Pat Narduzzi praised his younger players for how they've stepped up in recent weeks on Monday. The Panthers saw the influx of young players like Brandon Hill come in and make big plays at safety to help the team snap a four-game losing streak.
But what's required of a college football player to become a playmaker isn't just showing up once or even twice. It's looking at each play and each opportunity to see what more could be done to ensure a player is maximizing his effort throughout a game.
Here's Rashad Weaver describing that mentality as a fifth-year senior and a leading player with 5.5 sacks and 11.5 tackles for loss, both of which are second best on the team.
"We're never satisfied," Weaver said Wednesday. "I hate watching myself on films sometimes because I see a play I miss and it disgusts me. I nitpick everything, and that's something coach Charlie Partridge put in me and Patrick [Jones]. Being fifth-year guys, we're constantly seeing what we can do better, even when we make a great play because we know that's what it takes to get to the next level. Production-wise I can say it's been good but I just see so many other opportunities that I miss and it drives me."
Weaver and Jones both rank in the top-10 of the FBS for tackles for loss and sacks. Jones has 11 tackles for loss and his eight sacks are second in the nation. Even as leaders, they know that doing their jobs isn't enough, as they have to pass on that mentality to the team's younger players.
"Coach Partridge instills it in them and then we follow up to make sure to help them understand that they're not being attacked, they're just helping you get better," Weaver said. "We tell them not to worry about it and just worry about how you can improve, so we try to pass that teaching down."
Secondary coach Archie Colins sees the willingness of the younger group to learn and be ready to play. Not just because of the standard 'next man up' mantra, but also because the players know this year presents a much greater chance for them to play.
"We're lucky to have a lot of guys behind the starters from earlier in the year," Collins said Wednesday. They've paid attention so much in film study and throughout practice. They're very good in that department. I've been seeing it so much in practice and how well they lock in to study even when they're not the starters. They never know when they're going to get their chance to get in the game. Especially with COVID-19 awareness, they're aware that at any time it could be their time to go."
One of the young players who stepped up this week was redshirt freshman cornerback Rashad Battle. His lone solo tackle against Florida State was just his second on the season, but he never got beat for a big play and his teammates encouraged him as he got his feet wet in his first real action against an ACC opponent.
"I was a little nervous at first," Battle said on Thursday about playing. "But the older guys told me to stay ready. Brandon Hill told me earlier to be ready, so I came in ready to work, didn't waiver and busted my butt. The DB group is really resilient. No matter what happens, we stick together. And we pass that on with the next man up mentality. Even for us younger guys, if I had to play or Buddy Mack had to play, you never know so we work to stay ready."
Battle says he gets help in preparation from seniors on both sides of the ball, crediting Tre Tipton with the challenges he's faced in practice.
"Usually when everyone's healthy, it's Tre Tipton," Battles said. "He teases me a lot and being a vet he knows all the cheeky moves to mess me up but then helps me after he beats me. I'd also say the same about Shocky [Jacques-Louis]."
Battle earned his chance to play more on defense because of his success on special teams. Something that Collins notes is mandatory of any player who hopes to get more playing time.
"Special teams is the first line we show after the game to show them how they graded out," Collins said. "We tell them that if they can't grade out well on special teams then they can't expect to play in the secondary. That's vital for it, but of those young guys, Rashad Battle has done very well there as both a jammer and a gunner. Judson [Tallandier]'s also done a really good job there as well. We look for these guys to get this job done with a lot of pride, because that's a big piece of the whole game."
It's not just the guys like Battle who come in and just try to avoid making the big mistakes, it's also the young players who've stepped in to play a major role on the defense. One of those players is linebacker SirVocea Dennis who leads the team with 13.5 tackles for loss. Weaver says they see his effort a lot when they hit the film room.
"We watch the film and SirVocea can get up so fast," Weaver said. "He'll fall and have three guys on top of him, then get up and win with a second effort. He's coming in there like a missile and we always talk about taking the shot. When you just go fast and don't stutter, it makes it harder for linemen to tee off on him. It's really cool to see him come in, do that and lead the team in TFLs."
That drive from Dennis is what Weaver was talking about when he mentioned the importance of taking advantage of every opportunity on every play. Regardless of whether a player starts a snap by initially winning or losing on his assignment, the important part of the play is to follow through with his best effort.
"Finish strong," as Collins described it. "We talk about that a lot, especially last week. We always talk about how life, not just football, but life, is full of ups and downs. It's not how everything is when you're on top of the mountain, but how you get up in the face of adversity. Every game is going to have its ups and its downs. We always try to stay cool because every game has those ups and downs so that we can properly handle adversity. We have to stay poised, stay confident, and always understand that the game's never over until the final zeroes are on the clock."
And part of finishing strong is maintaining the energy to do that. The Panthers celebrated good plays more often as part of their strategy to keep the energy flowing against Florida State. Weaver notes that's part of how the defense can better feed off each other's energy, regardless of how small or how big a play might have been made.
"From the football perspective, nobody makes a play by themselves. J.J Watt said that after his 100th sack last weekend," Weaver said. "You can get a sack in 1.5 seconds, but during that time the secondary covered for that time to help make it happen. It's the complete team game. We also emphasized celebrating and feeding off each other's energy. In the first three games we were excited we won, but we weren't excited the way we should've been. So now we want to celebrate every play whether it's a tackle, TFL, sack, anything. We celebrated all over the field and on the sideline and that feeds into the next series because everybody wants to be the next guy that causes a celebration."
Pitt looks to show a real complete game when it takes on Georgia Tech at Bobby Dodd Stadium this Saturday at 7 p.m.