Pitt head coach Pat Narduzzi met with the media on Monday, the start of the final week of training camp ahead of the 2024 season. Over the weekend, Pitt held its final scrimmage of camp and that was the main topic during the head coach’s press briefing.

Narduzzi: Beautiful, beautiful. How about this fall weather? Fall is here. I like it, huh? School's starting in a week. I guess, start scrimmage-wise. Had 122 offense and defense plays, which is good. It's 22 guys times 122, that's a lot of manpower there. Got 33 snaps on special teams, got kickoff in, field goal. Obviously, field goal blocked with that, kickoff returned. So we really got everything, we got every phase. Obviously, punt, punt return. So it was a good day at Acrisure Stadium. Got all our communication with the green dots, the iPads, all that stuff. I think that's important with just the new technology and getting it in Acrisure Stadium the day after the Steelers got out there. So good day overall, and competition continues just about every spot. And we'll kind of move from there. Questions?

Do you have a quarterback and can you tell us who it is?

Narduzzi: Yeah, we don't have a quarterback. I mean, we've got two quarterbacks. Amanda, that's a good thing. I'm glad we got more than one. We got two quarterbacks that are really good. Those are hard decisions, and let's take it day by day. I mean, getting into game planning and who's picking up game plans and all that. I feel like we have two really good quarterbacks to come on with right now, so. No answer for you.

What did you see from the two quarterbacks?

Narduzzi: The same thing I've seen all camp. I mean, nothing different. They both have their game, and it was good. Again, I guess I probably should say the offense won the scrimmage. I don't know if you guys knew that. So the offense did come out on top. I want to say like 39 to 25, something like that. And it was a good scrimmage. Again, offense was much cleaner than they were in the last scrimmage. I think the ones and twos on offense had one penalty the entire game, which was impressive. I don't know if I've ever seen that before. The defense had a few, but not often.

Who were kind of the standouts in maybe the passing game, like some of the receivers?

Narduzzi: You know, Poppi Williams had a good day. Poppi had probably, he was the guy that popped out to me, Poppi popped out. Kenny Johnson had a good day. I'm trying to think of who else. So those are the two that stand out to me right off the bat. To say five guys stood out would be, I'm blowing smoke, you know what I'm saying, Jerry, so those are the two that stood out to me.

Who stood out on linebacker?

Narduzzi: Linebacker, I would say Kyle Louis. Again, we start three of them. So Kyle Louis, Brandon George, Keye (Thompson) continues to play really well. And then, Biles and Lovelace, I mean, both those guys. I mean, I think we got some guys in there. Those guys all stood out, and they better, they better.

Keye’s a backup to Brandon, can he also play outside?

Narduzzi: Keye can play outside if he wants to. We haven't got a ton of reps here, but he's smart enough to do it. He’s fit right in with our defense. So Keye can do a little bit of it. He's physical, he's got great instincts as well. I am really happy with where he is right now.

With the offense winning, I mean, were you disappointed at all in the defense?

Narduzzi: No, and as a head coach. Question was, was I disappointed with the defense? Not at all, I was disappointed with the offense the last scrimmage. This one, I was not disappointed. The offense just plugged away at the defense. It wasn't like these explosive plays. There was a couple, like there better be, but it was one of those as a head coach, you walked out of there going, okay, I feel good about all three phases. It wasn't like you're like, man, there was none of that, like I slept better Sunday night than I did last weekend, last Saturday night. So I was not disappointed in the defense. The offense did some really good things. They executed, they didn't hurt themselves. I talked about penalties. They had one penalty, and if you shoot yourself in the foot, you have no chance, but the defense made them earn it for most part. But the offense earned it too.

Who stood out running back in the scrimmage?

Narduzzi: You know, I'm gonna give you the dark horse. The guy that stood out to me, okay, and the guy that stood out to me was Derrick Davis. We got into a two minute, almost turned into a four minute because of that. You got this two minute warning now that we're working a two minute warning with a two minute, two minute and 30 seconds left in the clock. But they got in field goal range twice, and Derrick Davis was like a beast in there. Like he just, playing with his pads down low, physical, hard runner, like you better get in a weight room if you're gonna tackle that guy this year.

Any takeaways defensively?

Narduzzi: Takeaways, not that I haven't mentioned already. I mean, solid performance, stuff we gotta work on in all phases, so. Interceptions or fumbles?

Like, interceptions or fumbles…

Narduzzi: It was one interception, it was one fumble. One fumble was an exchange problem, so it wasn't like we caused it, which is disappointing defensively. Like, let's get more turnovers, but I guess it's a good thing if your offense is not turning over. And then the interception was a tip ball. So it was not like we threw it to the other guys, and that's how the offense won a scrimmage too probably.

I heard you on Jim Rome. You said Nate Yarnell got into a little bit of a skirmish after an interception. Can you tell us who picked him off, that he tackled?

Narduzzi: He tackled PJ O'Brien. PJ got all mad, but PJ picked him off, and I think Nate lost his mind. But he's done that in high school too, so that was not a good move.