Pitt Spring Practice #9; April 2, 2015
Pitt Live Wire Blog
PITT is moving into its final six practices of the spring sessions and starting a five day hiatus to allow the players time off over the Easter vacation weekend. How the rest of the practices break down is they will resume on Tuesday April 7th and have four straight practices in pads, then one in shorts (of the required three non-pad practices mandated by the NCAA) the end up with the Spring Game on Saturday, April 18th – see you there!
There has been a surprising level of very positive chatter about rsJR Mike Caprara since the spring drills opened. We PITT fans know him as the ‘undersized’ Woodland Hills linebacker who broke the school’s record for tackles in a career… no small feat considering the prominence of Woodland Hills in WPIAL football.
This is something of a theme this week as just the other day we were hearing and reading about SO DE Rori Blair being ‘undersized’ for the starting role. Personally, I think that a strong drive for success, a big heart and intelligence can make up for a lot of physical shortcomings. One way of accommodating situations like these is to put those smaller guys in the right position to succeed, such as Conklin’s moving Caprara from the MLB position and utilizing his speed and quickness on the outside. Honestly, I have like Caprara since his recruitment and am hyped to see him get some real playing time. You don’t do what he did in HS without some real talent and desire involved.
On a side note it is interesting that Woodland Hills has pumped out a bunch of major football players in its history. In 2012 alone they had five alumni on NFL rosters: Rob Gronkowski, Ryan Mundy, Darrin Walls, Shawntae Spencer and Steve Breston. Not a bad snapshot of talent and to think that Caprara bested all of the past defensive players from that HS. Aside from Spencer they all made poor college choices of course.
DiPaola of the Trib has two nice articles on Caprara this morning. One detailing some highlights of Caprara’s college experiences and life outside of football and a blog entry that is more football-centric and an interesting look at Caprara’s career so far. His blog has some great insights into what he (Caprara) is seeing with this new staff:
“Caprara agrees with the prevailing opinion among his teammates that Narduzzi has simplified the defense so everyone can play faster. Plus, matters are less chaotic under the new staff.
“Everybody is playing 100 times faster,” Caprara said. “Everybody in the (meeting) room sees that and understands that. There is a lot more talk and buzz.” The Narduzzi defensive philosophy seems to be saying to the opponent: This is what we do. Let’s see if you are smart enough and tough enough to solve it.
He also has perhaps the clearest explanation of the defense’s problems last year: “In years past, a lot of guys were caught up in the shuffle and the mix of learning the scheme for the week,” Caprara said. “Not everybody was on the same page.”
Hmmm, just as we fans figured, House tried to do too much in his first go-round as a DC.
Along with that he talks a bit about what it was like when he first arrived on campus and what it was like during the ‘rebirth of the program’ (DiPaola’s words) and Chryst’s handling of the team back then and right before he left for the Wisconsin job.:
Sam Werner of the P-G weighs in with a good article on local Shadyside Academy grad DB Reggie Mitchell’s travels through the defensive backfield where he still doesn’t know exactly where he’ll land. He’s an experienced Safety and Cornerback so he’s a valuable kid to have around. It looks like the final destination may be at the Field Safety spot:
“What you’re asking your boundary safety to do is a little more of an ’in-the-box’ hitter at times, a guy that comes down and fills the run,” defensive coordinator Josh Conklin said. “We just think Reggie has a really good skill set as far as coverage, and I feel that would be a better fit for him.”
Mitchell said that despite starting out as a cornerback last year, he told coach Pat Narduzzi he felt most comfortable at safety, so that’s where he ended up. Well, it’s early days yet so we’ll see.
One kind of nice thing to hear for us fans is that this staff is getting serious about not handing old starters their job automatically as is the case with Lafayette Pitts (see Narduzzi’s quote below). PITT has been waiting for three years for PITTs to play to potential but potential isn’t what this staff is looking for going into the 2015 season. They obviously want results as soon as possible.
