What Did Pat Narduzzi Say Thursday About the Pitt QBs, Redshirts & More
PITTSBURGH — Pitt football is finalizing its preparation for its second ACC game of the 2025 season against Boston College.
Pitt head coach Pat Narduzzi spoke with the media one final time before Saturday’s contest about the quarterbacks, redshirts and more.
Here’s the notable quotes from Narduzzi’s Thursday press briefing:
– Opening statement: “This week I think we had good practices. Today, I still got to watch practice. That was, kind of, I don’t know. Seemed like the defense was flying around, offense was flying around. I don’t know if it was the Rocks, our scout team that I didn’t like, but there’s something I didn’t like about today. But, we will evaluate that today and see, but I thought we had really three good days. Our guys were fired up. We had a leadership meeting in here with our guys, and I think we’re in a really good place going into this game.
“I think Boston College is a good football team. It’s like I told our guys, you can look at their record and say they’re 1-2, people can look at our record and say 2-2, but that could be a 4-0 team and so could we, and that’s what we’re going to go into, a battle. I think they’re really good,
“I really do. They got a run game. Their quarterback Lonergan is a really good football player. I got a ton of respect for him. I think he’s really good, he makes good decisions, he’s decisive with the ball, gets the ball out, doesn’t take a lot of sacks. Obviously he’s made mistakes, but what quarterback has it, it’s not an easy game to play, it’s a hard position to feel. But I’ve been impressed with the way he plays quarterback, I think he’s going to be a special player in this ACC conference.”
– On Pitt QB Eli Holstein during practice this week: “You know what, he’s had a good week of practice. I’ve been impressed, you know, just the way he’s bounced back from last Saturday. I feel good, I mean, just a little bit more, stepping. I think sometimes when you get pulled, that maybe things change a little bit. Maybe it was a good thing.
– On if Holstein is starting at QB vs. Boston College: “Yes, sir.”
– On how long of a leash Holstein has: “You know, there’s leash, there’s a regular old leash. It’s a pretty long leash. But, you have to play. Here’s the one thing, quarterbacks are going to get all the criticism when you lose, and they’re going to get all the praise when you win. We know both of them are too much of each. There’s multiple, multiple reasons, okay, on offense, defense, special teams, okay, and elsewhere if you guys can figure that one out, the elsewhere. There’s plenty of reasons for not winning football games and it doesn’t always lie with the quarterback. It’s everybody around them, and you know what, everybody’s got to step up. If your receivers aren’t playing good, well, the run game better step up. If the quarterback’s not playing good and not throwing good, then better run game better be better too. All those different factors. It’s coaches, it’s players, it’s everybody. We all take responsibility. We all point the thumb at ourselves and that’s my job to get it right, so I’m looking forward to that noon at Saturday, playing a really good football team and playing four quarters of football and finishing that game. That’s been the emphasis all week.”
– On if Cole Gonzales and Mason Heintschel have step their game up: “They just get limited reps, right? We got a lot of faith in Cole, we got a lot of faith in Mason. I’ve said that since August 1st, whatever that day was, July 30th, when we came to camp. So we got a lot of faith in both those guys. We’ve seen all three of them play this year.”
– On Holstein grasping mistakes after recent interceptions: “Eli is really smart. You know, but it’s one thing to see it. Everybody can see it on the iPad. Like I always say in here, we can sit here and run it back and forth and rewind. ‘You see that? You see that? You see that?’ ‘Yeah, I see it.’ But things happen faster on the field, you know what I’m saying? So he knows, and everybody knows, but can you fix it, right? And that’s why you get to play these games. That’s why we get another opportunity on Saturday.”
– On Pitt WR Kenny Johnson: “I mean, besides a couple of digs that I wish you’d catch and scoop up those balls, you’d like the balls to be up here instead of down there, make it easier on him. But Kenny’s had a good year so far. We’ve got to give him more touches. There’s been times when he’s open and we don’t give him the ball for whatever reason. I’ve been impressed with Kenny. I’ve been impressed with our entire receiver crew, really. When you look at Kenny, Poppi and Blue. Obviously Blue’s had some fabulous catches. And Deuce, I mean, Deuce Spann has been really good, too. So those are the four guys that need to get the ball.”
