Tuesday notes: A new format, a homecoming, practice fights and more

There have been two defining elements of spring games since Pat Narduzzi arrived at Pitt in 2015.

The draft format the sets the rosters and the oftentimes low entertainment value of the product on the field. And those two elements were not unconnected, since the draft component often led to unbalanced rosters, mismatched offensive lines and general disarray.

This year, for a variety of reasons, at least one of those elements will not be present – and that might lead to different results on the field.

“We’re not going to do the draft, so there will be no draft tomorrow,” Narduzzi said after Tuesday’s practice. “Still debating on the format. The kids don’t know the format yet, so I’ll probably just hold and kind of sleep on it. It’s whatever’s best for the team. Just going to kind of wait and see. But it will be competitive. You won’t be watching individual drills. It will be a game.”

There are a several options for Narduzzi, who could set Saturday’s Blue-Gold Game at Acrisure Stadium as an offense-vs-defense competition or, with the help of his coaching staff, still play a “game” with rosters set by the coaches.

The advantage of that second approach would be to create some amount of balance in the rosters and possibly generate some compelling matchups – and maybe a bit more scoring than the spring game has produced recently. In the last four Blue-Gold Games, there has been a total of nine offensive touchdowns scored, including two in last year’s 10-7 barn-burner.

“There’s good and bad,” Narduzzi said. “I love the draft. I think it’s fun to get them in here and do it. I’ve done it for years and years and years. But sometimes there’s just some mismatches that you don’t want to see, and I’d rather it be a cleaner scrimmage but stay safe at the same time. So the good thing is, the draft keeps them safer but I think guys are smart enough to do it the right way.”

As usual, Narduzzi doesn’t intend to show anything on offense or defense – “We can pretty much run anything we ran last year without doing too much junk,” he said. “Anything new, we won’t do and obviously there’s new stuff on both sides of the ball.” – but he’s confident that the vanilla offense and defense can still pack some entertainment value for the fans to descend on the North Shore Saturday afternoon.

“They’ll be more excited about this game – I would encourage everybody to come out. They’ll be more excited about this spring game than the past, I think. Just because you’re going to have, I think, a little bit different deal. I’ll leave it at that.”

Homecoming “game”
For some of Pitt’s newest transfers, Saturday’s spring game presents not just an opportunity to play in front of fans, but something even more unique:

An opportunity to play in front of hometown fans for the first time.

Safety Donovan McMillon, quarterback Phil Jurkovec and running back Derrick Davis will all be making their Pitt debuts for the hometown crowd after each opted to leave the area coming out of high school.

McMillon went to Florida. Jurkovec went to Notre Dame and then Boston College. And Davis went to LSU.

All three returned this offseason as transfers.

“I’m really excited, for sure,” McMillon said. “My scrimmage the other day was the first time I ever got the opportunity to play in Acrisure Stadium. Because we were 5A in high school, so we made the WPIAL championship twice but we didn’t get an opportunity to go play at Acrisure. 5A was a week later.”

As a western Pennsylvania native, though, there’s one thing that will be missing for McMillon when he takes the field on Saturday.

“I miss the ketchup bottles.”

Dust-ups
Fights are a part of football practice at every level, and Narduzzi said there was a scrum that involved more than a few participants at Tuesday’s practice.

“Got a little fight out there today; I had to run them. It’s been awhile since we’ve had that, so they’re still on edge, which is good.”

Narduzzi doesn’t “run them” for every fight; in fact, there are some fights that he welcomes and possibly even encourage. But he’s got some basic ground rules that he expects the players to follow.

“If it’s one-on-one, I’m good. It’s when guys jump in, that’s when I have a problem.”

Apparently guys jumped in on Tuesday.

Still, senior cornerback Marquis Williams said dust-ups like the one on Tuesday are inevitable with a team like Pitt – especially after 13 days of spring camp.

“Everybody knows we’re Pitt tough,” Williams said Tuesday. “So we’re always being tough, whether it’s offense, whether it’s defense, no matter which period it is. Everybody’s being tough, everybody’s flying around, so you never know when a fight might break out. But at the end of the day, we’re ready to pad up against another team. We’ve been going against each other for awhile now and we still have ways to go, so it’s only going to get better from there.”

An ideal position
While most of Pitt’s safeties are learning both the field and boundary positions, McMillon has been focused almost exclusively on the boundary spot. That makes sense given his size and skill set, and he said he likes what he has experienced from that position so far.

“I think I prefer boundary safety because I’m able to come in the box and make tackles and I get to be aggressive on tight ends. You have a short space where you know you can get hands on slot receivers…but when it comes down to it, whenever I get the opportunity to master boundary and be able to learn free, it’s not going to really matter to me. I’m just excited to be out there and make plays.”

Of course, McMillon isn’t too much smaller – if he’s smaller at all – than some of Pitt’s current outside linebackers. Could he eventually move to the middle of the defense?

“I could step up to make a fit. I see myself as a dynamic safety. Now, that could be something that I could see myself playing like a rover or a Star as well. I know I’m going to learn nickel as well in the summer, hopefully. But when it comes down to it, I see myself as a quarterback of the defense in the back, making the D.B. plays.”

Deciding to come back
Williams was one of nine players who opted to return as super seniors this season, and he said that he considered a number of factors in making that decision.

“It was kind of tough, just thinking about family stuff and my daughter and stuff like that. But once I talked to Coach Narduzzi and Coach Collins and everything, everything seemed so real and just planned out for me, so it wasn’t a hit-or-miss; I knew I was coming back and I’m just ready to play and ready to help my team get the championship.”

Williams said he also consulted with a few former Panthers as he was making his decision.

“I also talked to Kenny Pickett, I talked to Damar Hamlin; they all came back for another year as well. So I just view myself, looking at them and looking at them like, I’m on the same path as those guys. I’m getting the words of encouragement from them each and every day, so it’s a blessing.”

A strict diet
Williams was part of the 2018 recruiting class, so he was at Pitt when Calijah Kancey arrived a year later. That means he watched over the last four seasons as Kancey built himself into a unanimous All-American and likely first-round pick in this year’ NFL Draft.

In particular, Williams noticed how Kancey went about his business, especially this past season.

“Calijah was a pro preparing each game week,” Williams said. “Like, Calijah didn’t play a video game the whole week, he didn’t communicate with no girls that whole week. He was in the film room. He left the facility late, he came early, he went to sleep early; he was a pro already. I was just watching him each and every day like, ‘Yeah, he’s ready.’ He was a pro a long time ago.”

For his part, Williams says he intends to follow Kancey’s lead when it comes to video games and social interactions this season.

“That’s the plan.”