PITTSBURGH (93.7 The Fan) – They worked together for a couple of seasons and Frank Cignetti says he knows Phil Jurkovec and that he will bounce back against West Virginia on Saturday.
“It’s not the first rough game Phil and I have been through together,” Cignetti said Wednesday. “I know how he responds. He loves football. He loves his teammates. He’s an unbelievable competitor. He always looks at himself first. I know he’s really looking forward to getting out there again.”
More than just the outcome of the game, it was some missed throws, late throws, poor decisions that led to the first-year Panther quarterback going 10-32 for 179 yards. Cignetti just chalked that up to Jurkovec having a bad day and he wasn’t the only one.
“It’s like we all play golf, putting, hitting the ball, sometimes you are in such great rhythm you don’t miss anything,” Cignetti said. “Other times, you come up short. The most important thing is that you play one play at a time and you separate it. Football is the ultimate team game. It takes everyone out there to function as one to try and get the maximum execution.”
Cignetti, like head coach Pat Narduzzi said on Monday, put a lot of it on himself. That they need to coach better. He said the pass protection has to be much better because every defense knows if you hit a quarterback early in a game it will likely throw off what they want to do.
It was interesting that the Pitt offensive coordinator brought up, unsolicited, they didn’t think about changing quarterbacks during the Cincinnati game.
When he came to the office on Sunday morning, Cignetti said he saw certain details and errors by others that made him feel better about the quarterback play. Cignetti said we don’t talk about the great plays from Saturday-including the pair of touchdown passes to Konata Mumpfield or a couple of good scrambles.
He said every quarterback, really every player that plays football always has something to clean up. You strive for excellence even though there is no such thing as perfect.
“Any quarterback, Phil in this particular case, it always starts with trusting what you see,” Cignetti said of what Jurkovec could work on. “Making good, decisive decisions with the passing game and then throwing an accurate ball. So many things come into that. You have to have good protection. You got to have the route on the same page.”
“Phil looks at himself first. The first thing he said to me is was ‘hey, I’m going to play better’. We know he will. Every quarterback has been through that. When I saw him the next morning, I could tell after watching the tape that we were going to be good to go.”
“It’s been good, you can definitely tell he’s been locked in,” said Pitt receiver Konata Mumpfield of his quarterback. “He’s the same guy week-in and week-out. He just needs to continue to be him.”
“He is being a leader,” said Pitt tight end Gavin Bartholomew. “He’s taking care of the team. He’s putting our needs first. Not everyone played great, everyone knows that. Everyone’s got places we can step up in. Right now, he’s just leading the offense, doing a great job of it.”
“We are excited about this week.”