Pitt Spring Practice #10 April 7, 2015
P-G’s Craig Meyer has a feature article on rsSO Zach Challingsworth’s bid for the second receiver spot. Good luck to him as he’s got some more established competition there with Dontez Ford, Chris Wuestner both of whom have seen playing time and caught some of Voytik’s passes. But really, there is a dearth or WRs behind Boyd and that #2 spot, and #3 and #4 for that matter, are wide open. So, throw Ziese into that mix also.
But once Adonis Jennings and Ronald Jones took off they didn’t leave much behind.
Though first-year Pitt coach Pat Narduzzi said Ford is likely the No. 2 receiver for now, there’s still time for Challingsworth and others to close that gap. “They’re all having those opportunities, and everything will come out in a wash,” Narduzzi said. “I see a lot of guys making plays.” One thing aiding Challingsworth will be offensive coordinator Jim Chaney’s scheme, which the young receiver said utilizes up-tempo and no-huddle elements that, in some ways, remind him of the offenses he was a part of at South Fayette.
Apparently ex-PITT DB Titus Howard is enrolling at Slippery Rock to continue his college football career. Good luck to him in both football and his academic and life pursuits. From the Trib:
Former Pitt cornerback and Clairton graduate Titus Howard said he told Slippery Rock coach George Mihalik he plans to enroll there. Howard was suspended last season for violating team policy and dismissed prior to spring drills
Here is a video of our OC Jim Chaney: Video: Offensive Coordinator Jim Chaney
Coach Pat Narduzzi on practice No. 10:
Video: Coach Pat Narduzzi
“Ten [practices] out of the way. There are ups and downs and we just have to teach them to fight through the smoke at times. There’s going to be ups and downs at every practice and at every game, and it’s how you react to those ups and downs that makes you a man. We’re just a work in progress and we’ll get better every day and continue to install new stuff. I really think our offense is challenging the defense by the things they are doing. I don’t know how much you’ll see in the spring game but they’re doing some really good things so I’m happy.”
On if the players are getting better at fighting through:
“I think so. They’re coming out and battling. Their teammates are trying to be smart and safe at the same time. We won’t find out until game day comes.”
“Kids are smart now, a lot smarter than we give them credit for. They knew that the winter conditioning fourth quarter program and weight room will make them better. So they know that practice and the situations that we’re putting them in will help them and we’re seeing how they respond.”
On if the team is where he thought they would be after 10 practices:
“You never sit down and say, ‘On a scale of one to ten, we want to be a seven right now.’ You never say that. You just try to keep getting better every day and I believe we are.”
On the importance of involving James Conner involved in the passing game:
“It’s not a matter of getting James involved in the passing game, it’s a matter of keeping him on the field. He’s so good at whatever he wants to be. That’s important to me.”
On splitting time between offense and defense:
“I watch tape with both staffs. I’ll watch some things but I also know where I have to come in and put the time in to make sure that it’s exactly the way we want it to be.
“I’m smart enough to turn it over to a great staff on offense.”
On if his basic philosophy is to challenge the players:
“Of course it is. The demands will be there later on in September so you better put it on them now and see what they do.”
On the battle for the receiver position opposite Tyler Boyd:
“[Dontez] Ford and Elijah [Zeise] have done a great job. Dontez is probably the number two guy at this point but there is still a lot of ball to play. They’re getting enough reps. It’s not like you’re playing against one offense, like in a game. You’re playing with a ‘one’ offense and a ‘two’ offense with different receivers. So they are all getting opportunities. I see a lot of guys making plays.”
Running Back James Conner on his impressions after the first 10 practices:
Video: Running Back James Conner
“All of our coaches mean business, that’s what I’ve taken away. Coach [Jim] Chaney, he gets pretty serious sometimes. You can talk to him about anything but when it’s time to play he’s ready to roll. Coach Narduzzi, he obviously means business. You sit up straight when he comes in. That’s what I took away.”
On spring improvement:
“Their motto is get three percent better every day. Don’t stay the same, get better. The defense is changing tremendously and we’re really excited. The offense is making more plays than we have in the past. We’re really excited.”
On having a head coach with a defensive background:
“It’s a little different. Coach [Paul] Chryst was with the offense every day. Our offense was successful and I think we can continue to be successful and obviously the area we needed to improve in was defense. I think timing is everything. Hopefully we get to that championship game this year.”
On Coach Chaney giving him a bigger workload:
“What he means by a bigger workload is being more involved. Last year it was obvious when I came out of the game what was going to happen. I’ll still get my fair share of carries, but when he says more workload, it’s more involved. I’ve been getting these pass protections and routes down just trying to expand my game.”
