North Carolina Tar Heels College Football Pregame Quote, 10/14/2019

We’re sitting here at midseason 3-3 and tied for first place in the Coastal. We probably would’ve taken this six weeks ago. It hasn’t worked out like we thought it would; it’s been different. But it is what it is. I do feel like Georgia Tech was a really good response after all the energy that our guys spent against Clemson. They didn’t do the same at Wake Forest and [against] Appalachian [State] after the first two games. We didn’t play as well as we needed to at Georgia Tech, but they played with a lot of emotion and played hard. So, that’s progress. Last week’s practice was really, really good. And yesterday’s practice was good. So, I think they’re starting to learn how to compete every day. We also have to give them a lot of credit, too, for going to Georgia Tech and winning for only the second time in 22 years in Atlanta. People kind of overlook that and Georgia Tech went to a bowl last year. ‚Ķ We haven’t been to a bowl in at least three years. So, the guys really deserve credit for going down there and playing as hard as they did. Our fans also deserve credit. We’re only one of nine schools in the country that have had 100 percent capacity for our home games. And that’s really cool for the criticism we’ve taken in the past. I applaud our fans and thank our fans and our students for coming and coming early and making a difference in our games because that’s something we really, really need.

There’s been a lot of talk this week after byes that some of the teams in the ACC have not played well and they’ve lost. So, we went back and looked at our history after byes and we’re 30-7-1 since I’ve been coaching. We were 8-2-1 here ‚Äì and obviously some of that is when we didn’t beat anybody ‚Äì and at Texas we were 22-5. So, I think what we’re doing works. There’s a lot more injuries. When you go back and survey what’s happened after your open date, I’m really not sure if that’s not kids taking care of themselves on the weekend, if it’s not coaches hitting the guys too hard. Our philosophy is that you rest the older ones who have played a whole lot. We didn’t hit our backs last week. We hit the young ones, but we didn’t hit the guys who have been playing all the time. And we really worked hard with all the younger ones to teach and at the same time we worked on Virginia Tech. So, that’s been our philosophy. And then we gave them off Friday and Saturday, and they came back Sunday and they did a great job at practice yesterday. I think a part of them, in talking to them, is they’re really excited to be in the mix. People say, ‚ÄòWell, do they have a legitimate chance?’ Well, obviously we do. It’s there for us. We control our own destiny and every team is as good as we are moving forward. We understand what’s out there for us and we’ve got to improve in a lot of areas, but it is what it is. The injuries are real, too. We’ve lost four starters in the secondary, and it’s not just losing starters. You lose Nick Polino and you lose some others like Charlie Heck for a game or two. But when you lose them all at one position, it puts a tremendous amount of pressure on Jay Bateman and Dre Bly. They’ve just got to do a great job of coaching other guys, and I told them that’s what it is. Everybody says next man up. Well, it is, and you’ve got to coach some guys who haven’t played very much and you have to coach them really, really well. So, that’s important to us.

Going to Lane Stadium, which is a very difficult place to play but a fun place to play, we haven’t done very well there since they joined the ACC; we’re 2-5 up there. So, it will be a great challenge for us to go on the road. They’re 4-2 and coming off a great win over Miami and then beat Rhode Island this weekend, so they’ll be all excited. Justin Fuente is a good friend of mine. I did a number of his games when he was at Memphis and then did some games at Virginia Tech, as well. He’s a guy who I’ve known for a long time, who I like, I admire and I respect. It will be fun to see him, and I’m proud of the job he’s doing. Since they’ve changed quarterbacks to Hendon Hooker, who is from Dudley, they’ve really done well. He’s a big, tall guy who is a powerful runner, but he’s throwing the ball well. And their receivers are as good as anybody in the country. So, it’s not a good match for us with the defensive backs that we’ve lost. And when you look at Virginia Tech for 100 years, you talk about Bud Foster and his defense because he does as good a job as anybody of changing it up and moving people and mixing it up and giving you different looks. Our offensive line will have to block guys who are moving a lot this weekend. We’ll have to pick up a lot of blitzes and Sam [Howell] will have to do a good job of controlling all that. Because of Frank Beamer and Beamer Ball forever, you also know the kicking game is important when you go to Blacksburg. Guys are excited about it. We’ll have a good week’s practice and get ready to go and see where we are.

