April 11, 2009

Recap

Pitt Head Coach Dave Wannstedt:

Opening statement:
“I thought that in today’s game, there weren’t a lot of surprises. We wanted to go out there and keep it pretty basic and see what we have. One thing that I learned today was that our defensive line is a little further along than our offensive line. I thought that Shayne Hale, Brandon Lindsey, and Tyler Tkach showed up for us. Something that was really encouraging to me was the development of our younger players. Obviously, our young guys are going to be with us for awhile, and it was great to see them improving. It was hard to evaluate all of our quarterbacks because of the lack of time to practice. The running backs weren’t as effective and that’s a priority for us to focus on in August. Our Conway Award winners, Max Gruder and Pat Bostick, both worked extremely hard and had excellent spring sessions. Pat came in and lost a little weight, worked hard and he continued to make strides. Max was constantly studying and trying to improve himself.”

On Pitt’s defense:
“This defense has a lot of depth. In the past, we’ve had outstanding players in certain positions on defense, but this year’s challenge is for the players to continue to make plays and to continue to have that edge. Defense is based on giving great effort and if we continue to do that good things will happen.”

On the play of the offensive line:
“The offensive line was out of sync, mostly due to injuries, but we know we have a lot of work to do and we’re not going to overreact based on their play today.”

On the quarterbacks:
“The quarterbacks transitioned well with our new offensive coordinator, Frank Cignetti. They all worked hard. Today we didn’t want to do anything specific. All of the quarterbacks got in reps, but they were under a lot of pressure all day, they didn’t have a lot of time to throw.”