– On Pitt WR Censere Lee: “He’s ready to go. He’s on scout team every day. We got him on scout team right now. He will be available for four games. We’ll probably redshirt him. But if crap hit the fan on Saturday, CJ would probably be able to go in there and know exactly what he’s doing. He’s in every receiver meeting. He wants to be fully healthy. That’s just his mindset, which I can get. I shouldn’t say fully healthy. I think he’s fully healthy, but he wants to have our summer prep time. He wants to be at his best, which I think we can all respect. But if we need him, we got him where we want him for four games, which is a bonus.”
– On Pitt DE rotation with Maverick Gracio and Nate Temple: “ We’ll see where it is. Temple, I think he’s gotten healthier the last few weeks. He’s playing better football. Maverick gave us a couple snaps. So, they’re available for sure.”
– On Boston College blitz impacting Holstein: “They blitz a lot. When we blitz, it’s usually six. When they blitz, it’s usually five. But I’m sure, we’re prepared for bringing what we call seven up where they got everybody up like Louisville did. They did a ton of it more than they had coming into the game, so we prepared a ton more just in case. So we’re probably better prepared thinking, you know, that we’re gonna get some of that by everybody’s gonna copycat, right? Tim Lewis is a smart guy, obviously, because he’s a Pitt grad. We know that, so he’s smart. He’ll probably try to copycat some of the things that Louisville did. So we’re prepared when that does come.”
– On Boston College throwing the ball more: “They are simple but complex, okay? I just think they do a really good job in the passing game. Obviously, they’re fourth in the country in passing offense. Lonergan, he’s the one that makes it go, but I think they keep it simple with what he does. They got these probably five favorite concepts that they love, okay? But when they line up, you’re not going to see it. They’re going to motion to it. They’re going to chip the back and motion. They’re going to do a little bit of both to kind of get you tricked. They try to trick your eyes. Our guys got to be really good. Their safety’s got to be really good with what we see this week. The safeties will be the players of the game based on what we’re seeing and what we’re doing if we can handle this pass offense. No one’s shut them down yet in the passing – they’re after 300 yards of game passing. So, if we can hold them at 250, I’ll be fired up.”
– On Boston College WR Lewis Bond: “They keep it simple and he’s not a deep ball guy. [Reed] Harris is probably their deep ball guy, but he’s capable of going deep as well. Different concepts. They love them on a mesh concept. They try to give him the ball and the boundary hash a lot. There’s just different concepts that they’ve got. I think they dress it up, whether it’s 12 personnel, 11 personnel, they dress it up, they do, I think, a great job.”
– On Pitt safety Kavir Bains-Marquez earning more snaps: “Absolutely. Absolutely. He played really well last week. I was impressed with, you know, a one way tackle. But he did a nice job.”
– On third-down offensive struggles: “I hope we’re out of that third down struggle because we need to move the sticks and execute on third down. It’s the most important play in football. As far as, I should say, down in football, it’s third down. It doesn’t matter what happens on first, second, third down, we’ve got to execute. Last week was not a third down and 15 problem. It was more of just execution and getting the ball to the right guy and seeing the right stuff. And that’s our job as coaches, to get that done.
– On handling Pitt redshirt situations: “There’s really nobody that we haven’t questioned. And I’m assuming, hoping that maybe that five game rule goes through, five for five. We’re going. The guys that have been playing are going to be playing. [Shawn] Lee, he’s not redshirting. Boosie’s not redshirting. He’s going to play. We think he’s good enough to help us win right now.”
– On a potential medical redshirt for Keith Gouveia: “We would love to get him a medical redshirt. Keith, saw him and his mom last night. He’s doing well, but that was a tough one right there. Feel bad for him.”
– On red zone breakdowns: “When we throw it to the other guy, that’s usually most of the breakdowns there. We got to do a better job running it when we get down there. But when we throw it, we got to be smart with the ball.”
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