Narduzzi: 'We did enough things to not win the game'

BLACKSBURG, Va. - Pat Narduzzi’s team came close but fell short in the end at Virginia Tech Saturday, and here’s what the Pitt head coach had to say after the game.

Narduzzi: First thing I’ll say is, we’ve got a heck of a football team in there. I love those guys. I couldn’t say more great things about the character of this football team. You can talk about this, talk about that, but those guys played their tails off because they wear that Pitt logo on their chest. As a football coach, that’s all you can ask for. I just love them to death.

Coming down to the inches again, whether it’s a block where we get it deflected - our are fighting. That’s a good football team out there today; give Virginia Tech credit. But we did enough things to not win the game. We have four downs from the 1; we’ve got to punch it in. I didn’t think anybody could catch Jester Weah. I know he wishes he would have just dove into the end zone. You know, hindsight…

We had four plays down there, managed the clock well, got all four in there, had a fade and had an opportunity in those last four plays. You know, we’ll go back and look at the tape.

I’m just proud of our kids and that’s what it is.

Is there anything you would have done differently play call-wise on that last sequence, or did they just need to get more push on those runs?
Narduzzi: You got to block them. You need a yard. We can sit here and talk about play calls, but you gotta block them. You need a yard. You’ve got four downs to get a yard. We can second-guess and run four different plays; it doesn’t matter. You’ve got to get one yard.

We know they’re a good football team. We know they’ve got a good run defense. But it’s a yard. We’ve got to be able to get a yard.

You struggled to run inside all day; was there something in particular you saw from Virginia Tech that they were trying to take away?
Narduzzi: They’re one of the top run defenses in the country. We knew that and that’s why Kenny was in the game; we think he’s probably a better passer at this point and he did give us a shot with some of the balls he threw. I think he’s going to continue to get better going forward and we’ll continue to evaluate that position.

Was that the plan coming in that you would go to him at some point?
Narduzzi: We had that plan. I know you guys tried to bait me on Monday, but I wasn’t going to give you anything. But that was the plan coming in - the second quarter and then we were going to make a decision after the second quarter. The plan was, Ben was going to play the first quarter and Kenny was going to play the second and then we’ll make a decision on how the game is going. Are we running the ball? Are we not? We’ll make a decision from there.

What did you say to Kenny after the interception?
Narduzzi: I didn’t say anything to him. I don’t go mess with them. I let Coach Watson and the offensive coaches coach him. That’s all he needs is the head coach in his ear. It was a good decision, I think, it just wasn’t a great ball.

Did you feel like you saw steps and maturation from him in this game?
Narduzzi: Yeah. And even Ben had a nice throw early on the touchdown drive. He hung in the pocket and threw a nice one. I think it was to Ffrench; I’m not sure who it was, it was so many minutes ago. But he had a nice step up in the pocket throw as well. And he threw a pick, too. So we lost the turnover ratio, didn’t out-rush them and lost the time of possession. That’s usually fatal.

The drive before your last one, it’s fourth down and you’re on your own side of the field; the offense goes out and you end up using a timeout. What happened in that situation?
Narduzzi: It was fourth-and-10 and - again, I’m not worried about the timeout. It was a good timeout. It ended up being a perfect timeout, to be honest with you. But it was fourth-and-10. I had told the offense we were going to go for it early in the series; I said, ‘You have four downs.’ But we got down to a fourth-and-10 and I flipped my headset over to the defense and said, ‘Hey, can we stop them? Can we get off the field?’ Which we didn’t a week ago. They said, ‘We’ll get it stopped.’ So credit to our defense on what we call a ‘four-minute get the ball back.’ Went three plays and out and we got the ball back, didn’t use a timeout in that series, just to preserve it for the end offensively with a young quarterback and we were able to do that.

That’s why you called that ‘perfect timeout’, it allowed you time to make that decision?
Narduzzi: Yeah. We had to get the personnel out there before we got a delay of game. Maybe a delay of game would have been better. I don’t know. But I thought, just to get our personnel out there, punt the ball and get the ball back - I thought fourth-and-10 is a risk at the 35-yard line. It didn’t matter what they do with the ball; they’re just going to take a knee anyway. But it was just a matter of, do you want to punt it and try to change the field a little bit? That’s what we did and it worked out okay. It would have been really okay if we had scored a touchdown there.

Was that timeout at the beginning of the second half one you wish you had back, too?
Narduzzi: No doubt about it. No question about it. That’s a young quarterback and we know we’re going to make some mistakes. Just a wristband, read the wristband, whatever, got confused; you could see him standing there looking again. We’ve just got to run the play. But that’s some of the things you’re going to continue to work through and learn from.

How long has Coach Powell been sitting on that one?
Narduzzi: For a little bit. For a little bit. It was a heck of a play by Nate Bossory, who’s a senior walk-on that has done everything we ask, works his tail off, is a fighter. He dislocated his shoulder, but he made the catch and it was a heck of a play. I’ve seen the guy make plays on the scout field for three years now and I had no doubts that if the ball was near him, he’d catch it. And he did. I’m happy for him.

What about Winslow’s throw, too?
Narduzzi: Winslow had a heck of a throw, too. We knew he could throw. It doesn’t really matter at this point.

Avonte had the pick and a bunch of big pass breakups playing with basically one arm.
Narduzzi: That guy’s a war daddy. I love Avonte. He wanted to go last week. He was mad at me last week. He was ready to go this week and he made some great plays out there. The kid played his tail off. We stopped the fades. We stopped the fade stops. They threw one jump ball up there; I don’t know what kind of throw that was, but Avonte slips on that one. I thought we had another guy that could have made the play. But we’ll watch the tape.

Damar and Therran, were those guys held out as a precautionary?
Narduzzi: Yeah, I mean, Damar’s still out from last week but we expect him back this week. Damar could have played if he wanted to and so could Therran.