What Did Pat Narduzzi Say Following Pitt's Loss to Louisville?
PITTSBURGH — Pitt football head coach Pat Narduzzi spoke with the media Saturday afternoon after the Panthers gave away a 17-point first quarter lead.
Here’s everything Narduzzi said following the 34-27 defeat at Acrisure Stadium:
PAT NARDUZZI: Tough team loss. We did it all together out there. Not happy. Everybody deserves better than that. Players in that locker room deserve better.
I thought the first half we executed pretty good. Had zero turnovers in the first half except for a punt return that, I don’t know you, guys watched probably up in the press box, and we get the ball at the three-yard line. We’re up at the half. It’s a back and forth game against a good football team, ACC competition.
We didn’t execute well enough in the second half. We talked about finishing. And we didn’t finish. We had two turnovers, one in the red zone, one coming out. Two turnovers in the second half put the game away.
We just didn’t execute. Put Cole in there just to see if we could get a spark. That spark didn’t happen either, and we’ve got to play better. We’ve got to execute better. I think we executed better than we did a week ago if can you imagine that. But we need 60 minutes of execution. And it’s coaches and players — it’s us as a team.
We’ll stick together. It’s one ACC game. You guys can watch the ACC and see who goes down. All our goals are still in front of us. That’s how we play. Gotta get better.
Q. With the decision to pull Eli, I guess what does it do for the position going forward?
PAT NARDUZZI: We’ll go into next week. I still say Eli is our starting quarterback. That’s what it is. Threw two picks in the second half. It’s tough. We get a big explosive pass, which we had some explosives today, which is great to see, throwing the ball down the field and making some shots, giving the receivers a chance. Throw a short pass and get it picked out on the — we had the ball at the 4-yard line, I think.
Maybe we should have run it, keep it on the ground, whatever. I thought that when we did run it we had success, but there’s times we’ve got to make more plays.
Q. What was the interaction like between either you and Eli or Kade and Eli once you pulled him from the game?
PAT NARDUZZI: I grabbed Eli, said sit out and watch this next quarterback. I think any time a quarterback throws two picks it gets in his head. We’re playing to win. And just wanted to see if we can get a spark.
Q. What was the reaction like from him?
PAT NARDUZZI: He’s fine. He’s fine. He’s a team guy. He gets it. He’s hard on himself. He understands what we expect.
Q. What did the referee say on that, I guess, catch interference call that was taken back and given as a fumble?
PAT NARDUZZI: I don’t know.
Q. This is the second straight game you’ve had a 10-point lead in the second half and let it slip away. Obviously Louisville ran a lot of plays on offense. Do you think the defense was gassed or anything like that?
PAT NARDUZZI: They had the ball for 40 minutes. We had it for 20 minutes. First half, we had three three-and-outs, I believe. Came in the second half, had another three-and-out. Too many three-and-outs. Got to move the sticks. We talked before the game, you can’t go three-and-out. Puts our defense in a bad position.
And our defense played a lot of reps. I thought our defense played solid. We’re pretty loose in coverage at times. Javon McIntyre being out didn’t help us any in the second half. We’ve got to make more plays.
Q. What was the problem, or what was going wrong on third down throughout the afternoon? I don’t think you converted one until Cole was in the game?
PAT NARDUZZI: It’s bad, awful. Third down, we’ve got to be better. We practice a lot of third down. I don’t get it. We’ll look at the videotape. I’ll probably have more answers for you on Monday. But we didn’t execute well.
Q. You guys started off the first quarter pretty solidly offensively. What happened that it started to kind of started fizzling out?
PAT NARDUZZI: I don’t know. You look at it and I thought the first drive—we went down the field and we still kicked a field goal. We drop a pass on a third down to Malachi in a flash, which is a first down and should be a touchdown drive. And we don’t execute, we don’t make plays when we’ve got an opportunity. Easy catch. We’ve got to execute.
Q. On the run game:
PAT NARDUZZI: I don’t know if we ran it enough. I’ll look at the tape. I thought we did have some good runs in there, and then you get a run and then have a holding call, which I don’t know about that. But you put yourself behind the stacks, put yourself in third and long, instead of third and medium or third and short, you’ll have problems.
Q. How close was Desmond playing today?
PAT NARDUZZI: He was close.
Q. There aren’t any good turnovers but Eli’s turnovers, one at the goal line last week, one at the goal line this week. One against Central Michigan and one today where it’s a linebacker right in front of him. Is it more concerning because seems he’s not seeing them, making those in crucial situations?
PAT NARDUZZI: They’re all concerning down in the red zone. When you’re in scoring position, you can’t turn the ball over. It’s simple. We’ve got to be better. Kade has got to be better. And the quarterback’s got to play better.
Q. I know it’s hard to find positives, but Rasheem Biles really had a good game. He had 12 tackles and that pick-six. What did you see from him?
PAT NARDUZZI: Unbelievable interception for a touchdown. He played well last week. He was a bright spot a week ago.
I think, overall, as a defense, we played well as a team. But he, as a football player, he made a lot of plays, plays with emotion, plays with an attitude. Love that guy.
Q. There were a couple times on fourth down in the second half where you called a timeout. I think at one time you had the punt team out, called a timeout, sent the offense back out. Were there communication issues slowing you down?
PAT NARDUZZI: No. I said punt the ball. After I thought about it, I said we’re going to go for it. We’ve got to go for a win. I just didn’t have a whole lot of confidence of punting it, getting the ball back and how much time, if we get another possession. I did want to take advantage of the possession. If we get beat there, we’ve got — defense got the ball back, which had more timeouts.
Q. Was there consideration for Mason?
PAT NARDUZZI: There’s always consideration for both of them (Cole and Mason). But we’ll look at it going forward as well.
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