Rival’s Chris Peak (subscription site) has a good article on how this defensive coaching staff feels about the progress the Defensive Line players have made. Here is a small excerpt from a very good report:
In fact, given the 2014 production of that unit – to wit, 10 tackles for loss and three sacks from four primary contributors – it was downright surprising to hear Conklin praise the group like he did. “When you want to talk about probably the most pleasant surprise, it’s our interior…Those guys are really important to our defense, and I’ve been happy with them. I think we’ve got some really good players at that position.”
Head coach Pat Narduzzi echoed that statement on Thursday. “On the inside, I feel really good right now…I think we’ve got four guys we can play in there, maybe five that I’ve been impressed with.”
All of that ties in with Narduzzi’s comments about Jarrett and K. K. Smith below.
Coach Pat Narduzzi on practice No. 9:
Video: Coach Pat Narduzzi
“We have six to go. I just see our kids continuing to work. They have an impressive work ethic, they’re working hard and they just keep pushing through it. You tell them to jump and they ask how high and they just keep going. We had some great periods today. We had a third-and-short period where our offense executed pretty good with the ones (first team)—with the twos they didn’t. It was just back and forth. They are working their tails off. It’s a great work in progress right now.”
On James Conner and Tyler Boyd:
“James [Conner] is obviously a big-time tailback and we try to make sure we don’t hit him too many times because there’s only so many hits a tailback can take. Tyler Boyd is an unbelievable receiver. I tried to quick-whistle when he catches the ball so no one hits him too much either. Both have been impressive. In the passing game, Tyler’s really been even more impressive at this point. He’s just making some unbelievable runs and catches. He’s been really, really good. He might be the best receiver I’ve seen.”
On corners Avonte Maddox and Lafayette Pitts responding to the challenge of working against Tyler Boyd:
“They’re both doing a great job. Maddox is doing a better job than Pitts right now, but Pitts will get there. Pitts probably has to lose five or seven pounds just to continue to go. He’s good for two plays. Today we went with a 12-play series, fast tempo, no huddle, just trying to gas them because that’s what we’re going to see during the year.
We’re just trying to work a bunch of different situations that we might see. The offense ran some no-huddle at them today and just tried to gas them. We ran it the other day too and Lafayette was good for a couple of plays then all of the sudden he had to come out. We have to work that substitution. That’s a situation where you have to know how many plays can ‘Johnny’ go as opposed to ‘Tom.’”
On Khaynin “K.K.” Mosley-Smith and the interior defensive line:
“On the inside, I feel really good right now. K.K. is obviously back and playing. He’s been good. I think we have maybe four or five guys that can play in there that I’ve been impressed with.”
On impressions of defensive tackle Tyrique Jarrett over the past weeks:
“He’s shown something for nine practices. He lost 17 or 20 pounds I think. He’s doing a great job and could be a special player for us.”
“We just want him to drop down (his weight). He could play the way he is now but I think he’s about 340 right now, but if he got down to 330 he would be a machine. I think he would be able to go five or six plays hard. Some of those nose tackles in the NFL, they play two plays and they get them off.”
On the team’s knowledge of the schemes:
“On a scale of one to 10, I would say our offense is probably a seven. The defense is probably a seven as well. That’s about where we are. We may finish spring ball up at a seven out of 10. There’s more stuff we can put in defensively. I’m happy with where they are.”
On the relationship between Offensive Coordinator Jim Chaney and quarterback Chad Voytik:
“Practice is going so fast that I don’t really look. I think they get along really, really well. I think all of our coaches get along with our players. One minute you’re going to scream at them, the next minute you’re going to hug them and give some positive. Practice goes so fast that I couldn’t tell you and I don’t sit in every quarterback meeting to see, but I think it’s really good all around.”
“Coach Chaney is a special guy. He’s just a fun guy to be around. If you guys sat around in the office with him for three days in a row, you’d be like, ‘Wow. I want to play for him.’ That’s just the way it is. He’s a fun guy to be around. I couldn’t imagine any quarterback not wanting to be around him.”
On the progress of the offensive line:
“Coach [John] Peterson is doing a heck of a job. The defensive line will put a new blitz in and all of the sudden, the offense doesn’t look so good. Then Coach Peterson will coach them up and then he looks like a good coach again. You’re only as good as your players’ blocks and tackles and catches, but he’s doing a great job.”
