we have to get him on the field. That’s the first thing.

When you have a running back like Izzy who’s been doing so well in carrying the load and you have a guy like Rodney, who’s working his way back into the mix, how do you find a way to get him going without potentially stalling Izzy’s progress and taking away touches from him?
Narduzzi: We’re not going to stall Izzy; I can tell you that. Rodney’s good and we have to get Rodney back 100%. He’s not 100% yet. We wish he was. But we have to get Rodney back to where he’s 100% and then we can maybe talk more about where he is. You guys saw him limping out there on Tuesday a little bit, so we just have to get healthy.

But we’re not going to slow down what Izzy’s done so far. He’s proven it. We’ve talked the last couple years about, ‘Who’s the hot hand?’ He’s the hot hand right now and he keeps getting hotter.

You discussed the rushing game on Monday; what about the offensive line makes them good at run-blocking? What do you like about that group, even with different pieces in there at times?
Narduzzi: Yeah, we’ve got two backups in there that aren’t starters. It goes with the scheme, first of all: what we’re doing, how we’re doing it. Coach Cignetti has brought some good things with us, just as far as how we’re targeting the linebackers, how they’re comboing up to players. So it’s not just the plays we run and how we run it, there’s so many different - if you were in the huddle or staff meeting, just hearing the different words and what that means compared to what that means versus the same run, run a different way based on where the linebackers - 3-4 or 4-3, whatever it may be, there’s just different things that we’re doing that are giving us a chance to be successful. It’s not all - you know, Izzy’s doing it when he gets through the line of scrimmage, but that first five yards, it goes to scheme and it goes to some of our checks that we make up front and it goes to, obviously, the offensive line and tight ends and sometimes those receivers downfield.

Those things you’re doing, is that difficult for an offensive line? Because you have a veteran group, are you able to do more things?
Narduzzi: I think because we have a veteran group we can do more things and change things. One minute, you’re going to the left and one minute, you’re going to the right. So it’s all those things, going where we need to go to be successful. So I think that’s part of it. But we have good teachers, too, so even if they were younger - we’ve taught Branson what to do and he hasn’t really messed up.

Knowing that Louisville has a ton of sacks this year already defensively, is there an extra emphasis on getting the ball out quick this week when you’re looking to drop back and pass?
Narduzzi: Well, the first emphasis is the block them, right? So we have to do a better job blocking them than maybe some of the other folks have. That’s what it comes down to. And then the quarterback’s got to get the ball out of his hand, we have to protect him, we have to give him a chance and we have to get one as receivers. So it’s the blocking, it’s the route-running and it’s the decision-making and getting the ball out of your hand. It’s a three-part deal.

I was doing some math during the off week, between you and your opponents have run 822 offensive plays this season; there have been eight offensive holding calls. They always joke that there’s holding on every play, but one out of every 100 snaps, does that seem low to you? Does it seem like they’re calling it less this year?
Narduzzi: It seems low. It’s funny, you talk about penalties and we can look - some of the penalties are good calls, some of them are bad calls as we all know, so I won’t talk about that. But I was just looking, I think we have 23 unforced penalties on the year, which is really good. Talk about unforced, that’s the false starts, that’s a low. We’ve got one selfish penalty on the year, which was an unsportsmanlike on Haba down on the goal line against West Virginia. He taunted him. He just kind of did one of those and got a flag, which I see a lot of during the course of a game and don’t see any flags, but he got it and that’s really good: one selfish the whole year. I don’t want anybody to listen to me and jinx our tail again, but that’s discipline.

Disappointed in some of the aggressive - hey, it’s an aggressive game, you’re going to have a holding call on offense, you’re going to have a defensive pass interference, we’re going to have those. Those are aggressive, playing hard. But I think we’ve got seven blocks in the back, which is ridiculous. That’s almost on the selfish end of trying to do too many things. I think we’ve had seven of those. But we’ve done a pretty good job with the unforced errors.

As far as offensive holding, do you feel like that’s getting called less?
Narduzzi: I don’t know if they’re getting called less, they’re getting coached different; I guess that’s a good question for Dennis Hennigan - what are they looking for?

They let you hold nowadays. They let you hold. If it’s not significant, if you let go, they don’t call it. I don’t know how to coach that. To me, it’s either holding or it’s not holding. When I look at our defense, they’re not calling them as much. But I don’t think we hold a lot on offense, and it seems like every time we get anything that’s tight - you know, we don’t hold very much on offense. I can tell you that. But they get Jared Wayne for one down on a touchdown that got called back against Tennessee, another big play. I see it on the other side.