On why he wasn’t as involved in the passing game his first couple years:
“I had a little bit of trouble learning the playbook. I did my role, just be successful running the ball. As the years have gone by and talking to people, you have to expand your game. Now I’m getting more comfortable in the playbook.”
On having an expanded role:
“It’s exciting. I haven’t had a receiving touchdown since I’ve been here so hopefully I get one this season.”
On the main thing he’s working on to better his game:
“The basics: faster and stronger. I say that every time someone asks me that. At the running back position speed kills and being strong will do wonders for you, so just the basics.”
“You sit up straight when he comes in the room” All-American running back James Connor said of Narduzzi.”
This is big. When one of the team’s “superstars” says this, it’s big.
Jerry P. adds “I don’t remember a Pitt player ever saying that of his coach over the past four years.”
Do you guess they sat up straight when Jackie Sherrill entered the room?
Go Pitt.
You do have a sense of humor
H2P
If so, wonder if Cal will go after Brandon Knight or Smoke Wiliamson
I think that should make up for 5-8 fonts.
But don’t worry, when I trip over the rug getting another beer while I am writing an article for the Blather and break my ankle doing so I will sue Chas for the ownership of the blog and then I’ll put all the colors of the rainbow in it.
All this talk about fonts and shading is driving me bonkers (more so than usual.) Sure hope something significant football related (positive) happens soon!
“The offense will line up in a pro, pistol and shotgun formations and run plays at various tempos. “We are very multiple on offense right now,” he said. “For a defensive coach, there couldn’t be a better dream.”
Good God, we scored a ton of ppg getting the play clear, lining up, giving those big draft horses on the O line time to breathe and get their feet set under them and then we went blowing through defenses. Voytik had a nice and simple set of plays to run so as to lessen his having to do too much and our passing game was a decent complement to the running game.
As I said before this is a case of a new staff pissing all over the practice field and meeting rooms to establish their dominance. We see it in the insistence on changing the offense around. If anything that should be their least concern. It seems like they are tuning that horrid defense less than our excellent offense.
I’m actually skeptical as to how effective jerking the offense around will be and I’ll say it now – expect less PPG and more turnovers from the offense in 2015. Start rushing Voytik to make decisions too quickly and the INTs will start coming. We saw it with Sunseri going from pro-set DW (good) to Linedance Graham (bad) to pro-set Chryst (very good) and I think we’ll see it with Narduzzi & Chaney if this holds.
Time will tell.
Since we’ve got the road graders, why not continue grading roads. We don’t need to start building bridges until we’ve got some bridge builders! I prefer to work at building bigger and better roads!!
Just Win, Baby!
clearly any new staff is going to make changes. I have no problem with a defensive coach stating what he seeing happening on the O side, from a D perspective, is harder to defend.
On the other hand, the staff and players keep saying that the foundation of the offense is similar, which is a good thing. I’m hoping for the same foundation with a few more wrinkles worked in. The players are older and more experienced so a little variation shouldn’t be an issue.
I also ordered 5 extra notre dame single game tickets just to keep them out of the hands of irritating Domers and wannabe Domers. I will be sure they end up in the hands of friends and family that will be there for Pitt. I plan to do the same, but buy 10, for Penn State next year. My dream is that they only get their school allotment and the place is filled with Pitt fans.
That way we can hear a very quiet “We Are” and we can drown them out screaming in reply “Guilty!”
Go Pitt.
Did you watch the last Football and Basketball games this season?
It is great that we have a new Chancellor, Football coach and soon a new AD, but I am going to hold my celebration till we win 9 football games in a season and get back to the Elite 8.
Yes, Pitt can have easily have made the F4 but if Blair was Kaminsky, Pitt would have been in the F4 … not to mention that Wisc actually MADE the F4 two years in a row.
I couldn’t even finish the article it was too far-fetched. I know he goes out his way to support JD, and has made some good points about his value, but this has to be the most pathetic thing he has ever written. I actually feel bad for him.
But Wisconsin beat UNC, Arizona, and a juggernaut in Kentucky, Pitt certainly did not have to run that gauntlet and in that vain I agree the comparison is weak.
I didn’t get where he was trying to pump up Jamie. I think he was pointing out some similarities, particularly in that Wisconsin, developed a team rather than recruited future NBA guys. And that they ran out of gas similar to Pitt.
Could it be that the predominant type of player recruited by Cheesehead Paulie, had a personality/psyche similar to him. And now they are being coached by a fire eater.
“You sit up straight when he comes in the room,” All-American running back James Conner said of Narduzzi.
I don’t remember a Pitt player ever saying that of his coach over the past four seasons.”
This is very encouraging, as Pitt has been the epitome of mediocre, or below mediocre and more times than not….playing soft.
