Pitt Football Practice Takeaways: No Such Thing As ‘Title Defense’
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PITTSBURGH — August, far more than any other month in the higher education football calendar, is primary cliche season. When cleat hits turf for the very first time in late summer months coaches mask their nervousness, pleasure and insight at the rear of previous adages about level of competition and progress. Pitt Panthers head coach Pat Narduzzi’s opening assertion to assembled media on Monday was no distinct.
In it, the seventh-yr head of this Pitt plan called this offseason ‘the smoothest’ a summer season has been and claimed that his energy and conditioning employees experienced produced his workforce extra athletic across the board.
‘We are noticeably stronger than we have been a year in the past,’ Narduzzi mentioned. ‘Our numbers went up in the squat, the bench. We are rapid.’
The first day of follow yielded minimal time or house to consider those statements in comprehensive but did grant some insight into how the Panthers are approaching their encore to 2021’s historic marketing campaign.
No This kind of Matter As a ‘Title Defense’
Every single crew, whether they received 12 game titles or dropped 12 games in 2021, will notify you that they are turning the site now that 2022 has rolled all-around. The past is overlooked, for improved or worse. Even though that might be correct, Narduzzi won’t want to act like 2021 in no way happened.
‘There’s no goal on our back and we are not definitely defending any for the reason that it is not likely any place,’ he reported. ‘It’s there. [The ACC Championship] trophy is not going to depart that place out there in front of the creating.’
Narduzzi in its place reframed the question, indicating that his staff is not going to be passive or emerge stunned when opponents counter. It cannot be the similar approach if the Panthers want to attain the very same heights.
‘We are not going to be the hunted. We are going searching ourselves,’ Narduzzi claimed. ‘We are heading following them and we are going right after them harder than we did a 12 months in the past. … I feel it will be enjoyable to enjoy but we are not heading to sit again and do the exact same thing we did previous 12 months and believe it can be just going to materialize again.’
Versatility is the Purpose for Cignetti, New Offense
Speaking of distinct, enter Frank Cignetti Jr. He’s familiar with the Panthers after acquiring put in 2009-2010 with them as the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach – the exact same position he holds now.
All through the offseason, offensive deal with Carter Warren claimed that the offense Cignetti’s installing won’t be significantly unique from what Pitt experienced operate under the prior coordinator, Mark Whipple. But the Panthers are evidently fascinated in modifying their technique, in accordance to Cignetti.
‘We’d love to be balanced in phrases of run vs. go. All the things is various dependent on how the activity plays out. Of course, we will have to see with the staff groupings, no matter whether we’re run-go balanced or not. Football’s a situational match.’
Narduzzi emphasized that identical position, one particular he’s designed several moments this offseason, but continue to would like the offense to be adaptive. Moving from pass-weighty to balanced isn’t going to mean reverting to football’s stone age.
‘I believe we are going to be a minor little bit extra well balanced soccer group. We are likely to however sling it all around like we do, and we are still heading to, but we have obtained to create a very little bit a lot more of a working game at periods. And we’re also heading to play, I have told you guys in the previous, we are heading to do what the box dictates.’
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Western Michigan Loss Nevertheless Serves a Lesson
Pitt’s loss to Western Michigan in 2021 was the but of unlimited external ridcule, even for a team that finished with 11 wins and a conference championship. It was just one of the handful of blemishes on a wonderful season and it eats at the Panthers pretty much 11 months just after the reality.
‘Everyone is aware that we fell small last yr, even although we received a championship,’ senior defensive end Habakkuk Baldonado said. ‘We could have been in the College Soccer Playoff if we didn’t stumble in the approaches we did.’
It has stuck with them so considerably that, in the observe facility for the duration of the offseason, televisions all-around the constructing flashed the last score from that activity consistently. It can be a reminder of how near they ended up and how tough it is to get to the new heights they’re aiming for. It is a frequent, brutally painful lesson, in accordance to redshirt junior basic safety Brandon Hill.
‘We acquired a ton from that match,’ Hill said. ‘Everybody hates to reduce. … To have that in the again of our intellect for the relaxation of the year, I really feel like that fueled us. … We want to appear out and give our very best shot because we’re constantly likely to get theirs.’
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