Pat’s Points: Here’s What Pat Narduzzi Talked About This Week

As Pat Narduzzi stood at the podium inside the team room of the UPMC Rooney Sports Complex Monday, it was a better day than it was the day prior.

“Not a fun day in the office on Sunday after getting beat by a really good Florida State team,” Narduzzi said Monday at his weekly news conference. “But the one thing, I look at the tape, and I thought this after the game and you feel better, is just the effort that our kids played with.

“I think they played with a lot of passion, a lot of effort, and you kind of go back and watch the way they play, how hard they play. Did we do everything right? Not as coaches or players.”

Pitt had its chance in an upset attempt against No. 4 Florida State, but there were ultimately a few areas that held the Panthers back. And Narduzzi lamented those chances.

“As I told our guys, it’s a game of inches,” Narduzzi said. “We talked about it last week; we’ve got to win the inches. It is a game of inches. You just look, we watched special teams in here last night, and you watch, Biles got his hand on another punt, right. Official gives you one of those (block signal with hands).

“But he gets a little bit more of an inch on that ball, it’s a block in the end zone; it may be six points, seven points. They muff a punt, we’re running down on the punt, we’ve got great coverage, Gandy makes a big hit, the ball comes out, but the ball happens to just roll right out of bounds, right on the sideline. Can’t the ball bounce into the middle of the field so we can get it?”

So, here are a few points Narduzzi talked about this week.

The Offensive Struggles Continue

Pitt is scoring just about 20 points per game this season, with just 14 points total against Notre Dame and Florida State over the last two weeks, which, to be fair, is tough competition, but it’s just not working offensively. And Narduzzi attributes that to a little bit of everything.

“There’s times — we spent three hours yesterday watching the tape with the offense and just looking at little detail things, but it’s the details. It’s some young guys.

“Again, we talk about it’s a little bit of everything. There’s things we could do better coaching-wise and there’s things we could do better as far as just fundamentally and structurally. There’s some third downs, I can look at the third down and analyze the heck out of every third down and sometimes they got a good call, sometimes we don’t execute.”

Pitt is scoring 20.7 points per game, while racking up 314.9 yards per game (212.3 yards through the air and 102.6 yards per game on the ground), and only the passing yards per game don’t rank last in the ACC.

The Panthers are last in total first downs (147) and first downs per game (16.3) and have converted just 30.8% of its third down attempts, which is also last. If there’s a silver lining, I suppose, it’s Pitt converted 50% of its 16 fourth down attempts.

It’s a failing offense at just about every level, but and Narduzzi said that it’s on the coaching staff to put its players into the best possible position to succeed. It’s hard to say that Frank Cignetti Jr. has done a good job putting his players into the best position to succeed this season.

“We’ve got to get the ball to the right guy at the right time, and again, it’s always something you can do better,” Narduzzi said. “When you watch the tape, you look back, hindsight, man, I wish we would have tried that. You don’t get a second chance.”

It’s been a hard season at the most important position on the football field, and I don’t know if Christian Veilleux is the answer, but the offensive struggles at Pitt have now spanned three different quarterbacks and two seasons — dropping just about 20 points per game since the ACC championship season in 2021.

Pittsburgh Panthers wide receiver Konata Mumpfield (9) November 4, 2023 David Hague/PSN

Lamenting Penalties… Again 

Pitt was penalized 11 times for 91 yards against Florida State, seven offensive, three defensive and one on special teams.

That’s a lot of penalties, a lot of costly penalties, but it’s not anything new for the Panthers under Narduzzi either. Through nine games this season, Pitt has 13 more penalties than the second-most penalized ACC teams. And that’s 78 penalties for 638 yards at an average of 70.9 yards per game.

All of those marks lead the ACC. So, I’ll just let Narduzzi explain what happened against the Seminoles.

“You know, it’s beyond me,” Narduzzi said. “We had three defensive penalties. The targeting at the end, we had two — really all three were aggressive penalties on defense. The rest were on offense and one on special teams where we had No. 5 on there. It got declined anyway. A late, late adjustment to putting a guy on the field, so I don’t even count that one.

“But we have a delay of game early, substitution error on the sideline where it’s a delay of game but the guy not hearing it and him getting out on the sideline late. Making sure those guys are right behind you when you call that personnel grouping they’re in.