I think Graham would have changed that had he been here longer, but no way that would have happened with the Cheeseheads led by Potato Paulie.
Nard Dog needs to be able to bring in the Max number of recruits next year.
Don’t think they ran out of gas…..Wisky got ‘jobbed’ by the refs.
One of the more blatant, in your face, jobbings, I’ve seen in a long time.
In the 2nd half Duke ran and drove to the hoop drawing fouls.
5th year seniors:
Trey Anderson QB – Gone, will graduate in the spring.
Ronald Jones WR – Left program.
Khaynin Mosley-Smith DL
Devin Cook DL – Gone, transferred and graduated.
Nicholas Grigsby LB
Lafayette Pitts DB
Ejuan Price DL
Artie Rowell OL
David Murphy LS
Jameel Poteat RB SR (transferred in 2014 and is eligible this season).
Jennings and Howard voluntarily took off as did MacLean – but the way the roster is now all three of them would be needed this season.
I also think Artie and Pitts will fight hard to win the starting roles at their positions – that competition with make them both better players and men. Along the way, Pitt becomes a better team because HCPN is creating a more competitive environment – confirmed by many players this Spring during interviews.
I’m rooting for Jameel Poteat to succeed at LB – we need help in this area with TT and Gonzo graduating. I always thought he should have came to Pitt as a highly rated RB out of HS, keeping with the family legacy that Hank started – this is Jameel’s last chance and I hope he makes a splash becoming a surprise big hitter in the Duzz D. (Big unknown talent, by Pitt fans)
HTP!
But my question .. why compare Wisc 15 and Pitt 09 in the first place. What relevance is there? One team made two Final 4s, the other made none. Butler made 2 Final 4s in back to back years …. compare them. I’m sorry, I don’t get it.
That gives me a bad feeling. These guys came here with an understanding to do their best and get a scholarship in return. If we claim to be better than creepy valley then we have to be more ethical and live by the understanding.
If they’ve violated team rules OK, if they transfer on their own OK, or even if we find them another source of funding that is OK too.
But if we want to claim the ethical high ground most of all we must be ethical.
And remind you .. that a 4 year guaranteed schollie doesn’t protect them for their 5th year, and IMO it shouldn’t since they all have been provided with tutors.
In fact, I consider it a win-win if a guy who happens not to develop as hoped is dropped for his fifth year but has earned his degree.
Now having said that … some players ‘see the light’ later than others, so dropping alleged deadwood who have only been here a couple of years may be premature.
For example Georgia has also done as PITT does…
“Some head coaches, such as Georgia’s Mark Richt, “make a pledge to that kid for four years and that’s what he does,” Conley said. “But not every coach has to do that. They can make decisions on whether or not they want a player to be there. So it really comes down to that administration and coaching staff.”
As long as I have been closely following the modern day PITT program, from around 2000 onward, the HCs have done everything they could to steer the players to those goals and if it was in the best interest of the program, the team and the player themselves that the he separate from PITT then the athletic dept staff would work to see that the player had a chance to continue his academic and athletic pursuits elsewhere, albeit mostly down a peg in the level of college ball.
Obviously there was a difference between how PITT handled these things over the DW years as compared to how they handled things over the PC years based on different circumstances. DW was very good at ensuring that kids who for any reason just didn’t see a future at PITT but were good students and teammates would land somewhere that would benefit them. Of course, in most of those cases the team benefited also as it would open up a scholarship for a future player who may contribute more to the actual success of the team by playing more and playing better.
But, DW also had a hugely long leash in allowing his players to break the accepted formal and informal rules, regulations and standards of the program. In essence he believed in 1st, 2nd and 3rd chances (maybe even more in some cases) as he saw fit. He certainly practiced depth chart justice in his disciplinary decisions and PITT had allowed him that latitude – up to a certain point when things then came to a head.
After the 2010 season the PITT admin wanted to tighten those reins and did so by establishing procedures in vetting the recruits more closely. That policy, even though stated as a condition of hire to Todd Graham, was also the main reason he left PITT. If you remember TG saying after he bolted “There are a lot more problems there (PITT) than just me,” he said. “I wasn’t comfortable in the area recruiting. I made a bad decision. When I got there I didn’t realize the issues that were there.” Graham was basically given a 24 hour window to accept or reject the PITT offer as it came on the heels of the Haywood crap and Graham accepted it without, according to him, understanding what he was being hired into…
“Graham said that after then-head coach Dave Wannstedt was dismissed from Pitt in late 2010, the hiring and subsequent firing of Mike Haywood two weeks later sped up the Pitt coaching search. Graham was given just 24 hours to mull over leaving Tulsa for Pitt.”
