Pat Narduzzi Recaps Pitt Football's Weekend Scrimmage
PITTSBURGH -- The Pitt Panther defense emerged victorious from this weekend's intrasquad scrimmage, one that head coach Pat Narduzzi called "balanced" and "solid". He struggled to recall any standout performances but said he was pleased with the overall outcome.
This was an important event for Pitt and Narduzzi made sure to point that out as soon as he announced that a scrimmage would take place. He called it "the most important scrimmage of the year" and explained why on Tuesday, the Panthers' first day back since.
"You certainly do measure the scrimmages more than you do the practices," Narduzzi said. "To me, that's gameday. If you've been average all week and all of sudden you have a great scrimmage, I'd rather have that than a guy who's great in practice everyday and gets out on gameday and can't play."
The actual result of the competition was close - a 56-54 win for the defense. Narduzzi said he thought the offense was in control up until the last few periods, when the defense stormed back by winning in what he called a four-minute situation, in which they were trying to get the ball back, and the final two-minute situation.
"I had thought the defense had gotten beat because the score was that close and I had to tell the team after that it was the opposite," Narduzzi said.
Narduzzi added that he was pleased with how few unforced errors his Panthers committed. Clean reps was one of the few specific criteria for a good scrimmage he cited when previewing the action last Friday.
"It was one of those clean scrimmages that had really no stars," Narduzzi said. "It was just solid throughout. It was just clean ball. Not many unforced errors. ... I can't say someone stood out."
He did highlight some outstanding individual performances on defense - namely interceptions by Bangally Kamara, Shayne Simon and Rashad Battle - and gave little mention to the offense, except to note that he would not reveal which quarterback threw each interception.
Narduzzi also said that the balance of snaps shook out largely how he had planned. In an effort to replicate the feel of a real game, coaches took their hands off ever so slightly and let the game-like action flow to a certain extent. The aim was to get the first and second teams 50 snaps each while third teamers faced off for 20 plays. The first teamers took fewer snaps than the seconds due to the timing of the plays and periods, he said. Narduzzi added that the team ran about 40 special teams snaps.
The Panthers have another closed scrimmaged scheduled for this Saturday at Heinz Field.
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