Pat Narduzzi Critiques Pitt Offense vs. West Virginia
PITTSBURGH -- The Pitt Panthers emerged triumphant from the revival of the Backyard Brawl. They topped rival West Virginia 38-31 behind a late pick-six from M.J. Devonshire, a pair of rushing touchdowns from Rodney Hammond and 308 passing yards from Kedon Slovis.
But it was not all sunshine and rainbows for the Panthers after downing their rivals from south of the border for the first time in four attempts. Head coach Pat Narduzzi was critical of his team as Week 2 and preparations for a date with Tennessee began. He gave profane evaluations of parts of Pitt's play from last weekend and challenged them to put the win behind them firmly and quickly.
"Handling success is always a problem," Narduzzi said. "I think handling success this week, when you kind of played sh**y - let's just put it that way - I think it makes it a little bit easier. ... If they can get excited about that, then good for them. You didn't see me dancing around in the locker room, okay, and there will be no dancing.”
He wasn't wholly disappointed. In fact, he thought newly-minted starting quarterback Kedon Slovis played a good game, save for some instances when he hung on to the ball for too long.
Hesitancy did rear its ugly head at an inopportune time for Slovis. He took three sacks in the second half and two in the fourth quarter. Those in the final frame came with Pitt on it's heels after a long march from West Virginia ended in a game-tying touchdown. Needing a response, the Panthers ran four plays, burned two minutes and had to punt the ball back to the Mountaineers.
Narduzzi thought there were times when Slovis needed to get rid of the ball more quickly but didn't put the whole blame on his quarterback.
"We thought he was late with the ball, but there were other issues with some of the routes, and I won't get into the weeds with that, but ... he was waiting on his receivers to get where they needed to be and they weren't there for whatever reason that we won't discuss," Narduzzi said.
A new quarterback is playing in a new system with a new offensive coordinator and a mostly new crop of wide receivers - there were always going to be some growing pains and that's what Narduzzi saw when reviewing the tape
"There were some things there, some angles that weren't right where he's got to hold onto it and just throws it away just because of some departure angles on routes and little things like that, just details that you guys probably wouldn't see on tape," he said.
Narduzzi also criticized his offensive line, not necessarily for their role in the passing game but for he thought how they failed to answer the challenge laid out for them this summer. Narduzzi was clear - he wanted to run the ball more and do it dominantly.
But against West Virginia the Panthers were poor running the football, managing just two yards per carry. Even if you're generous and remove sack yards, they are still south of four yards per rush - not where they want to be.
"Again, was disappointed in the offensive line and their play, so maybe they had fat heads," Narduzzi said. "Maybe they were thinking about how good they were, and we're all coming back and we're going to be great. But they weren't. That's flat what it is. They should have a little bit of a chip on their shoulder this week to come back and show who they really are."
But Narduzzi is not particularly concerned about making the necessary adjustments. He called all the mistakes "fixable" but they will still need to take their play up a step to compete with the talented Tennessee team coming to Pittsburgh this weekend.
"A lot of things -- everything is fixable," Narduzzi said. "That's the good thing. Everything is going to get a lot better from week one to week two, but the opponent is going up, as well, so maybe you don't see it with the naked eye.”
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