lair – Narduzzi: ‘The fourth quarter wasn’t good enough’

Pat Narduzzi met with the media following Pitt’s 42-24 loss to North Carolina on Saturday. Here is a complete rundown of his remarks.

Narduzzi: First off, that’s a good football team. The quarterback Maye is a good football player. Just looking at their offense and Downs, with Downs, we knew those were two big-time football players. In the second half, if I had to say probably what the turning point was was the targeting call on Calijah Kancey, because after he was out we didn’t get any pressure on the quarterback. He was creating havoc in the backfield and we lost that and he was holding onto the ball way too long and putting our coverage…and they had some issues and they have some guys that can run through the secondary. We just couldn’t put any pressure and he scrambled a couple of times on fourth down for first downs and then obviously the fourth quarter. The fourth quarter wasn’t good enough. We turned the ball over again in the fourth quarter which started the tumble and every week it seems like we’ve got one of those and a couple that are going to cost you and it’s going to cost you in the fourth quarter. One turnover and minus-one and that’s about what I saw. Questions.

Obviously you had some big gains in the passing game, but did you see enough consistently from Kedon Slovis tonight?

Narduzzi: I thought Kedon was good. Obviously in the second half it’s everybody included. I don’t know if we took enough deep shots in the second half, or in the fourth quarter at least. We’ve got a couple in the third quarter and they softened up a little bit and stopped giving it to us I guess. We’ll see the video tape. I thought Kedon played a pretty good game. We’ll look at the video tape.

What led to the offensive struggles in the fourth quarter?

Narduzzi: When you turn the ball over. We had a drive going and then you turn it over. I mean who knows what that turns into. You can down and go back up, but with the turnover it hurts you. It’s a drive killer. It’s third and one and we were going to go for it on fourth if we didn’t get it. We had a really good chance to get it on fourth down.

Aside from the turnover, what did you see from the other possessions?

Narduzzi: I’ll have to go back and watch the video tape. I’ll be able to give you a better assessment of it on Monday as far as what it looked like. I know Konata had one really good catch, but we couldn’t connect all game.

You did a relatively good job of limiting Maye and Downs in the first half, but what do you think changed in the second half?

Narduzzi: Calijah wasn’t in there. When he’s disruptive, he’s really good. Probably should have had some holding calls in the first half and they couldn’t block. I didn’t think they could and they didn’t and when he’s out, that hurt us. He’s pretty good.

At the end of the first half, there was a lot of confusion either on a pass interference call that wasn’t called or targeting. Can you explain what was happening there?

Narduzzi: I didn’t get a good explanation. You’re talking about the PI.

Yea, I don’t know what the missed call was there.

Narduzzi: I have no idea either. I still don’t know then they don’t tell anybody and then we think it’s a first down then they have no clue then they don’t pump up the clock. There was a lot of confusion out there for sure.

On Thursday you talked about all these self inflicted mistakes that have led to losses. Do you still feel that way after this?

Narduzzi: In the fourth quarter, yea. For three quarters I thought we played some solid football. But it’s a 60-minute game unfortunately. 45 minutes is not going to get it done. Again, that’s a good football team. But the fourth quarter was not good. If you put the defense in a sudden change situation. The last three drives our defense was on the field at +49, +35, and +44. I mean we gave up 14 points on two short fields at the end whether it’s on downs or the turnover. You’ve got to go for it and we don’t convert.

You talked earlier this week about the margin of error moving forward was so slim. What do you say to your guys after a loss like this?

Narduzzi: Every defeat is obviously tough for kids. They play hard. It’s like I told them afterwards. They’re playing their tails off, nobody is quitting. We got beat by a good football team today. You have to give them credit. Mack Brown does a good job. They’ve got some good football players and like I said Josh Downs and Drake Maye are good football players. If you put them on short fields they’re going to score points. They’ve kind of been scoring points on everybody, but we’ve got to occupy the ball. Our guys will be fine. We’ll come back and bounce back and a really good Syracuse team coming in 3:30 on Saturday and we get to come home and not play another night game, so that’s refreshing.

There was a lot of play action used in the first half. Do you think that was the most comfortable Kedon looked using play action this year?

Narduzzi: It’s hard for me to tell you without watching the tape, but I thought he played really good for three quarters. And I can’t tell you he played bad in the fourth quarter. Because when you’re not moving the ball or scoring touchdowns you’d say it’s not working. But I’m sure it’s not just him. We gave up a critical sack, the left tackle gave up a sack on a drive that was another drive stopper. I think we only maybe gave up one sack on the day, so we protected him pretty good, but not good enough.

You hit a couple of deep shots to Jared Wayne and one to Means in the first half. Was there more of an emphasis trying to get the ball deep early on at least?

Narduzzi: We thought we could because they weren’t closing the middle of the field like a lot of the teams we played this year. We kind of opened it up for some of those things. We executed, but we dropped one big one too.

On third downs in the first half, you held them 0-for-5. They went 4-6 in the second half. Is that something as simple as Claijah not being out there or just Drake Maye being a good quarterback, or a little bit of both?

Narduzzi: A little bit of both. He can extend plays with feet. You saw him, he can run. We didn’t do a good job of containing the quarterback. A lot of it is, Calijah Kancey, he’s a good football player. He’s hard to block in there. We’ll look at the pressure we did or didn’t put on, but it just seemed like he had a lot of time and working on the ball back there for a while and if you give a quarterback like that time you’re going to have problems.

Was Maye more than what you expected?

Narduzzi: No he’s a bout the same as what I expected. He’s really good. That’s what awe saw on tape all week is that he can make plays. He’s a good football player.

Even on those first couple of scoring drives for them, you did a good job of limiting chunk plays. What do you think allowed them to get more chunk plays later in the game?

Narduzzi: He had time back there and I’ll tell you again on Monday. He had time. We let him scramble out of the pocket and he likes to scramble to throw it. One time our backer came out of coverage and he throw it right behind right where he can’t get it. He’s got to stay in coverage, but again our D-Line has got to contain him.

You mentioned the one dropped pass, and I think it was Wayne, but other than that he had a really good game. What did you like from him tonight?

Narduzzi: Jared Wayne’s a good football player and we’ve just got to continue to find more ways to get him the ball. He’s a playmaker. Konata had a great catch at the end. So you’ve got to look at the positives and just put it back together and come back next week.