On how much stock he puts into how opponents perform over the course of the season:

You look at South Carolina beating Georgia and it has to give our guys confidence. You look at Clemson just dominating Florida State and once again, it has to give our guys confidence. One thing we asked them do, their assignments on Thursday night, Friday and Saturday, were to watch NC State against Syracuse and go through a game plan in your mind and try to pit us against them, watch Virginia against Miami, watch Georgia Tech against Duke because you’ve played Georgia Tech and then watch Clemson against Florida State and see where that is, watch South Carolina. There was a little buzz in the room yesterday about those upsets. It’s interesting me after I go back and have my five years in TV and ‚Äì I’ll try to say this where it makes some sense ‚Äì I’ve always thought golf was so different because there is a different winner very Sunday and sometimes we’ve never heard of the guy. It’s just out of nowhere. College football other than golf, to me, has the biggest change in a team’s personality from week to week on a Saturday. You can see a team one week and they look absolutely great. You can see them the next week and they’re awful. And it’s the same people and it’s really hard to understand. But I think other than maybe golf, there’s the biggest differential in teams in college football week to week, and I’ve learned that one game doesn’t lead to another. So about the time you think, ‚ÄòSomebody is there,’ they stink, they absolutely stink. And I know you all have to pick them every time. I used to pick them and I’d say, ‚ÄòThis is going to happen, man.’ And they were awful. I was talking to the coach the night before and he’d say, ‚ÄòMan, we’ve had a great week of practice and we’re ready to go. This game plan is great.’ I picked Notre Dame to beat Miami when Miami won 10 and they killed Notre Dame, and the reason I picked Notre Dame to win was because the Notre Dame running game was so much better than the Miami running game that it was going to be a blowout. Well, at 2 o’clock in the morning, I get a text from Stacy Searels [saying], ‚ÄòI guess you really know what you’re talking about,’ because they dominated the running game did Miami and Notre Dame didn’t make any yards. So, you just can’t tell. And I think it’s the reason why people love college football so much. Because when you show up, you’ve got no clue what’s going to happen. These are kids and it’s just crazy. You sit there and watch it all weekend and it’s just crazy. And you can’t figure out why.

On what he thought when he heard people say “something was off” with Clemson when the Tigers won by one point in Chapel Hill:

I didn’t [pay attention]. But normally if you’re a team that’s won two games last year and you’re a team that won the national championship and it’s down to one play, you’re going to figure something was off. I think that’s just a natural reaction. I’m hoping we’re getting better. Either way, we got Clemson’s attention because they played really well Saturday.

On who will provide depth in the secondary as a few players deal with injuries:

Well, you’ve got Greg Ross, who has played a lot. And then you’ve got Obi [Egbuna], who has got to play some now. He’s growing up. You’ve got Javon Terry, who can play and needs to play more. And we’re going to look at DeAndre Hollins some at corner, as well. So, we’re really just putting the guys out there and coaching the heck out of them. That’s what we’ve said, ‚ÄòYou guys, it’s time to play.’ And a lot of the guys who don’t play whine about not playing, here’s your chance. Storm [Duck] will start. I’m counting him as the old experienced one, so I didn’t even put him in the group. And he’s playing really well. So, we’re really pleased with Storm, who three weeks ago we were afraid to put in a game and then we had to start him against Clemson. Dre [Bly] is making his money. He’s having to coach the heck out of them. To me, no better person than Jay Bateman, who has dealt with this kind of stuff before, Army had a lot of numbers, but sometimes they didn’t have the great players. So, they had to do a tremendous job of scheming to cover some guys, and I have full confidence in Jay that he can do that, even though watching Virginia Tech, those receivers are really good.

