After getting two more recruits;  4* WR Ruben Flowers and unranked as yet ATH Marcus Ffrench, we have had a lot of follow up discussions about past and present recruiting on here.  Well, here are another couple of thoughts about recruiting we can chew on over the weekend.

I think we all agree that Paul Chryst had some pretty specific strengths and weaknesses when it came to his recruiting.  He seemed to have been right on target with his offensive scouting and then getting commitments from kids who have helped us move the ball and score points over the last two years:

RBs Conner, James, Ollison, Hall and Parrish at FB;  WRs Boyd, Jennings (good get, too bad) and Zeise along with Holtz and Orndoff at TE. His recruiting what looks to be like the complete OL two deep this season is a great job also (fingers crossed).

So, on that side of the ball he’s leaving Pat Narduzzi with a well stocked cupboard with good players he and his staff recruited.

Where the weakness has been, or where we perceive it to have been (more on that in a second), is in his lack of ability to recruitment of talented defensive players and, given the way the defense faltered in key moments last year, that sure seems to be the case.

But wait a second! Let’s discuss the age-old football question of “Do you win ballgame with Xs & Os or Jimmies & Joes?”

I think that at the point we are in right now in the off-season and  transitioning to the new coaching staff and the circumstances surrounding what they brings as to PITT as points of strength,  examining this question is timely and sets up some very interesting things to watch for as the fall camp and the 2015 season begins.

For some background on all that for newbies, Narduzzi was hired as our HC  after a very successful stint as the Defensive Coordinator at MSU.  There really is no doubt about his pedigree in this area and thus we all expect him to directly and positively influence PITT’s defense by lended his oversight and expertise to our new DC Josh Conklin.  That has already started.

Because of Narduzzi’s strength with defense expect PITT’s defense to play better than it did last season and to afford us a shot to win the close games which we lost last season.  I don’t think any PITT fan feels that is unreasonable to expect considering Narduzzi’s background and abilities.  We all hope that happens because there is nothing more frustrating watching PITT blow what should have been comfortable wins.

What a difference that would be considering what PITT went through the last few years with Paul Chryst, who was as much an offensive success in his last job as was Narduzzi on defense in his, not able or wanting to engage his staff, and in turn the players, on the defensive side of the ball.  His biggest mistake was promoting questionable competence from within and not following through in taking actions when it faltered.

Which left us with the same players Narduzzi has now playing under staff leadership that was either incompetent in putting the kids in position to be successful on the field, or, those players were just not  talented enough to play well at this level?

…And isn’t that the measure of recruiting success?  Getting players who will be able to learn and grow from good coaching and have the physical talents to take those lessons and bring their football intelligence and ability to bear successful play on the field?

So that brings us the original question.  Are Narduzzi and staff going to be able to take the defensive players extant on the roster and get them ‘coached-up’ to play up to what his coaching staff needs to have for a successful defense?  Remember, these are same the ‘not-so-good’ recruits Chryst got to come to PITT so are they even physically and mentally talented enough to play well under either coach?

This question won’t truly be answered until we see the state of the player’s success or lack thereof during actual games, but let’s conjecture a bit.  Last year we fielded these starters on defense:

Out of those players above who were recruited by the last regime I believe some will break out in stardom or play better than we expected given their prior contributions, if any.  So with Narduzzi in town here are my picks to make us look back and say “Hey, that kid wasn’t such a bad recruit after all”… maybe.

Here is a good explanation of what HCPN uses as his basic defenses and why he says that …

…“Rather than trying to call the right defense and maybe being right or maybe being wrong, Dantonio and Narduzzi have responded to this challenge by building a responsive defense that mutates into the right alignment depending on what the offense does.

Against four vertical receivers, Michigan State wants four man-to-man defenders who can carry the receivers all the way upfield; against crisscrossing underneath receivers, the Spartans want to be in a zone coverage that lets their defenders break hard on the ball and on those receivers, rather than forcing them to chase in man-to-man; and against the run, the Spartans want as many as nine defenders in the box.”

