Pat Narduzzi wants more than just wins, seeks flawless execution from Panthers

Pitt senior safety P.J. O’Brien had a request for Pat Narduzzi the day after the thrilling comeback victory against West Virginia.

After the weekly team meeting Sunday night when Pitt’s coach had much on his mind, O’Brien said, “Coach, smile, we won the game.”

“That’s the first time in 10 years I’ve had a player come up to me and say, ‘Smile, we won the game,’ ” Narduzzi said the next day at his weekly news conference. “I wasn’t very happy.”

With those words, Narduzzi revealed his true feelings about the victory and the 3-0 record to start the season.

From the outside looking in, it would appear to be happy times for the Panthers.

Pitt received one 25th-place vote in the Associated Press Top 25 poll this week from Shaun Goodwin of the Idaho Statesman. The Athletic slotted Pitt 39th in its ranking of 134 FBS teams. Nice, but there are eight ACC schools ahead of Pitt on that list, and six are on the Panthers’ schedule later this season.

”Again, winning is great,” Narduzzi said. “That’s great. We won, sang the fight song in the locker room.”

But …

“There was a lot of crap on the field that I didn’t like. That’s fact. That’s going to create our edge (in preparing to play Youngstown State of the FCS on Saturday at Acrisure Stadium).

“Winning is everything. We can play crappy and win the football game,” he said. “Did we play the way we wanted to be, the way you’re supposed to be coached to do? Is that what we’re asking you to do? No. We got to clean it up.”

Fourth-quarter comebacks generate nationwide interest, but Narduzzi doesn’t want to rely on another one, especially when ACC play starts Oct. 5 at North Carolina.

“We can’t get used to that. We can’t wait and think we can be comfortable, we’ll just win it in the fourth quarter, doesn’t matter what happens in the first, second and third. That was the conversation we had (Sunday) night.

“It doesn’t get you until it gets you. We don’t want to be sitting in the room going, ‘I wish I would have played a better first quarter.’

“I asked them don’t get too high, don’t get too low,” he said. “I felt like maybe we got too high at times. We did uncharacteristic stuff that I hadn’t seen our guys do this season so far.”

Narduzzi pointed out three factors that helped West Virginia build a 10-point lead before Pitt rallied to win, 38-34.

• Seven unforced errors.

“It wasn’t good enough. Seven of ‘em,” he said. “Three on offense, three on defense, one on special teams. Just the tiny, fine details. Offensively, I don’t think we’ve had a false start all year. Then, all of a sudden, we got three of ‘em in one game. Receivers aren’t set. Quarterback is snapping it before the receivers are set. Anxious, I guess.”

• Lining up with 10 players, allowing West Virgina punter Oliver Straw to run for a first down.

“The guy who’s supposed to secure the punt, makes sure he punts it, would have been off that edge (where the punter ran),” Narduzzi said.

The obvious question for the head coach, then, is this: How does such a basic mistake happen when everyone knows there are 11 men per team on the field at any time?

“Chaos on the sideline, lack of focus,” he said. “We straightened that up, too. We have alerts. Punt alert. Everybody gets up. Third down, punt alert. Maybe they were just staring at the iPad, right? ‘Let me see that play again. Let me see what that D tackle did.’ It’s focus. The details that drive you nuts as a coach.

“If that had cost us the football game, we’d all be sick. I might be throwing up right now because it would make me sick if that was what caused us to lose that football game.”

• Five sacks of quarterback Eli Holstein.

Narduzzi said the mistakes on pass protection were “physical.”

“Giving up five sacks, not happy. (Offensive line coach Jeremy Darveau) is not happy. (Offensive coordinator Kade Bell) is not happy. Coach Bell was upset after the game. He couldn’t smile. I loved that. Nobody’s satisfied. I think that’s really where we are right now.

”The pass protection is not good. We didn’t play well up front. That will get corrected.”

In the end, other players stepped up and avoided total disaster.

After the punt snafu, the defense forced another punt, Maverick Gracio blocked it and Brandon George picked it up and scored. Pass protection improved late in the game, allowing Holstein to complete the passes that led to victory.

”Again, I love winning when you don’t win up front,” Narduzzi said. “It’s nice to win and not play your best. But guys made plays. Maverick had a heck of a block, cleaned it up. Again, it’s a learning experience. Our guys have to learn from those mistakes.”