Narduzzi: 'They made more plays than we did'

BLACKSBURG, Va. — Pitt lost to Virginia Tech 38-21 on Saturday to drop to 1-4 on the season. Following the game Pitt head coach Pat Narduzzi met with the media. Here is a complete transcript of everything he had to say.

Narduzzi: Obviously it’s a disappointing loss on the road to a good football team. I give Virginia Tech credit, as always. They made more plays than we did. We didn’t make enough plays today. When you don’t stop the run and they are able to run the ball, they pretty much ran it at will in my opinion. We’ll evaluate where we are. We’ve got an open week to check it out. It’s not up to the Pitt standards, my standards. Extremely disappointed in the effort today. We made too many missed tackle on defense. Again, I give Drones credit. That guy is a big tailback, he wasn’t easy to get down. No. 33, the tailback was really good. Drones was a man. I thought he played really well. He was able to throw a deep pass and do that.

Offensively, we didn’t do anything. We had two explosive plays. Bub Means, that’s kind of what we’ve been looking for. The first series of the game they were packing the box and we were trying to run it and they were down. We came in thinking we could possibly run the ball like we did a year ago, except Izzy (Abanikanda) is not in the backfield. He popped some big runs. We just didn’t run the ball period. But we had two explosive plays and C’Bo had a nice screen for a touchdown, but other than that I didn’t feel it at all. We’ll gather in the open week and do a major self scout to figure out where we are and what we’ve got to do to right the ship and figure it out.

Pat, you said it yourself that you guys didn’t do anything on offense. What leads to not making a change for the guy running the offense?

Narduzzi: You know what, Noah? I think change is great. If you go back and look at the video tape. I saw enough of the video tape and I don’t have to go back and look at the tape, but Phil was under pressure the entire game. He got sacked four times. Even when he had a completion, he’s getting hit, OK? Every time. That is not an easy situation to put anybody in, but I still feel that’s the guy back there making the plays. He had one ball that was not good in the flat. He threw it at his feet, I don’t know if it slipped out of his hand or what. But other than that he made some nice throws, but he’s under pressure all day. There’s nobody…you could put Dan Marino in there. Dan Marino is not going to do anything. Period.

Our line is patched up right now and we’ve got to get better. On the turnover I think in the second half on the second play. Again we made a run in the second half. We got a T-screen, defense gets a turnover scoop and score, things are looking good. There’s no quit in that locker room. But the second play of the third quarter, we missed on the left side and Phil get killed. I thought we came out running the ball anyway. I don’t know what quarterback is going to sit back there and throw the ball effectively when you have do do that and you can’t run the ball…you’ve got problems.

What about the mental mistakes? The delay of game with 2:30 left? What about the check-downs on third and longs, that’s not pressure-related, is it?

Narduzzi: Hey, can you throw deep? You don’t have time. You’ve got to throw the check-downs. You try to take what they’re going to give you when you’re back 20 yards. The delay of games…noise was a factor. The last time we came down here we shut the crowd down. There was no crowd. Their fans were in there for the entire game. We left them in there for the entire game. We didn’t quiet the crowd at all. We kept them in the game. The cadence wasn’t easy as much as we worked it and late in the game we’ve got guys in there false starting. Poor Ryan Baer got two false starts, I feel bad. He’s out there banging his head. Again, he’s not trying to do that, nobody is trying to do that. But back behind the sticks and…

Even with a bye week coming up, you aren’t even thinking about a quarterback change?

Narduzzi: We’re going to reevaluate where we are. I see a lot of things that need changed on the offense. We got nine first downs, like it’s hard to win a football game. We’ve got two explosive plays, that’s all we got. So we’ve got to look at what we’re doing, how we’re doing it, and fix it. That’s my job as the head coach to fix it. It doesn't come down to one guy, it’s everybody. It’s a team loss. Period. That’s kind of what it is, honestly.

Pat, to that point, how much do you look into Frank Cignetti’s evaluation as far as what he’s game planning and what he is planning and just the system going forward?

Narduzzi: We’ve got a bye week to figure it out. We’ve got to figure out what we do well, what we don’t do well, and stop doing what we don’t do well and start doing something better. We’ve got to obviously change some things up and that’s what we’ll do in the open week to try to figure out what we’ve got to get first downs and touchdowns. They were packing the box and what you saw to Bub, but then obviously Bub is out with what I thought was a late hit out of bounds, but they didn’t call that. But we’ll look at it. That big post is what we saw during camp. That was a heck of a throw by Phil and that’s what we gave us. We knew that from the first series they gave it to us, the second series it was like, ‘Here we go’ and then they just mixed it up from there and we didn’t do a good job of coming back and doing what we can do.

Last week you talked about how this team has no quit, did you feel they displayed that today?

Narduzzi: Yea, I don’t think there’s any quit out there. The kids are playing their tails off. The defense didn’t quit. They’re down there moving the ball and again it;s not like these gigantic plays, they just bled us, a slow bleed. We couldn’t get off the field defensively either. We couldn’t get off the field and it doesn’t help your offense when you’re not on the field going through a 15-play drive starting all the way at the 10-yard line and then kick a field goal in the third quarter, fourth quarter, whatever that was, I guess the fourth quarter. We just couldn’t get off the field defensively, and again I’ve got to give Drones credit. I give him credit.

Do you feel like your team seized that momentum from the Lovelace touchdown?

Narduzzi: I thought they seized the momentum. Our guys were excited on the sideline, but we just didn’t do anything about it. We didn’t take advantage of it. We quieted them down there just for a second. I don’t remember what happened on that next series after that, but I’m assuming in was another three and out…and a punt.

This is the worst start of your career here at Pitt, is this the biggest challenge you’ve faced as a head coach?

Narduzzi: No question about it. There’s no doubt about it. I haven’t been in this position, but every week is a challenge. We’ve just got to take it, but it’s what we did and it’s how we’re playing right now. The second touchdown we have a 10-yard punt, like what is going on here? You go from a 56-yard punt to a 10-yard punt and then it’s a 45-yard drive for a touchdown with short fields. It’s what it was.

Eight penalties again today. What needs to happen for that to stop?

Narduzzi: Again, I don’t know what they were. I don’t have the list in front of me, but I’m assuming probably four false starts. We had an unsportsmanlike for a hit on a quarterback, which I didn’t see anything wrong with it. I’m trying to think of the other penalties, if you read them off I can tell you what I thought of them. But overall I thought it was a well-officiated game. I don’t know about that tackle on the quarterback, I don’t know, so those are the ones we’ll see. Those penalties there, the unsportsmanlike ones bother me and again I didn’t see it from the field.