On if he’s been surprised by what Sam Howell has done:

It has been surprising to see what Sam has done. I’m really proud of him. He’s tough. We didn’t protect very well early; we’re doing better now. Whether he was holding the ball a little too long or probably a combination of both when you start looking at it. And then you lose Jace [Ruder] and then Cade [Fortin] transfers, so we went from strength at quarterback ‚Äì unknown strength because we at least had numbers ‚Äì to Vincent Amendola now as the backup quarterback, and he’s doing really well. We’ve had three weeks now for him to prepare, so he’s in a much better place to go in a game now than he was before. One of the disappointing things at Georgia Tech was when we didn’t score when we had opportunities early, I wanted to play a lot of guys and we didn’t get an opportunity to do that on offense. We did defense and then when we put the White defense in, they scored in five plays or something. That was a disappointment because we wanted Vincent to get some plays and he didn’t get to do it. I really think in the future, with the way college football is and the portal, quarterbacks are transferring so quickly ‚Äì and we ran out of quarterbacks at Texas when I was there before; we had a transfer, a concussion issue and all of a sudden we’re down to one quarterback there ‚Äì I think you’re going to have to start looking at really concentrating on getting great walk-ons at quarterback. You’re going to have to concentrate on, if there’s a quarterback who is also a safety and you sign him as a safety, he’s going to have to be a third-team quarterback because we’re all going to have to look for numbers at quarterback because the only way they normally stay is if you have an older one and a younger one and the younger one can see that he’s going to be able to play in time. But if you’re like us and you had three at the same age, it makes it more difficult.

On if there’s an emphasis on finding in-state quarterbacks:

Absolutely. Just like Vincent [Amendola]. We took Vincent late. A lot of guys want to come to the school, and with that priority walk-on spot you can get in school. So, we probably need to look at that position as a position of importance at quarterback.

On what Beau Corrales has done to put himself in the mix at receiver:

Beau [Corrales] has been tall. He’s got great length. He can jump; he can dunk a basketball. I told Beau the other day, Beau was a guy who when we got here was really inconsistent. He’s got some diabetes issues that he fights and his blood sugar goes up and down. And he has done an amazing job of fighting through the stuff he has to fight with with his blood sugar level and all that stuff and playing and being consistent. In fact, we told him his standard is up so high now we’re mad at him because he didn’t catch the high ball in the end zone at Georgia Tech because we’re used to seeing him catch those balls now. But I think Beau has been one of the most pleasant surprises since we’ve been here. He has really stepped up. And we’ve got guys like Emery Simmons, who is so close to playing. We’ve got to trust him and put him out there because he’s done well when he’s in. Antoine Green is getting healthy again. So, we’re about to get healthier here at receiver. We’ve just got to catch balls. We can’t drop balls. We dropped a few yesterday in practice, and Lonnie Galloway spent about 45 minutes after practice throwing them tennis balls. One of my friends was out there and he said, ‚ÄòWhat’s that about? They’re not going to be catching tennis balls.’ I said, ‚ÄòYou know when you go to the golf course and they have these little bitty holes and you’re trying to putt in and when you see the real hole it’s real big?’ I haven’t seen that big hole yet on my golf, but same thing with football. A football is huge. If you can catch a tennis ball and have to focus on it, you ought to be able to catch a football.

On if a lack of focus has been the main reason for the drops:

I think so. They can catch. They’re talented. I tried to help them the other day in Atlanta and said, ‚ÄòIt’s the sun. Man, the sun is in their eyes.’ Well, there wasn’t any sun. It was shady.