“We had four false starts, and two of them were on C’Bo, Captain C’Bo, which you don’t expect to see that in your senior tailback. Defense looks like he’s blitzing and he just kind of gets anxious, and sometimes it happens. You hope it doesn’t happen ever, and you especially don’t want it to happen in a big game. You wish those kinks would be out early.

“You’ve got another one on Zubovic. It looks like two of them are on Zubovic, but one is on Zubovic, one is on Terrence Moore because Terrence doesn’t snap the ball. It looks like it’s Blake, but it’s not. Visually — I don’t know who the officials might have called it on Blake, but they’re not right there, either, because they don’t know when the ball was supposed to be snapped. We do.

“That sideline penalty, I can’t tell you about that one. Then Branson had two holding penalties. Those two defensive ends are about as athletic as you get. One he grabs and pulls the guy down, and again, it doesn’t look like a holding, but it is. You can’t throw a guy down; it looks like you’re grabbing him. But their tight end on one of their screens grabs and throws a guy down, and there’s no call. Just want it to be consistent.

“But it had no factor in the play. But we’ve got to clean it up. It’s a penalty, and we’ve got to clean them up, and that’s pretty much the gist of what those are. They’ve got to get cleaned up. We were good a week ago, I believe, and you go up and down.”

Pitt was better — penalty-wise — against Notre Dame. But it’s been way more up than down when it comes to penalties called against Pitt this season. And that can’t happen when the offense isn’t scoring points.

Gaining Needed Experience at Safety 

Pitt has used three starting safeties this season, cycling Donovan McMillon and P.J. O’Brien Jr. next to Javon McIntyre — and all three play their roles well.

McMillon is the stud run defender, leading the team with 75 tackles (34 solo), and O’Brien has begun to blossom into that coverage safety on the backend — picking off two passes and defending two more. McIntyre (57 tackles, 1.5 tackles for loss and five pass breakups) does a little bit of everything.

None of the three had much experience before the season kicked off, and that was evident, but the growth throughout the season has been just as evident.

“I think when you look at Donovan, PJ and Javon, the three guys that are playing a ton of football back there, I think they’ve little by little gotten better,” Narduzzi said. “I know Donovan kicks himself in the head with a couple missed tackles, that one on 84 over the middle, and he’s been our best most consistent tackler. So you don’t see that very often. He’s got to take one more step a few times and come across the thigh boards, even in an early tackle, so he had a couple missed tackles, which is uncharacteristic of him. But I think overall, little by little, to get better.

“I’d like to see Javon have a couple interceptions. I think he’s had an opportunity for at least three interceptions. That’s the game of inches. There’s another inch. You could change the game with a pick right there at the 50-yard line, whatever it was. But we’ve got to take advantage of that.”

And at least when it comes to playing Notre Dame and Florida State over the last couple of weeks, there have been opportunities to get some younger players into the game, too.

Cruce Brookins took eight defensive snaps in his collegiate debut, and Steph Hall took six snaps as he played in his fifth game this season — recording 24 snaps over the last two weeks.

“I think little by little we’re gaining experience back there, playing more and more guys,” Narduzzi said. “You saw Cruce back there. I think I told you he was going to get in the game, and Steph Hall has gotten in and gotten some valuable reps, as well, so it’s good to see those guys grow.

“I think it helps them during the week practice-wise because they got some — and then they go out and they’re a little bit more bright-eyed and ready to practice and be ready for the next week.”

Pittsburgh Panthers wide receiver Bub Means (0) November 4, 2023 David Hague/PSN

Bub Means Business 

Bub Means started off very slowly, recording just six receptions for 71 yards and no touchdowns over the first four weeks of the season, but even when he finally hit for a 75-yard touchdown against Virginia Tech, he left in the first quarter with an injury.

But over the last four weeks, he’s caught 23 passes for 341 yards and three touchdowns. He’s finally looking like that potential No. 1 wide receiver that he has hyped to be over the offseason.

And it comes down to consistency.

“I think Bub is being real consistent,” Narduzzi said. “I really do. He may have started off a little bit inconsistent with the season, but he’s been pretty detailed. He’s catching the ball well. You wish he would have finished that last one; who knows, maybe would have had another touchdown in that last drive. You can’t score when you don’t have the ball. But I think there was 3:50 to go in the game.

“But he’s doing a great job catching the ball. He’s doing a great job running routes, and we’re real happy with Bub right now.”

With three games left this season, Means is focused on the day-to-day grind, just focusing on getting 1% better with every rep in practice, but there is a decision coming up. He can still return for one more collegiate season.