Narduzzi: 'What a football game'

Narduzzi: What a football game. First off, I just want to thank everybody with the Sun Bowl. It’s been an outstanding week, as I said the other day. The hospitality, just the people; it’s a first class bowl game here, first class stage out there at the end of the game and again, it was a first class job by our football team pulling that one out.

We talked about going out there - we were down a few guys, and just finding a way to win a football game, just get it done. G.I.D. Get it done, one way or another, and our guys found a way to get it done. And I couldn’t be more proud of them. As I told them in the locker room after the game, I love this football team. Nine-win season, those are hard to come by. We gave probably three or four games away during the season and it was a great way to finish for our kids.

You were down 28-14 and then scored 20 unanswered points. What does that say about your team?
Narduzzi: You know what? The kids didn’t flinch. Besides those 20 points and we throw a pick-six - Nick - besides all of that, 34 seconds left and what Nick did that drive, you just talk about leadership. I talked earlier leadership-wise, Nick took it and we went down the field and that will go down as one of the best two-minute drives - 34 seconds, no timeouts and you go down and kick a field goal. Outstanding job.

You’re up by three and you’re going for it on fourth down but it’s a false start and you settle for a field goal to go up by six. Was that false start a blessing in disguise?
Narduzzi: I don’t know. I felt like, either way - the field goal, I guess, maybe in the end you’d say, yeah, it’s a good idea. Maybe it was good that we false started. But we were hoping to score a touchdown there so maybe it wouldn’t matter at the end. I know Nick was mad that we couldn’t get to run that play, and we figured, if we didn’t get it, they were going to have to go 95. We didn’t think they could do it on us. Yeah, maybe a blessing. We’re lucky.

Two games into the season, your kicker missed a couple rough ones and they played a role in the loss to Tennessee. Can you talk about the growth you’ve seen him have over this season, only missing one kick in ACC play and going five-for-five today?
Narduzzi: Yeah, he’s been outstanding all year. We saw it through camp. He was the guy, really through spring ball. You talk about adversity, and it’s somebody that got beat out a year ago by a walk-on. We’re always going to play the best players, but he came back and took the job over and not only took it over, he’s the MVP, a specialist, today, and to go out with five field goals - you know, Byron and Cam, the snap, the hold and obviously the kick are always special. But outstanding job by him, just sticking with it, and I couldn’t be more proud of him.

Can you talk about how your team overcame adversity, not just this game but all year?
Narduzzi: Yeah, it’s five wins in a row to finish the season. We talk about adversity a ton. I mean, a lot. We try to develop how we’re going to respond during camp in August. These guys will tell you. We talk about how we deal with adversity and the pressures of this game of football. I think that just shows up when you talk about character and what our guys know how to do. They never flinch. I can’t think of a time they’ve ever flinched. That’s coaching and that’s our players believing.

Did you second-guess yourself using those back-to-back timeouts?
Narduzzi: I didn’t second-guess myself. I didn’t want to use that, but we had - I would rather call another timeout than play with 10 guys on defense. We had 10 guys. We communicated the personnel onto the field and somebody didn’t hear it. So the timeout was a little bit more valuable right then instead of playing with 10 guys on defense.

No SirVocea today but you still got really solid production from all three of your linebackers and some of the reserves. Talk about their efforts and what you saw, especially from Bangally, probably the best game he had all year.
Narduzzi: Yeah, those guys, you look at where Bangally was in the opener against West Virginia and where he came after 13 games, and Tylar Wiltz and Shayne Simon, we’ve got a great group of linebackers out there. Solomon DeShields, that guy keeps getting better every day. I can’t say enough about him. He had a great fumble recovery on the one kickoff in the fourth quarter or whatever quarter that was. I guess it was the fourth.

Our linebackers have come a long way. We’ve got some dudes in there that can play. And without SirVocea, we were still able to get it done.

The play that Bangally picked off, was that something that UCLA showed on tape? Was that just great positioning? Can you walk us through it?
Narduzzi: I can’t walk you through that. I wish I could walk you through it. He picked it off and I wish he would have scored. But it was a great play by him. We’ll look at the tape and tell exactly what happened.

Were you surprised to see them switch quarterbacks in the second half?
Narduzzi: I mean, the guy threw three picks. We caught three picks. He threw three nice ones to us. So, not surprised at all. We thought he was a good runner and didn’t know if he could hurt us with the pass and he actually had a nice throw - he had two really nice throws down the field and then I think their third touchdown they got, it was a busted coverage where we didn’t have a guy in the middle of the field. Nobody was there. Erick Hallett was expecting coverage, so it certainly wasn’t on Erick at all. He looked like he was the guy, but he was expecting a guy in the middle of the field.

Talking about quarterbacks, what did you think of yours’ performance today? He threw that pick and then he came back at the end?
Narduzzi: He’s a tough dude and our football team believes in him. We said that back in the summer, spring ball, you know, he’s a great competitor, he’s a leader, he can beat you with his feet, which we hadn’t had all year. He made some great plays. That one quarterback draw was a gigantic play that he had, on top of all the rest of the times that he scrambled, stepped up in the pocket and threw the football. He got cheap-shotted one time after a touchdown pass to Bub Means that never got called. There was some interesting stuff out there.

Do you allow yourself to think what might have happened if Nick had played more this year?
Narduzzi: No. We’re not going to look backwards. We’ll look forward. Who knows.

You saw a lot of next-man-up in this game, players getting an opportunity to play and show their talents in this game. What can you say about those players that stepped up in this one?
Narduzzi: Yeah, we talked about our youth playing with confidence and going out and getting it done. We’ll look at the tape and see. I think Dayon Hayes played like he is, and he’s still a baby. We’ll see. One of those young guys wasn’t in the middle of the field on one of those touchdowns, so he’ll live and learn by that. But we’ll look at the videotape and see exactly.

You go out there with a bunch of new guys playing on defense, especially, and come out and beat the number-18 team in the country, and we better finish in the top 25. You knock out the number-18 team in the country with a lot of guys down, it’s a tribute to our football team.

You mention all the young guys, you look at what Rodney did today, you look at what Ben did today, you look at what all the guys on defense did - most of them will probably be back. How excited does their efforts from today make you for next year?
Narduzzi: Well, it’s a springboard. You think about, we were going to have to live with it, win or lose, for all January, February, March, all the way through that, and it’s certainly better to go into winter conditioning - Coach Stacc, he already started talking about winter conditioning and what he’s got going and planned, so he’s ready to go for the young guys. It’s going to be fun.

All season long, you talked about Rodney and how he’s kind of the Robin to Izzy’s Batman, if you will, and he’s able to take on starter workload. How much of a validation point was today for a guy like Rodney?
Narduzzi: We knew all along, Rodney knew all along, what kind of football player he was. Again, if he doesn’t get hurt in the opener, who knows, it may be him opting out and going to the NFL. That’s just the way it is. We know Rodney’s really good. Our offensive line, you always have to give credit to those guys and the tight ends and even those receivers blocking down the field. The running back can’t do it all by himself. I don’t care who’s back there. But Rodney’s a great football player. We knew that. I didn’t have any fear at all with him being the guy.