On his philosophy regarding the four-game freshman rule:

It’s new‚Ķ In my opinion, because we talked a lot about it at the American Football Coaches Association, the rule was put in place by in large at the end of the year when you had injuries to allow freshmen to play and not cost their redshirt year on kick teams and if you ever had a blowout. It also was put into place so if‚Ķ at the end of the year you’re blowing somebody out, instead of them not even getting in a game, put them in a game for 10 plays and let them experience that. And I think that was a great rule. Now, after Kelly Bryant transfers after four games last year, it’s opened up a brand new can of worms because guys across the country, I’m reading, are going to their fifth game, but the night before, they’re deciding they don’t want to play anymore on the road and they’re taking their shoulder pads off in the locker rooms and [saying], ‚ÄòEh, I’m not going to play.’ And that was not the purpose of the rule. So, I think it’s something that the NCAA needs to look at and we in college football need to look at to make sure that the rule does what it was put in place to do. My philosophy is you play to win so you put the guys in. Nobody redshirts that can help you win and they want to play. If not, if a guy gets hurt ‚Äî obviously Triston Miller got hurt ‚Äî that doesn’t affect him. But if a guy’s playing four games and you know that he’s not going to help you win a game and he’s at his fourth, then you hold him until injury becomes an issue. And if you still don’t have enough guys to play, you’ve got to play him because we don’t have much depth. But I told our coaches and our players, ‚ÄòNobody’s redshirting. You play if you’re going to help us win a game and we’ll look at that next year.’ If a guy’s a great player, he usually leaves after three years anyway. I redshirted some at Texas and got three years out of them. Vince Young was a redshirt. So, I say play them.

On what he tries to coach his team about bye weeks:

The biggest thing I’ve been trying to do is teach them that how you practice is how you play. What we see in practice shows up in games. So, if a guy drops the ball in practice, what I see is him dropping it against Virginia Tech and we’re less likely to call your number. You miss tackles in practice, I see you missing tackles in a game, so we’re less likely to play you if we can help it. What we’ve tried to do, I’ve really challenged our coaches with energy. Midseason, it’s kind of like midterms for kids. Sometimes, there’s more upsets this time of the year because they’re exhausted and they’re fighting their midterms. They’re staying up too late and it’s just something you don’t realize. You think, ‚ÄòOh, why are they playing so bad?’ Well, they’re whipped. So there’s this real balance at midseason of practicing them hard enough but keeping them fresh and keeping them focused. That’s one of the real challenges but one of the real thrills in coaching ‚Äî how do you get your team to play hard every week? How do you get them to be tough enough because you’re hitting and being physical and stay healthy? I think one of the real tricks in coaching, moving forward, is practicing game speed and keeping your guys healthy. It’s really hard to do, but if you can do that, it gives you a chance to be successful. So, the challenge that I’ve given our staff, our managers, our trainers, our coaches and our players is, ‚ÄòLet’s bring full energy to every meeting and let’s bring full energy to every practice.’ And that’ll give us a better chance to have energy every Saturday. And you saw it this week. Every Saturday, we turn on the TV and there’s a team that just doesn’t show up. And me in this business for 40-something years said, ‚ÄòHow can that happen? Man, you’ve got 12 games. How can you not show up?’ And it happens. You can sit there and watch it. And sometimes you can feel it. Sometimes you know it’s coming and it’s awful. And you’re trying to flip it, but it is hard to flip on a Thursday when they’re out there dropping balls and looking around, and you’re saying, ‚ÄòOkay, just grab and hold on boys. This ain’t good, brother.’ But it’s real and it’s there and it’s what you got. But to their credit, a lot of times‚Ķ on a bye week or open date, it’s hard to get the guys to practice. But the good thing for us is we’re challenging the guys on the Gray Team, ‚ÄòEvery time you’re the Virginia Tech look against our offense or our defense, we’re grading you. So, you want to play this year? When you’re on the ‚ÄòScout’ Gray Team, you make plays and that’s the way you move up and if not, you’re going to stay down there because you’ve got to earn the right to play. And in the open date week, we really work those guys and hit a lot. It’s like a spring training for them because we said, ‚ÄòHere’s your chance. You’ve got three days to prove to your coach you can get some playing time.’ So, there may be some guys that come out of that with a better chance to play.