Quarterback Chad Voytik on Offensive Coordinator/Quarterbacks Coach Jim Chaney:
Video: Quarterback Chad Voytik
“He is a jokester, but on the field he will get in your face and let you know what you did wrong. It is a different style I have to get used to but I think it is good. It will prepare me for those situations in games.”
On Jim Chaney’s work with Drew Brees:
“I knew about that when he came in here because I want to learn like that. It’s huge for me to listen and to watch film from the NFL that he has. I love when he pulls out film from the NFL because those plays are being run by the best players in the world.
“We have every completed pass from 2012 to the present so we will watch it and tailor it to our offense. We will see Matt Ryan or Peyton Manning run the same plays we are running. Football is football. Every team he [Coach Chaney] worked with seems to run a variation of the same plays because his concepts work.”
On the offensive line:
“I think we only gave up about 20, 25 sacks last year and a bunch of those weren’t because they were allowing free runners—I was trying to make plays on some of them. The year before I think that number was somewhere in the 40s. These guys are going to keep getting better so I fully expect the sacks number to keep dwindling.”
Offensive Tackle Adam Bisnowaty on helping out the younger offensive linemen:
“I am helping them with technique. I am helping them out as much I can because to be a good team you are only as good as your weakest link.”
On the line being a veteran group:
“Yes, it is very different than when I got here. [Alex] Bookser is in there now, he is still young, but we have experience. We have Dorian [Johnson], Alex [Officer] played last year, Jaryd [Jones-Smith] played some last year, so we are an experienced group as opposed to two years ago. We still have to come along and learn this offense.”
Video: All-America RB James Conner wears GoPro Camera
Link: Thursday practice photos
Post-Practice Video Interviews
Video: Offensive Line Coach John Peterson
Mike Caprara: 6′ 225 lbs
Jack Ham: 6’1″ 225 lbs
Maybe Caprara can grow an inch. Ham was a pretty good linebacker.
He certainly won’t be the first to lose a recruit to KY, if it does happen.
I wish Caprara well, but how do you think he does one on one with Conner coming at him with a full head of steam? Or Parrish?
As a lot of his better plays and Pitt’s were on busted plays, etc. when he was scrambling around, and either ran or found someone for a pretty good gain.
The year before Savage was immobile and the year before Tiny was Tiny (curl up in fetal position cause we don’t want to get hurt and get removed from the game).
Caprara is right in the middle at 225 lbs.
So in that context Caprara is a normal sized Pitt LB.
And I do think Jack Ham and Jack Lambert could play today. Most of the guys today are stupid, and play out of position. The 2 Jacks did not.
The 2 Jacks were textbook tacklers. As was Andy Russell.
Best 3 LB’s on one team EVER !. And started as the AFC starting 3 LB’s in the Pro Bowl.
He was pretty stocky. Ham went to that other school so I didn’t like him. Sorry.
Ham went to Pedo State before I grew an extreme dislike for them. The Pitt resurrection hadn’t happened yet and Paterno wasn’t a God-like figure yet.
Lambert and Ham in the Hall of Fame, they played behind the Great Joe Greene and the Steel Curtain, saying they were too small to play in today’s game is not an insult, they are the size of today’s defensive backs.
The other pretty good LB commit, Brightwell, weighs 205
Lambert cleaned up the play, made the tackle.
As far as I know, he was the only DT to ever line up that way.
They were all very unique players on a very unique defense. And a very unique team.
Glad I was there to witness it !!
Mike Caprara, is quick off the snap and has good eyes that makes him a guy that will operate well in Narduzzi’s defensive philosophy. You don’t earn the record for tackles at Woodland Hills HS without having great football instincts and a nose for the ball. You have to be in the correct position before you can make the tackle.
Also no hand wringing, just yet, regarding our LB troops. With the true freshmen Brightwell & McKee showing up for fall camp, with their speed factor alone, will add a new dimension to the competition for LB playing time.
If either one demonstrate potential right off the bat, I see Harley giving them the opportunity to contribute as true freshmen. Remember none of these coaches have any obligation to play previous starters. This “fresh slate” attitude will carry into fall camp and either of these guys can compete for immediate playing time if they can demonstrate that they can compete at the collegiate level come game time.