Pitt's up-tempo offense creates opportunity to increase volume of snaps in practice

The NCAA allows its football teams 15 practice days in the spring to use as a springboard into the season.

Pitt’s Pat Narduzzi and offensive coordinator Kade Bell have found a way to build one extra period into every day — without running afoul of NCAA regulations.

It has led into what every coach wants:

“It’s repetition, repetition, repetition,” Narduzzi said Friday after the sixth practice of the spring.

Narduzzi asked his graduate assistants to count the plays in practice during days three, four and five. They found out that the offense ran a total of 48 more plays over those days than in previous years, which breaks down to about 15 more every day.

“That’s a whole period,” he said. “It’s like we’re getting an extra period. The volume they put in is remarkable, the motions and shifts and all that stuff. We’re doing a lot more offense than we’ve done in the past.

“Seems like after practice we’re watching a lot of video. It’s 5 o’clock and we’re still watching practice tape.”

In jest, he quipped, “We cheated the NCAA.”

The additional snaps are a result of Bell’s wishes, a large package of plays and reduced time between snaps in the up-tempo offense. Narduzzi said 75% of the snaps come off after only 22 seconds, which would virtually eliminate delay of game penalties.

With the extra snaps, it naturally follows that all five scholarship quarterbacks — not just QB1 Nate Yarnell — are getting more work in practice.

“It’s his philosophy to get more snaps (for everyone),” Narduzzi said of Bell. “It’s usually three red jerseys standing back there bored to death. They come out to play football, regardless if they’re going to start for us or never play a down for us … at least get an opportunity to throw it around a little bit.”

Narduzzi said Yarnell didn’t get any snaps with the first and second units in the past.

“It was more NFLish,” the coach said. “It was QB1 gets all the reps and the backup gets the scout reps. It was more of that style which wasn’t my favorite, but I’m just the head coach. I’m not the offensive coordinator. As long as it works, I’m good.”

Yarnell, Christian Veilleux and Eli Holstein are getting the majority of the snaps, Narduzzi said. But he pointed out that freshman quarterback Julian Dugger (Penn Hills) is “starting to come out of his shell.”

“Love him, has a great demeanor to him every day.”

Part of what Narduzzi will look for Saturday in the closed scrimmage at Acrisure Stadium is how much of that freshman shyness has disappeared since Dugger enrolled in January.

“I’m interested to see what he can do,” Narduzzi said. “He knows what to do, but he’s a little bit shy going out there right now. Things are moving fast. He told coach Bell he’s ready to go.”

Narduzzi added that redshirt freshman Ty Dieffenbach has improved every day.

The quarterbacks will get a large dose of scrutiny from the coaching staff Saturday. Narduzzi is especially eager to see what his players can do in full pads on the field where games will be played in the fall.

He’s so excited he may have made a pact with the weatherman.

“I told the guys (we’ll practice) in a wind storm, rain storm,” he said. “Probably the only thing that will put us (inside) is a tornado and we know that’s not going to happen.”