On how his message to the team changes with bye weeks:

Every time there’s someone who makes a poor choice ‚Äî usually in sports ‚Äî we send it to them. Every time somebody gets arrested, every time someone’s drinking too much, every time somebody’s using drugs, we send it to them and say, ‚ÄòMake good choices. Because with bad choices, there’s consequences.’ Every time in the meeting, we talk to them about that. And what we talked to them about this week was, ‚ÄòA lot of teams are losing the week after their open date. Maybe they’re not taking care of themselves. That’s up to you. I can’t follow you around at night. I’m going to let you go home. I’m going to let you see your high school games on Friday night. I’m going to let you be with your parents. I can’t call you at two in the morning and see where you are. So, if you want to win and you want to play well, take care of yourself. That’s a responsibility you’ve got.’ And I’ve told them I used to worry so much about young guys getting in trouble because it changes their lives. And I had to make a decision ‚Äî after they made the decision ‚Äî of what to do with them. I’ve told them, ‚ÄòI don’t worry about that anymore. If you make a poor decision, you’ve got consequences. Period. That’s your choice, not mine.’ Thank goodness ours have made good decisions and they’ve been great kids, but if you make a poor decision and you have consequences, that’s on you because you’ve been told. And the only thing bad about it from my standpoint is if I don’t penalize you because then I’ve lied to you and I’ve lied to the team because we set standards and we have rules. You break a rule, it’s my responsibility to make sure you’re punished and that you have those consequences. So, the way I saw the attention to detail in the meeting yesterday and the way I saw practice yesterday, I would think the message is our guys really took care of themselves over the weekend.

On whether his message has increased accountability:

Absolutely. One of the problems you have when you have a transition is do they trust you or not, No. 1, because you’ve got to get to know them and they’ve got to trust you. And we were lucky that we sold them on a lot of stuff and they won the first two games, so that helped us with credibility. Secondly, we don’t have many seniors. And then you get a Patrice Rene, who was a great leader for us, hurt and you get [Nick] Polino, who’s a great leader for us, and Charlie Heck, who’s a great leader for us, hurt. And then you can call on the younger ones to lead, [but] they’re usually overloaded so it’s hard for them to lead. That’s something we’re looking at in every area. We had a young man late to a meeting the other day, which we’ve had very little of. We have 22 members of the leadership committee that the team voted on. I took the young guy before the leadership committee and they were hard on him, now. So that’s part of this process, part of this growing up. ‚ÄòWhy were you late? Did you not care? Explain it to us.’ I did let them recommend to me whether he should play or not, so we’re trying to get ownership with our leadership committee and they were hard on him. They wanted him punished, but they did want him to play.

On biggest challenge against Virginia Tech:

I think always when you’re preparing for Virginia Tech, it’s preparing the Bud Foster defense. They come from everywhere and we’re still inexperienced in the offensive line. Offensive line is getting a lot better. I think they’ve probably improved the most on our team ‚Äî them and linebackers because those were big question marks coming into the year. But Bud brings them from everywhere and he puts eight [or] nine in the box so it makes it very, very difficult to run the ball and then he blitzes you, so you have to hit some throws if you’re going to win there. Now, since you’ve got [Hendon] Hooker at quarterback, he can run and throw. He really changes their dynamic of what they’re doing offensively and it’s more what Justin [Fuente] likes. So, I think that’s been a huge difference for them since Miami.

On whether he considers Virginia Tech a rival game and an important recruiting game now that they are in the same conference:

Everybody has that theory. ABC, anybody but Carolina. And when we’re good ‚Äî we’re doing well in recruiting right now ‚Äî everybody hates us, so everybody’s a rival. The Georgia Tech win was huge for us because we’re recruiting really well in Atlanta and that’s important. We’re going to recruit the state of Virginia, we’re going to recruit Virginia Beach. Always, Virginia and Virginia Tech are factors there. People ask, ‚ÄòIs this game going to affect recruiting?’ I don’t think it does, especially immediately, because most of the guys have already decided what they’re going to do and the ones that haven’t even said they’d decided have decided. They’re just not telling any of us yet. So, maybe it affects recruiting two years down the road, but I’ve never felt like a game affects current recruiting because the kids have already made their decisions.

