PAT NARDUZZI: Obviously the last couple weeks we've come up a point short, which in my career I don't know if I've ever been a point short two weeks in a row, but we're this far away from really being 5-0, and that's really the attitude we take.
We've got a good football team. We've made a lot of plays on the year and we've missed a couple plays, which everybody in the country does. Surely we'd like to sit here and be undefeated at this point, but that's not where we are, so we've got to deal with the reality. We're going to have to fight through some adversity and just fight to come back. We've got a great team this week in Miami, so another ranked team we get to go face and do it on the road.
Got a lot of faith in our football team. I love this team, and like I said, when you watch the tape from Saturday, probably more than the week before, I think I was more upset the week before against North Carolina State than I was -- when you watch the tape, what pops out to me is attitude and effort. I mean, our kids got a great attitude. They never quit. We're down, it's back and forth, they're on the road. A lot of things can happen; it can get away from you. It hadn't got away from our guys. Very easily after a 77-yard pass, after a two-yard loss, where things could just unravel, but our guys don't unravel at all.
Obviously we don't want to give up big plays, but the effort that our kids played with in all three phases is pretty darned good. It's as good as I've been around, and that's all you can ask for as a football coach is your guys are playing their tails off for each other.
I loved our kids' attitude. I loved their toughness. But those inches that we've got to get, whether it's we're down on the goal line, it's 4th and 1 on the goal line and Des (Deslin Alexandre) has got the quarterback by the back of the jersey and goes to pull him and he starts to tug him and it just lets go, that's what I'm talking about. Just we're that close. He's in perfect position, he ain't getting in if we pull him back, but that's 4th and 1 at the goal line. That's seven points there.
Going back to the field goals, those long ones -- let's get another 1st down, let's get one more 1st down and then if we've got to kick it, at least it's in the 30s instead of the 40s. Those types of things.
And then obviously the fundamental things of I think you guys asked a question on Saturday was it a busted coverage. Obviously it wasn't, but it's fundamentals, and it's technique and giving that receiver something we don't want to give him at times, and I won't get into the details of that, but we've just got to do a better job as coaches putting them in better position and getting their technique down.
Probably the biggest mistake of the day in my opinion is just without Damarri Mathis out there, I think our corners each took 90 reps the week before and 77 (Saturday at Boston College), so you're looking at depth, and we're going to have to -- with the tempo we're going to see this week when we go down to Miami, we're going to have to rotate our corners, we're going to have to keep them fresh, and I did a poor job of making sure that we were doing that, and we were putting our corners out there for 77 plays on Saturday, and that's a long time. Rashad Weaver and Patrick Jones don't go 77 plays. They're kind of like in a wrestling match, and some people differ with you, those guys it's a -- if you've ever wrestled, it's exhausting to wrestle, and you're wrestling in a hand war, in a physical war up there.
But when you're running a ton, that's the other end of it, which I've never done. I can't say I've ever been there. But I've had linebackers move to D-end and kind of gone, holy cow, Coach, this is different; I can't play 10 plays in a row. It's just different. But I've never played corner, but obviously we've got to be better on the back end.
If we eliminate the big plays and make them earn it -- even the first drive of the game was 14 plays, and we bent but did not break and caused a field goal. That's what we've got -- we just can't give them the big chunks, and we've got to do a better job there, and that's the game really. Some of those little things.
And then one other thing that -- we get one turnover, we each got one turnover. Their turnover is down on our own 17-yard line and the defense shows up and gets another turnover, but when we got our one turnover -- we thought we had three, but we got our one, our offense has got to go 80. So it's where you get those turnovers that are critical, as well. Those inches and turnovers, as well, just some things you just can't control.
But I was very, very happy with our attitude and our effort and really toughness. I thought we went out and played tough, which is really a mark of a Pitt football team.
Again, going to Miami, I'll just step into that because obviously that chapter is closed, but I'm trying to close it for you guys. But Miami and Manny Diaz, obviously they've had a heck of a year so far Stumbled last week versus the No. 1 team in the country.
And obviously Miami has got a ton of speed. They've got some transfers both on the offensive side of the ball and the defensive side of the ball. One of the best defensive ends, Phillips, is a transfer from UCLA. They've got a safety that's also from out USC, I believe. Obviously they've got a quarterback and a right tackle that are from Houston that came together -- I guess, a package deal -- that are very athletic. So those are some of the top guys, as well. So we'll have our hands full down there.
Rhett Lashlee came from SMU, very explosive, fast tempo. It'll be the fastest tempo that we've seen to date. Be very similar to Syracuse but probably faster. We're trying to think, we've got like 60 snaps of 15 seconds or faster, so that's a ton of snaps, so they're going to go and we've got to be -- main thing is get lined up and be fresh as we can be, and I think that's probably the most important thing.
But very talented four-down again this week on defense. Play a lot of man free like we saw last week, play a little bit of cover two and a mixture of both, and again, very athletic on both sides of the ball offensively and defensively.
Q. What's the latest on Kenny Pickett?
PAT NARDUZZI: Kenny, he's banged up. But he was a lot better yesterday than I thought he might be. We'll see what happens at practice this week, but the one thing I know about Kenny is he's tough as can be. You talk about nails, that guy -- that last run he had down on the goal line, he's tough, and it's going to be hard to hold him out, that's for sure.
Q. You mentioned being like this close to being 5-0 at this point, now 3-2. Do you feel like this team should be 5-0 at this point given what's happened?
PAT NARDUZZI: We can do do-you-think, do-you-think, do-you-think. We aren't. If you make a couple plays you're this far away from being it. So that's what I think. I don't know if I can elaborate on it any more than that. You're a few plays away, and we've got to win it in the fourth quarter, we've got to find a way to finish the darned game.
Q. You guys have seen two really strong quarterback performances by your opponents two weeks in a row and now you're about to face D'Eriq King. You guys have only lost by one point the past two weeks. You often talk about tweaking your defensive game. Do you think it's still going to be more of a tweaking of your game to address this week or are there certain changes that you're saying, hey, if we do a structural change here or there, that might give you a better chance to win this time around?
PAT NARDUZZI: Yeah, we're going to tweak it whatever we have to do in coverage. We're not going to put in a new front or a new coverage or a new blitz, I can tell you that, defensively. We're not going to do it. If we did it, we'd be sitting here next Monday feeling worse than you feel today. I think that's a recipe for disaster.
I've had different coordinators, I've seen different coordinators through the years try to do that, and from my experience that never works out. Never works out well, ever.
Q. You mentioned the tempo with Miami on offense, how they just run, run, run plays like crazy. Any similarities to UCF and kind of how fast they were?
PAT NARDUZZI: Yeah, that's a great comparison. Syracuse used to be a little bit faster so I would have always said it was Syracuse, but if you had to compare it I would say it's probably more comparable to what we're going to feel to the UCF game from a year ago, no doubt about it, and two years ago. That's probably the best comparison for sure.
Q. Kenny's completion percentage has gone down every week. I think I could be wrong but it seems like he's throwing into a lot of tight windows. Is there enough separation with your wide receivers and opposing DBs?
PAT NARDUZZI: It depends on if they hold you or not. It depends if you get held or not. There's one time Jordan Addison was like this and there's no call. A week ago we got a call on that one. I always thought when your shirt did this, it was a hold. But we're not going to get separation if you get held, and obviously we can always get better releases, but give those guys credit, too, they're good athletes, too.
