Pitt Head Coach Paul Chryst Talks About Playing Louisville

Like the rest of the college football coaches around the country, Paul Chryst, a first year head coach at Pitt spoke to media members recapping week six of the college football season and previewing the next opponent.

Pitt is coming off a tough 14-13 loss to Syracuse on Friday night. Coach Chryst spent some time recapping that game and also talked about Pitt’s next opponent, the 16^th ranked Louisville Cardinals. Here are some quotes from Chryst, via PittsburghPanthers.com

On Louisville quarterback Teddy Bridgewater:

“I think he’s talented first of all. As a thrower, he’s very efficient. He’s in the 70s as far as completion percentage. I think he’s tough and can hurt you in a couple different ways. It sure seems like he has command of the offense. I think a quarterback that is talented, looks like he plays with confidence and knows his players around him, that makes for a pretty good combination.”

On if there is a specific approach or mindset they’re taking going in to the Louisville game:

“No, that’s not to minimize this week or anything, but I do think it’s important that you approach every game as a big game for us. Therefore we’re going to treat it as such and this is a big game.”

On how he feels about playing at 11a.m.:

“You get up and go play the game.”

On an early kickoff eliminating wait time:

“We get to play early and it’s awesome. We don’t have to worry about the tailgate; we don’t have to worry about all those things. We get to get up, jump in the shower, eat a little something, get on a bus and go play a game. It’s a great time.”

On if the close loss helps communicate to the players that the season is a journey:

“It provides an opportunity and how we seize that opportunity or not, time will tell. Everything that happens to a person can help form and, not create who you are, but you are a by-product of how you handle those situations, what you learn from the situations. Each game provides a little different lesson. There are lessons to be learned in that by everyone. I feel confident, I can’t say I’m positive, I feel confident that the one thing is clearly players and coaches, we care about this. When you care and something happens, you want to learn from it, want to take a way from it. I feel confident that we will learn from the lessons learned and I feel confident that we’ll build on the positives. We’ve got to do that. That’s the great thing we get to do is learn from it, turn the page, but not forget it and move forward. We’ve got one of the top 20 teams in the country coming in and that’s who we get to go against. We’re pretty fortunate that way.”