Pat Narduzzi held his final press briefing of the week on Thursday, and here's a full rundown of what he said.

Narduzzi: Alright, it is Thursday afternoon, the Steelers are practicing, the Panthers are done practicing, the hay is in the barn. I like where our kids are right now. I like the togetherness, I like the work they put in this week. There seems to be a lot of focus and I told them at the beginning of the week that, as the season goes on and the stage starts to get bigger, your focus has got to get a little bit narrower, as far as what your focus is, what you want, what you need to get better at and I really feel like we got a great week in. So, a great week of practice does not mean victory, but we have to go down there and play. Virginia Tech will be motivated. I’m sure it will be personal for them, based on last year’s game, just like last year was personal for us based on the year before’s game down there. So it’s going to be, who takes it more personal, I think. But again, we have a ton of respect for them and their staff and their football team; they’re really good. They’re not easy at home and they’re on a high right now and they’re playing well. They’re playing good football, and like I told you on Monday, it’s a credit to Justin Fuente and his staff.

This is a big game in November; do you feel a buzz among the players?
Narduzzi: I do. And again, we’ve played some big games in November. Wake Forest last year was a big game in November, I think; I don’t know what month it was but it seemed like it was late when we clinched down there. Our guys have played in some of these, and that’s the nice thing: we’ve had some big games in November and that’s what you try to do in your season - set it up where you are playing big games in November. Meaningful games where the practices become meaningful. If you’re a 5-5 team going into November or going into this mid-November date, then it’s kind of maybe hard to - you’re out there pulling teeth to get them to practice hard. But we didn’t have to pull any teeth this week to get them to go. They’re well aware. They read the newspaper.

How often have you had to pull teeth to get them to focus in practice?
Narduzzi: These guys here? Never. Through the years? There’s times - well, I just don’t remember the last time we had a really crappy season. When you have crappy seasons, you’re pulling teeth. It’s, what’s the motivation? They know what the motivation is right now. They know what’s at stake. We know we don’t control our own destiny but we just control - again, it’s a big game in November. It’s a chance to get number eight, it gives you a chance to get number nine and it gives you a chance to get number ten. There’s those things I think they think about. They want to leave their mark, their legacy, here on Pitt football in 2019.

How do you think you guys have grown since September? Was there one area where you said, ‘We really have to get better’?
Narduzzi: It’s an up and down deal. It’s like, one week you have to get better at this. The next week, you have to get better at that. It’s like, as soon as you plug up one hole, another fricking hole goes crazy and you have to go fill up that hole. But I think that’s what you do every week, is try to find out where your weakness is. If you had to look at one major thing, it was the running game early in the season, as far as our offense goes. Then midseason, you’re sitting there and you’re throwing three turnovers or having three turnovers in the first half, three consecutive series in a row and then you do it again the next week, so you’re trying to curb that. We don’t beat North Carolina, who again, I think is really good. I think Sam Howell, I think he should come out early. I think the NFL may change the rule, get him out of here, get him out of the ACC, pass that down to Mack Brown. But I think he’s outstanding. And Newsome is…I mean, those are special players. You know, Stocker started the Georgia Tech game and we had no problem, and I thought their number 10 was athletic and could run. He’s a 10.5 100-meter guy. But then all of a sudden Dazz Newsome and this guy’s like, we can’t touch him. So I thought he was special. I think North Carolina is a good football team.

You guys have the ability to win different ways and be more versatile. Sometimes the offense has to go down and run Pitt special, sometimes the defense has to get a stop at the 25, sometimes you have to run the clock out - have you guys grown in that capacity, in terms of not being one-dimensional?
Narduzzi: No doubt about it. That’s what we’ve talked about all year. It’s not like we blew anybody out, so we were up, blew someone out maybe in the first half, the second half things went the other way, regardless of whether we got conservative, which is not a bad thing. You win a lot of games; I see the NFL plays very conservative at times. But we found a way to win. And again, we talked about this on Monday, different ways and we’ve been in these games, whether it’s a four-minute drive, whether it’s a two-minute stop on defense, whether it’s an overtime win and the defense has to get two fourth-down stops after we score a touchdown in overtime.

I just think our guys know the situations, we’ve worked enough situations in practice, that they know, ‘Hey, it’s time for us to go do our job. They didn’t get the job done; let’s go do our job.’ There’s no finger-pointing out of our football team during the year. When maybe, ‘Hey you guys weren’t going what you need to do. Come on, we’re playing good over here, how about you?’ I think that’s the greatest thing, that our kids stuck together and didn’t point fingers and just continued to get better every week, which was part of your original question which was, what was something we got better at and what was the major thing. There’s major things every week.

You mentioned North Carolina a minute ago, being impressed with them; what about the league overall, the ACC overall this year. How do you think it stacks up to past years?
Narduzzi: I mean, all the people on ESPN, they need to wake up. You look at every conference, you can pick on one because Clemson’s been so dominant. But Ohio State’s been pretty dominant in the Big Ten, and who else is there right now, really? We’ll see how they finish out their next two games, but you’re probably going to say the same thing.

I think the ACC’s a great conference, and I’m not saying it because I’m in the conference; I’m saying it because I’ve coached and watched videotape, and the ACC Coastal, compared to the Atlantic, I think the Coastal’s a better division. I think it’s a better division when you look at the parity in the league. We have three teams that are 7-3 right now; what else would you want going in with two more weeks to go? That’s awesome. That means there’s not one dominant team in there that you know, oh, they’re going to be there and everybody else is no good. That’s not the case in the Coastal. So I think it’s an impressive division, period. I think every news guy would like to have three teams fighting at the end and playing meaningful games at the end. There’s no meaningful games on the other side.