On differences in coaching, both his own and his staff’s, since the first game:

I think we’ve improved because we know the team better now. I wish we had some games back where we could have flipped some of that emotion earlier in the week that I didn’t think we did a very good job of. That’s me at the beginning of this. The second thing is the coaches get to know each other better because these coaches have never coached together and that’s scary because they’ve got opinions. You’re trying to put a philosophy together and then [they say], ‚ÄòWell, I don’t like that.’ Well, doesn’t matter. We’ve got to choose something, so let’s go with it. And then you’ve got to know your philosophy as compared to your kids. And we couldn’t see that, especially on defense in the spring because so many of them were out. So, we didn’t know who we had until we got here and started in August. And the coaches are getting to know what I want more. I can go in and tell them and they hear it, but they don’t know exactly what it means and now they know what is expected of them. I think we’re at a much better spot now at midseason than we were even three weeks ago.

On differences between his coaching now and towards the end of his career at Texas:

I think I’m a lot different. I’m having more fun, I’m a lot more relaxed, I’m a lot more direct. Maybe when you get old, you can say what you want. People used to say I had ‚Äòcoach speak.’ I don’t have any ‚Äòcoach speak’ anymore. I didn’t think I did before, but you were always careful because when I got to ESPN, they said, ‚ÄòYou’re always so careful with what you say.’ I said, ‚ÄòYeah. You’re talking to legal counsel, you’re talking to your AD, you’re talking to your regents, you’re talking to your trustees, your’e talking to momma, you’re talking to dad, you’re talking to grandma, you’re talking to the high school coach and the preacher. So, everything you say is toward recruiting.’ Now, I just tell you what I think. I don’t care anymore.

On whether he sees a different response to his new direct approach:

I do. It’s been a lot better. I’m really hard on the coaches and then I move on. I don’t stay mad, but if a coach is messing something up I want fixed immediately, I’m not going to say it publicly. I’m not going to embarrass him, but I’m going to be really direct and hard on him. I get all their opinions, but sometimes I think at Texas, at the end, I was swayed too much and if I didn’t really believe something and a bunch of them did‚Ķ I’ve been doing this longer than they have, I know more than they do. So, I’m going to do what I think is right after I get their opinions and they know that.

On what he spoke to coaches about after the weekend games:

I just love watching the games and seeing them. I just flip. I flip back and forth, so I miss some stuff. And I go back to my old ESPN hat. How would I rank them now? Who’s the surprise? And I think the biggest surprise is LSU with what they’ve done offensively. The young guy they hired from the Saints and they’re moving the ball. They’re in the mix, they’re a factor for sure. But I think that’s probably the biggest surprise that I would see and you’ve still got Clemson. It’s amazing in looking at Dabo; at Texas, we were winning a lot like he was and when you get there, fans and media aren’t fair. The expectation for Clemson is that they blow everybody out. You go back to a couple of years ago, they barely beat Syracuse, they barely beat Pittsburgh. They win a national championship and we think, ‚ÄòGod, they hung in there and it’s a comeback.’ Now we’re saying, ‚ÄòThey stink.’ They don’t stink. They’ve got the best players in the country and still probably the best team in the country. So, the fact that we played them good, everybody’s mad at them instead of being excited for us. It’s weird how people look at it. But the key is to win. And you’re not going to blow everybody out every week, but the expectations on Trevor Lawrence ‚Äî all those people criticizing him would darn sure take him. I can tell you that and if he went out right now, he’d be a No. 1 draft pick. We can say what we want. Ol’ boy is really good. I stood out there and watched him in pregame at 6-foot-6 and [220 pounds] and runs [4.7-second 40-yard dash] and never lost a game in his life, and we’re criticizing him.