Here is a small treat. Click on this link and watch the sample video of Pat Narduzzi explaining his base defenses, then keep that in mind when reading the list below.

DE Rori Blair – this kid did extremely well in a limited role last season and ended up with 14 tackles and 5.0 sacks.  He has already impressed the staff so much they they jumped him up over Shakir Soto who had started the last two years.

LB Bam Bradley – he sat behind Thomas and Gonzalez his first three years but he is talented as Hell, quick and strong and if Conklin turns him loose he will be very effective.

LB Matt Galambos – Some think him slow but Narduzzi needs someone who is sharp and has experience at the position. In the defense Narduzzi wants to play there is a need for a field general to read the offense and help his fellow players to ‘mutate’ into the correct defense.

Galambos is going to be good at that and it will help with the hesitations we saw from him in the past when the ‘called’ defense was not correct for the offensive formation.

NT Tyrique Jarrett – Narduzzi is going to look at Jarrett’s quickness and strength during the real camp and find it hard to keep him off the field.  The incumbent starter KK Smith has been an average nose tackle at best and doesn’t have the athleticism that Jarrett does.  Same with…

DT Jeremiah Taleni – this kid may be the strongest player we have on defense and I think it is telling that after three weeks in the spring Narduzzi and Conklin moved him up to 2^nd string as a SO.  I keep saying that Taleni wasn’t just a bone thrown to Coach Breckterfield to get a fellow Islander on roster. Hawai’i has excellent HS football and the players who come out of the league Taleni played in are big, tough and faster than they look.

S Avonte Maddox & CB Pat Amara – Chryst was forced to play these two true FR in the defensive backfield last season and as with any new starters they had their ups and downs. But the fact that they were also in their first year of college ball makes what they played over all pretty damn impressive.  At safety Maddox had 32 tackles and show great closing speed.  As one of two starting DBs Amara only played in 10 games but showed real promise in the position.

So there are seven kids on defense who I think will really benefit from being in Narduzzi’s and Conklin’s defense which is predicated on action and speed.

“Our front is an attacking front and the press corner fits the mentality of the defense’.  That is the basis for what we will see this year. That attacking front has to have more quickness than it did last year.”

Hence we see Blair, Taleni and Jarrett in the two deep.  But here is the main reason I think we’ll look at those same players we thought were poor recruits and have a different opinion of them when the bowl game is over…

“Of course, many defenses that look great on paper have failed on the field, and for Michigan State’s adaptable Quarters scheme to succeed, every defender needs to make the same reads. And that’s precisely why the Spartans don’t run myriad defenses, instead preferring to master one highly sophisticated, flexible approach.

“I believe one defense can stop everything; I believe we could play an entire football game in our base defense,” Narduzzi said at the clinic. “I believe that if everyone lines up exactly right, reads their keys, and does all the fundamentals involved with the defense, it is enough to win.”

That is exactly the opposite of the bumbling Matt House trying to change defensive schemes three seconds before the ball was snapped.  When he did that he handicapped the kids so badly they couldn’t show their real talent because it was being hidden by the poor decision making and coaching on game day.

How many times did we here defensive players say last season that they had “no idea what we were supposed to be doing out there.”  We heard that on the sidelines in the 4^th quarter of the Houston game and numerous defensive players said the same thing in interviews during and after spring practices.

The Chicken or the Egg is a great question here.  I contend that we’ll see much better play from our defensive players with a more competent, knowledgeable and confident coaching staff.  That last point is perhaps the most important.

Our kids are going to feel that confidence the HC and his staff has and they are going to play with it themselves. We’ll look at some of our defensive players, see just how good they can be and indeed will think they are better than recruits than we thought they were.

So, The other question “Do you win ballgame with Xs and Os or Jimmies and Joes?” will be answered like this; with PITT you have to have the good Xs and Os to get the best of the Jimmies and Joes to have a winning season.