Narduzzi praises young players, challenges ACC on Notre Dame

In a season where the Panthers went from a ranked team with plenty of promise at 3-0 through September to a 3-4 team scrambling for answers by the end of October, Pitt has experienced plenty of disappointment.

But there's no question the finish to the 2020 season is important to the future of the program. Several young players on the roster have exhibited plenty of talent, and a bounce back from the team's four-game losing streak was necessary to show them what it takes to be resilient even in a disappointing season.

That happened Saturday when Pitt fought its way back to .500 with a 41-17 win against Florida State. And Pat Narduzzi had plenty of praise for his young players after having a chance to look over the game film, all the while joking about the challenges in coaching up younger players.

"You see all this gray hair like you've got?" Narduzzi said Monday. "They give you a lot of gray hair, that's for sure. I mean, there's -- nothing more than normal. I mean, coaching young guys is (coaching) young guys. It depends how much knowledge they have, but it's our job as coaches to get it out of them. It's called coaching. That's the fun part. You'd like to do that. Now, you don't necessarily like the results on Saturday if you don't get what you want, but that's what happens when you're playing with young guys."

Pitt's younger players were leaders in the team's win. Freshman Jordan Addison led the team with 11 receptions and 127 yards, while the defense's top three tacklers were redshirt freshman safety Brandon Hill (eight), redshirt sophomore cornerback A.J. Woods (seven), and redshirt sophomore linebacker SirVocea Dennis (seven).

Dennis also finished the game with two sacks and three tackles for loss in an impressive performance that catapulted him to 13 tackles for loss on the season, which is third best in FBS football. Narduzzi talked about what has led Dennis to become the team's best linebacker.

"You know, his motor," Narduzzi said. "I talk about effort all the time, attitude and effort, toughness. He's tough. He's got everything you want in a linebacker. But if you saw two of his sacks, I don't know if you guys watch it as closely as we do. It's bang-bang out there, but he had two where he either misses, falls on the ground. He falls flat on his face like this and then he gets off the ground and goes and gets a sack. It's like, you watch other guys, they lay on the ground, get up slowly or pound the ground and go, 'ohh.'" 

"I'm not talking about our guys," Narduzzi continued. "Our guys play with a motor. The kid has just got a motor. He doesn't stop, and again, he's got a great instinct for the football. He's obviously a talented young man, and he's really smart, he's really athletic and he plays with a great motor. What else do you want in a football player?"

Dennis wasn't the only Pitt defender with a high motor Saturday as Hill's eight tackles were combined with a forced fumble, a pass breakup, and an interception returned for a touchdown in his first career start. It was a huge performance replacing Paris Ford at safety that earned him ACC honors as the conference's defensive back of the week:

Narduzzi didn't just praise his players for their performance in stepping up Saturday, but also secondary coach Archie Collins and safeties coach Cory Sanders for dealing with a revolving door of new players at the postions.

"Archie Collins and Cory Sanders did an outstanding job getting those guys ready, and like I tell our kids, nobody cares what you did last week; (it's) what do we got to do this week," Narduzzi said. "I may say something different next Monday. But they did a great job. Like I said, you get more and more confidence -- we talked about it after the BC game that we wore Jason Pinnock out; that's a coaching error." 

"We got A.J. Woods some reps, all of a sudden now you're going -- Erick Hallett, all along he's been kind of Damar [Hamlin]'s backup, he plays the star position on third down, he plays corner. He's like the utility guy in everything. And I feel bad sometimes, but he starts at corner, and he made some plays out there, covered Terry, their best wideout a few times. I'm like, he's not having any problems -- he's not running away."

Narduzzi also took the time to note players around the team, including players who saw snaps after Pitt ran the score up in the second half.

"But like John Morgan has done some great things, just as young guys," Narduzzi said. "[Deandre] Jules is getting snaps at D-end. Habakkuk Baldonado, you saw him come out -- I think he missed a sack one time, and he's probably not 100 percent. As a matter of fact, I was a little shocked that he got out there. Tyler Bentley continues to improve, but Tyler Bentley didn't play Saturday, as well. David Green hobbled out there; he hasn't been healthy. We put probably a banged-up team out there and brought a banged-up team in. Tyler Bentley was with us but did not play. I'm trying to think of other young guys. The whole secondary, we've already talked about them."

Some of those players also showed up on special teams.

"You look at some of the special teams, I guess. Maybe we'll go special teams. Not a young guy, but Kirk Christodoulou, I mean, the way he punted, 51-yard net, that's almost unheard of. But like Bangally [Kamara] coming down on a kickoff and clotheslining the one guy. I'm glad it wasn't a penalty. Just some of our young guys that are covering kicks and on our punt return team, and Bangally is a guy, A.J. Roberts is running down. Aydin Henningham, getting another true freshman. I think at one time we had five true freshmen on one side of our kickoff team. So those are some of the things you see, and I'm going to miss some names here, but we've got a lot of young defensive guys that play on special teams."

This won't be the year that Pitt makes its surge to the top of the ACC and becomes a serious contender in college football. But the season can be salvaged to a point where several young players in Narduzzi's system learn lessons that help build for the future.

• When asked about Notre Dame's playing in the ACC, Narduzzi suggested the conference should push to make the inclusion permanent or otherwise boycott Notre Dame from playing ACC teams in the near future.

"Yeah, I mean, I hope they do," Narduzzi said. "I hope they -- to me you either play with us or don't play with us. You'd almost like to boycott them. If you want to play in the ACC, come play in the ACC. Then again, I'm not at commissioner. That's [ACC Commissioner John] Swofford's job to help out there. But to me it's either play or don't play. And if you don't want to play, let's not give them five games; let them go play BYU and whoever else they want to play. But we shouldn't give them a game. But they're talented and we'd love to have them in the ACC for sure." 

Notre Dame beat Clemson Saturday night to jump to being the No. 2 ranked team in college football by the Associated Press just two weeks after the Fighting Irish destroyed Pitt 45-3 at Heinz Field.

• Pitt announced an official game time for its final home game of the season against Virginia Tech:

Game Time Announced ⏱️

Pitt 🆚 Virginia Tech
🗓 Nov. 21, 2020
⏰ 4 PM
📺 ACC Network
🏟️ Heinz Field#H2P pic.twitter.com/4ln9wgLJnC

— Pitt Football (@Pitt_FB) November 9, 2020

• One of the biggest high school recruits from the Pittsburgh region in running back Derrick Davis from Gateway committed to LSU over the weekend. When asked why he chose LSU over Pitt, Davis said that he 'didn't want to feel trapped' in Pittsburgh. Paris Ford retweeted the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's article with that quote, praising Davis' decision and his reasoning, just one week after deciding to opt-out of Pitt's 2020 season: