Before the armada of eight buses moved 123 Pitt football players from the South Side to Heinz Field on Thursday, Pat Narduzzi led a team meeting.

While the coach was laying out the day’s instructions, someone asked, “Who’s the toughest player on the team?”

“Someone said David Green,” Narduzzi said, relating the story to reporters before the start of the practice.

But Narduzzi pointed to several other contenders for that unofficial crown.

“Devin Danielson is pretty darn tough,” he said, also mentioning Calijah Kancey, Tyler Bentley and Keyshon Camp.

“If he stays healthy, that guy’s electric,” Narduzzi said of Camp. “He’s looked good.”

Notice a trend among those five players?

All, including Green (Central Catholic) and Danielson (Thomas Jefferson), are defensive tackles, and all return this season with different levels of experience.

“I would think one of our strengths is that D-tackle position,” Narduzzi said.

Kancey, a sophomore, was a disrupter as a freshman last season, recording seven TFLs (1½ sacks), four quarterback hurries and two pass breakups. He was a reserve until moving into the starting lineup for the final four games.

Still, he was recognized as a Freshman All-American by the Football Writers Association of America, Rivals and The Athletic, and was named to the Nagurski and Bednarik watch lists before training camp.

More important, his coaches have noticed him through the first six practices of camp.

“He’s a quicker-twitch guy who can run and make plays and cause some problems for guards who are going to try and block him one-on-one,” Narduzzi said.

Kancey also earned praise from his position coach, Charlie Partridge, for stepping up his understanding of the game.

“Calijah is the kind of guy who will grab somebody one-on-one and truly teach them. Which is fun to see,” Partridge said.

“In terms of execution, he would make some freshman mistakes (last year), which is to be expected. I feel like (this season) he’s got so much more of a mastery of the playbook. So now he can go on to working some technique things to get ahead of the play, as opposed to just reacting to a play.”

Physically, however, Kancey (6-foot, 275 pounds) has made the biggest impression on Partridge.

“The thing I’ll tell you about Calijah is his short-area quickness is off the charts,” he said. “It gets dangerous when you say things like this, but it’s, ball park, one of the best that I’ve had the opportunity to coach — in there (defensive tackle). Just in terms of how quick he is.”

When he was reminded he also coached J.J. Watt at Wisconsin, Partridge pointed out the two players are different.

“J.J. was an outside player. He was 290, different style,” he said.

But Kancey’s movement at the snap is similar.

“Just in terms of an inside guy, short area, pure quickness and twitch, (the assessment) does include J.J,” Partridge said.

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