Pitt only punted twice in its opener against Wofford last week, and the first one triggered some angst on the sideline.
Pitt had fourth-and-20 on the Wofford 45-yard line in the first quarter when Caleb Junko placed a punt near the goal line. Three Pitt players — they’re called gunners — surrounded the ball, but failed to down it before it crossed the goal line for a touchback that coaches hate. An opportunity to pin down Wofford inside the 5-yard line was lost.
Special teams coach Andre Powell went to the video archives and found evidence of former Pitt gunner Tre Tipton, who was a master at chasing down bounding punts before they crossed the goal line. Narduzzi hopes the message hit home.
”Caleb Junko had a great day (averaging 46 yards on two punts),” Narduzzi said, “but we ruined his day by squandering an opportunity to have him downed inside the 5-yard line, at least.”
Narduzzi said the problem was cleaned up less than 24 hours after the game with a conversation and some video study.
“Sometimes you have a good sky punt guy that goes down and does his job, and sometimes it’s new guys,” he said. “We had a couple new guys in there. Tre Tipton used to be the best guy at that. You knew Tre was going to go down, and he did it really, really good. We’ve just got to get back to that.
“That’s just one major thing that turned into a major play, in my opinion, and we lost 25 yards of net punt.”