I don’t know. I don’t know how to officiate any more. I don’t know how to coach. Don’t get me started.

What about roughing the passer? It’s been a problem in the NFL, the guys throwing flags maybe too soon. Have you seen that much this year?
Narduzzi: Have you? Did you see that one on Tylar Wiltz that one day? That’s roughing? My gosh. I’m going to start telling our guys, ‘Hey, if you get close, just bury him. Just bury him.’ If you’re getting a flag for that, unnecessary roughness? You might as well just go get him.

Obviously, I see some of the NFL things that are going on. Sometimes they go your way, sometimes they don’t.

Are they throwing the flags too quickly in your games or in college games in general?
Narduzzi: I think a little bit sometimes, you know. I just want it to be fair. As long as it’s even, I’m good. Call it the same way.

Looking back at the last time you played this team, your defense allowed three points in the second half. Do you go back and watch that and see, especially since they had the same quarterback and probably some other guys on offense, that you can maybe look to replicate what you guys did there?
Narduzzi: Yeah, we have different players, but that game’s certainly in our breakdown. We know what they did that day - they’re watching that game heavily, we’re watching that game and we’re trying to say, ‘Okay, they’re not going to do that again; what are they going to do? What’s their play off of a play? We stopped that; what are they going to?’ That will be the chess match from two years ago, and again, I think I said on Monday’s press conference, Satterfield pretty much runs the offense. There are some different guys in that room that are having different ideas, ‘Let’s try this,’ so they’ll do some things we have not seen. But the offense you saw in 2020 is very similar to the offense you see now with a good offensive line, a really good offensive line - not that they were bad back then, but just different guys, obviously.

When we talked to Randy earlier this week, he said that tackling was really the number-one thing when you’re facing Malik Cunningham and when he’s running around, just making good on the opportunities when he’s in the open field. How do you feel your guys have done in that area so far this season?
Narduzzi: This season? Well, we did like 4-2, I guess. We did like that.

We’ve done okay. Disappointed in how we tackled Jeff Sims. We focused on that this week. We don’t have a quarterback that looks like Jeff Sims or Malik Cunningham, so if one of you guys want to volunteer, we’ll let you guys come out there and be the quarterback. We just don’t have a guy to emulate the athletic ability. So we’ve talked a lot about angles. It’s going to be about, ‘Don’t misjudge his speed.’ If Eli Kosanovich is running out that way, don’t go to where you want to go to get Eli; you need to go like you’re going to get Malik. So those are things that we’ve focused on, but until you get in the game, we have to make those plays. It’s a concern, obviously.

Who’s your backup quarterback these days? It’s not an injury question.
Narduzzi: Yeah, it is. It could be Nate or it could be Nick Patti. It depends on who’s healthy.

Andre Powell mentioned a month ago that, before games, he prints out a test for the running backs to fill out, and on Saturday morning they go through and discuss how they did. Is that something all position groups do or is that just something he does?
Narduzzi: No. We all do the same thing. Everybody’s got a tips sheet. It’s kind of tips and reminders, and then some type of test just to make sure they understand it.

Like a physical test for everyone?
Narduzzi: Oh yeah, a piece of paper.

Do other programs do that?
Narduzzi: I don’t know.

Where did you get that?
Narduzzi: It’s just something we’ve been doing for years. We’ve always had a tips sheet. Just reminders, like, remember when they’re in this backfield set or this formation, they like to - just all the things, just reminders. Remember, if they come out in empty, we’re checking this coverage. Or if they come out in - that’s what we do. I don’t know what most people do, but I would imagine - if people don’t have tips sheets and reminders, whether it’s a quiz or not, that to me is the norm. I don’t know any other way. It’s just reminders. It’s something for them to look at and review. We talk in meetings every day, but it’s a review.

I forget if it was after the Rhode Island game or some game, you said that you love noon kicks. Is it as simple as just getting home earlier?
Narduzzi: That’s the only reason. Games are games. We don’t care when we get to play them. But a noon kick, I get to get home, maybe play some bocce and see the family. Selfishly, you know, for someone that’s got four kids and likes to see his wife, that’s why I like it. Otherwise, I’ll play anytime. I love night games. Who doesn’t love night games? But getting home at three o’clock in the morning, you know, I’m not going to get to Mass on Sunday morning. I can tell you that. Usually I go to 7:30 Mass; I’m not getting there.

Is that the price you have to pay when you win a championship? You all of a sudden become the marquee team?
Narduzzi: I don’t know. I don’t know if it’s marquee or not, but we got it.