That 2011 year was tough for PITT as they tried to institute new recruiting standards with a HC who didn’t think they were serious about it and couldn’t care less. PITT tried to balance doing one thing without undermining a new HC and it really didn’t work out.
What PITT then did next was look for and hire a HC who would take on the task of ridding the program of any players who didn’t fit the new PITT mold and football plans. That seemed to work well, especially when we got a HC who actually cared about those things in Paul Chryst. Those players who were good soldiers and toed the line were valued and stayed and those who didn’t, even if they hadn’t formally broken disciplinary standards but were not positive clubhouse members and roster teammates, (and there were many) were gone… to the tune to 38 attritions in PC’s three years at PITT. That is why we didn’t see hardly any disciplinary or legal problems over the last few years. The suspensions that Chryst did levy were almost all academically based and that can’t be made public.
So this is what Narduzzi has inherited this year. He gets a roster full of great character kids who want to be at PITT but, as in any coaching change, may not fit into his football plans. Those same kids may not be at the talent level he wants for the future either. We’ll see if PITT has loosened the strings and will allow dismissals based on football talent alone, i.e. “unloading the deadwood” which was very rare in the past or if the policy of “Keep your end of the agreement up and be a good student/athlete and stay for a degree” still holds.
The new NCAA policy of being able to grant four-year scholarships has an effect here also as that would bring more pressure to bear on a school to keep the player for those years but like anything else, that isn’t etched in stone and a school can pretty much do what they want.
Let me guess…he inherited good players, Alvarez still coaches the team, blah blah blah.
He did some good things and some bad things. You have to give credit where credit is due.
Thus far, T Howard was dismissed, T Anderson, who got his degree, transferred .. as did Luke MacLean and Connor Hayes, by their own decisions reportedly.
We may know more about any policy change after spring drills.
So he won’t have to ‘rebuild’ at all like he was faced with that monumental task at PITT. Personally I think he’s a pretty good HC all around with some weaknesses. That is where Alvarez comes in.
Alvarez is a very strong AD – hence the blocking of House to UW – and that is exactly what Chryst needs. I don’t believe for a second that Alvarez ‘coaches’ the team but he keeps a heavy hand on the football program which good ADs do, especially with new HCs.
I think Chryst wins at UW, maybe a bit slow at first but I wouldn’t be surprised to see top Ten teams regularly under Chryst there in the future. He’ll recruit well there also just like DW was here at PITT.
I do agree that Kaminsky is a much more skilled big man, but they were both their team’s dominant player.
Besides, at this time of year there is not much to talk about, new stadium, new AD, font decisions, deadwood, dead horses and real snoozers.
But I, for one, was certainly not calling for his firing when this past season ended.
There is usually a majority attitude of fans that the incumbent staff is better than the previous one. It happens here and I’m sure elsewhere in most cases unless the new hiring is really frowned upon.
I am encouraged with the new HC based mainly on the staff he has hired. But time will tell.
The reason I approve of letting kids go and having a discussion with them that they won’t see the field and that it would be in the athletes best interest to transfer is this. In life, if you aren’t good enough, your employer should either train you and help you be good enough to be a contributor, or let you go if you just don’t have the skills. Why would Pitt or any other college do it differently? It is extremely ethical to be candid and up front with athletes and students and employees.
To fix the problem, the NCAA could easily pass a rule that says you cannot offer a kid a scholarship until the beginning of their Senior year. This allows schools to actually scout a player more and determine that the kid is either a good fit or a bad one. Unfortunately, kids get offers as freshman and sophomores in high school and accept them. Then, they don’t develop and are passed by kids who can contribute. At that point a coach needs to make a decision as to whether they need to have a “talk” or not. Successful program managers have that talk. If Pitt decides not to do that to a player, they need to make their stance a part of their recruiting and hit players and their parents with statistics which show player turnover and compare it against ours. There are opportunities to differentiate ourselves positively against the OSU’s and others. We just need to be smarter. NArd could put together a chart to show recruits and their parents the numbers. It could be telling for sure!
If Chad Voytik is such a mediocre quarterback that he can’t handle an offensive system closer to the one he was originally recruited to play, the one he is physically better suited to play, the one he played in high school, then does it really matter what offensive system Pitt runs?
I would hope a second-year starter would be able to handle a more complex offense.
He’s running plays out of all kinds of formations. Shotgun (alone and with a sidecar), under center with one back, under center with fullback and running back, 5 wide, read-option, roll-outs, the works.
I think he can handle adding pistol formations and going a little more up-tempo than PC’s style of lining up then trying to read the defense for 10-15 seconds before the snap. Sometimes I think all that time resulted in him getting inside his own head and making mistakes.
It never ends with Pitt fans.
Yes. He got inside position on the receiver, the ball never should have been thrown. Mistake by Chad.