I’m sure you have access to a ton of data you look at in-house, things like fourth downs or when you kick or situations or when you go for it, when you punt and all of those things. How much access do you have to information and data and analytics like that in the game?
Narduzzi: I jump on my phone and every once in awhile I’ll Google. No, you don’t have access to that with computers during the game at all. But you know what you’re dealing with as an opponent. You kind of have an idea what they like to do. Like, Virginia Tech likes to go for it on fourth down a lot, so we’re prepared for that. And then obviously our offense is prepared to, when we need to in the right situation, to go for it as well. But we have analytics for everything, whether it’s timeout usage or - and again, we evaluate ourselves, where we are, what we did, what we shouldn’t have done, what we can do better every week as well.

You hear about coaches that will have a guy upstairs and that’s his job: ‘Fourth down, the numbers say you do this.’ Is that something you would consider?
Narduzzi: It’s something we do.

You have someone that -
Narduzzi: I’m going to tell you where he is, but we know.

But he’s in your ear, offering that input.
Narduzzi: Oh yeah. That’s their job. We do that.

How many guys are in your ear during a game? Everybody?
Narduzzi: No, but I’m in their ear. I’m listening to everybody. I’ll flip offense, defense; Andre’s probably the hardest guy because anytime he’s on special teams, he takes his headphones off. I’m like, ‘Can you leave your headphones on so I can tell you something?’

But no, I’m listening more than talking. If I’ve got something to say, then I’ll interrupt. But not when they’re trying to make a play call. But I’m listening for our, obviously, that person that’s giving us information is detailed and we’re talking about that all the time.

What was that transition like for somebody that started out in football before the analytics boom and now having to embrace it so much? What was that like for you, going through all of that to where it is now?
Narduzzi: You’re going from normal football to more of this analytics, what do you do?

Right. What was that transition like for you?
Narduzzi: You know what, it wasn’t a transition at all because I’ve always kind of thought that way without having it. So when I first started getting interested in it about four years ago…it’s funny, we used to get these newsletters. I won’t tell you what the newsletters are. They were the endings of different games, whether it be at the half or at the end of the game. And I would read this newsletter every week and I would write down next to it what I would do. And you kind of just almost test yourself; it’s kind of like a test that you’d take and I didn’t know there was anything to it. I just knew that was all situations. So every week, I’d be like, where’s that newsletter? I’d get the newsletter, I’d read it all, and again, it was just kind of a four-page deal where it’d give you different situations that happened in college football. I loved it. Then all of a sudden, I knew we could talk to someone like that and find out even more about it and it was even better.

Are there are any freshmen that haven’t played this year that you think will get in?
Narduzzi: Right now, we’ve talked about a couple, but we won’t get into it. Davis Beville could play; that guy, we put him in a red jersey this week on the rocks so he doesn’t get hit anymore, but I think he’s going to be really good. But I don’t know. Maybe they’ll get in this weekend. I don’t know.

Davis, Matthew Goncalves is a guy, who else have we kind of talked about as true freshmen? Those are the guys that come to my mind right now.

Does it ever get to a point where it’s too late?
Narduzzi: No. It’s never too late. You have four games, and if you have one game, it’s one game, whether it’s Goncalves going in to be the right guard on right tackle on the field goal team - you have four games, you can do anything you want. So one game is never too late. Now, could he have helped you? Yes. But if he’s doing a great job and you want to reward him that way of saying, ‘Hey, let’s go, you’re going to do this’ - obviously it won’t be some drastic, you know, you’re starting now or you’re the new field goal kicker, we want to see if somebody can kick a field goal. We’re not going to take any chances like that. So it’s not going to be a risky position.

How has Davis grown since getting here?
Narduzzi: Davis Beville is going to be outstanding. He’s tough. I liken him to a Kirk Cousins in his freshman year. Obviously, a different stature than Kirk. But the hits he took, the effort he gives, he plays with passion every single day in practice. And it ain’t easy being the scout team quarterback. I say, ‘How do you like that red jersey today?’ He’s like, ‘It’s about time’ because he’s been getting whacked. When you look at our sacks and our ability to hit the quarterback, I think part of that is, we’re going to hit our scout team quarterback. You’ve got to practice during the week on Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday of hitting the quarterback, and unfortunately, he’s had to take the punishment there, which has really helped our linebackers and our sack guys, because they’re able to go get him.

When did he get that red jersey?
Narduzzi: Today.

So he was getting hit all week?
Narduzzi: Yeah, he was getting hit Tuesday and Wednesday. I said, ‘We have to put a red jersey on this guy.’ He’s taken enough hits. Our guys know how to hit the quarterback right now. I don’t think we’re going to break any bad habits.

Who’s going to punt this week?
Narduzzi: I don’t know.

Did you have a punt derby again?
Narduzzi: We had a punt derby. I can tell you this: it will be Kirk or Kess’. One or the other. I promise you that. We’ll find out.

What about Maurice?
Narduzzi: Game-time decision. He’s practiced this week.

Has he?
Narduzzi: Yeah. He’s been fast. He’s persistent. He eats a lot of Cocoa Puffs for breakfast; I’m like, ‘Is that all you eat? Cocoa Puffs? How about eating something else?’ So I’m watching, his weight’s back up. He lost a few pounds, just not being able to bite. But he’s back in practice today and we’ll see.

Would he have to wear something special?
Narduzzi: Right now, they’re saying no. And again, right now, he’s got steel. His jaw’s better than it was before. If we put a steel plate in your jaw, it’s not like there’s a risk of injury. It’s just kind of how he feels.

So he does have a steel plate in his jaw?
Narduzzi: Oh yeah. He won’t shut up either. He can go. He’s a beautiful one.