North Carolina Tar Heels College Football Pregame Quote, 09/23/2019

We’ve had four very close games. I don’t think I’ve ever been in a situation where we’ve had four games that came down to the last drive and last play. At the first of the year, probably if you would’ve asked me I would’ve thought we’d be 0-4, maybe 1-3, at best 2-2. I would’ve thought we might’ve won the last two, not the first two, when looking at our history and our lack of depth and the things that we’re fighting. When you go back through the stats ‚Äì I looked at all of them yesterday and studied them ‚Äì they’re really close, too. I guess when you have games that are that close, the stats would be that close. If we make mistakes like we did Saturday, we’re not going to win against anybody. We just can’t afford those mistakes right now. We have to play really, really well. So, a few things that I looked at are, No. 1, on defense ‚Äì and I will say the guys are playing so hard. They played hard every play on Saturday. So, they’re not giving up, and that’s why I think we’re coming back. We just dig ourselves in a hole. Defensively, we haven’t forced a fumble that we’ve gotten ‚Äì not one, in four games. I’ve never seen that before. That’s something we’ve got to do. It’s something we emphasize all the time. We’ve got to strip the ball loose and get it on the ground. There were two or three on the ground versus Miami and they got them and we didn’t get them. So, we’ve got to strip some balls loose and we’ve got to get them. We’ve got to play better in sudden-change situations. When they intercepted the ball and Sam [Howell] made a great tackle to save us, it’s three plays where we don’t tackle at all and they score easily. Same thing after Javonte [Williams] fumbled at Wake Forest. We go out for the sudden change and that’s when your defense has to step up, and they’ve got to make plays because those our momentum changers. They got 14 points off their turnovers. We got one interception and got no points. So, that’s really the difference in the ballgame. And the other thing is our defense has to learn to make key stops. At the end of the Wake Forest game, we were three points down or something and ready to win the game and Wake Forest takes it the length of the field when we’ve stopped them the entire second half and they kick a field goal. They also leave us a minute and six [seconds], but they take our timeouts away. And that happened again Saturday. We’ve got a third-and-4 with Appalachian [State] with a timeout in our pocket and two minutes left in the game, and they run a quarterback sweep and our corner gets sucked up inside and they make the first down. We still had a chance to win the game with 30 seconds left, but if the defense in either of those situations had stepped up and made a stop, we’ve got two minutes left in both cases and even have our timeouts at Wake Forest. Those are winnable games, for sure.

Offensively, we’ve got to protect the ball. If we turn it over three times, we’re probably not going to win. We have not been doing that. And again, those turned into points. We’ve also got to stay ahead of the chains. Too many times we’re second-and-long and third-and-long and therefore we’re not converting enough third downs. Those are things that we’ve got to continue to do better. And Saturday, it was unlike us, we dropped three passes that were catchable, and we just can’t make mistakes. The pressure on us is we need to play our best every week to have a chance to win. Special teams have just been OK. We have the great kickoff return to start the game and score in one play. It might not have helped us that we scored so fast. We might’ve been a little relaxed. We call those things imposters because when they slip in, it looks like, ‚ÄòOh, this is going to be easy.’ And it’s never easy. Early plays don’t lead to the end of the game, for sure, even though we ask them to get out in front early. Our punt coverage has been good. Our punt returns have been inadequate. We’ve got a great returner in Dazz [Newsome], and we’re not doing well enough to give him a chance to get field position. That’s something we can do better. Ben Kiernan is punting much better, so I like that. [Noah] Ruggles can make a 56-yard field goal; he makes them in practice. But we don’t protect on the right side and get it blocked. Those are mistakes that we can’t make. The seven plays that are difference-makers in a game, we’re not making.

The other thing ‚Äì and I’m not really sure ‚Äì is we’ve been atrocious in second quarters. We’ve scored 13 points and we’ve given up 41. And that makes no sense to me. I thought it was even more the first quarter, but it’s not. It’s the second quarter. We’ve come out and been pretty even after we make adjustments at halftime and then in the fourth quarter we’ve scored 45 points to nine. But we seem to always be in a hole and we’re digging ourselves out. Those are all things that we’ve got to do better. There are still too many injuries. We continue to look at why. I think it’s because we don’t have enough depth and guys are playing too long and these four teams have been very physical. All four games, they’ve all spent a lot of energy and they’ve all come down to the end. We’ll keep looking at that. It hurts us short term, and I hate it for the players who can’t play. Long term it helps you because you’re forcing young guys to go out there and play. They’re probably not ready, but it doesn’t matter. That’s why recruiting is so important to us. The freshmen who come in next year, they’re going to have to play. That’s just what it is in our program right now. If you want to play guys, come on. We’ve got plenty of room. In fact, if you’re available Saturday, we can use you on Saturday.

As far as Clemson, how exciting for our university and our program to have the defending national champ and No. 1 team in the country coming to Kenan on Saturday for an ABC national TV game. They have the best program in the country, they have the best head coach and coaches in the country, they have the most depth in the country. I started looking at our scouting report yesterday and all the people who break them down, ‚ÄòFirst-round draft choice. This one, first-round draft choice. This one, first-round draft choice.’ So, they’re for real. And they’re so good. I don’t think the quarterback [Trevor Lawrence] has ever lost a game in his life, and that’s not good. I didn’t go back and check middle school, but I bet he won then, too, or in elementary school, whenever it was. He’s such a great player. Kelly Bryant is a really good player, but you can see why Dabo [Swinney] made the decision he made last year. This guy is the best in the business. He’s tall, he can run, he can throw, he’s a great leader. So, he’s got it all. The other thing that people need to understand is sometimes when you’re that good and your players are that good, they don’t talk about the coaching. These guys coach them up. They play hard each week. They’ve got a lot of depth, so they rotate people. I thought the heat affected Appalachian on Saturday and it didn’t affect us. We were in great shape. But it won’t affect Clemson because they just roll them in. One comes out, the next one comes in and looks like his brother; it’s the same-looking guy. But they recruit that well. Our program is run very much like Clemson’s. Dabo and I have been dear friends for many years. I’ve watched his program closely and I’ve pulled for him. Woody McCorvey is an assistant athletic direction in charge of football and one of my dearest friends. He does a tremendous job. These guys do it right. Like I said, they’re recruiting better than anybody else in the country not, so it’s not going away soon. From our standpoint, we want to be the Clemson of the Coastal. They are the best team in the country. They are the best team in the ACC. They are dominating the ACC and all of us are trying to catch them. One of the good things this weekend for our players is when you play the best in the country, it’s a great challenge for you. And with challenge, there’s opportunity to see how we stand up to them. The other thing is, if you’re going to win this league, you’ve got to beat them. It sends a message to our players and our coaches about what the best team in this league looks like and what you have to do to compete to win an ACC championship.

I’ve loved the atmosphere in Kenan for our two home games. It’s been better than I remember it at any time. The fans were great Saturday, even when we got behind and were not playing well. They were great at Wake Forest on the road. I remember that crowd like the old days at Wake Forest. Fans, I appreciate you. You’re doing great. Just hang in there with us. You keep giving us 100 percent, the guys will keep giving you 100 percent and we’re going to keep giving you 100 percent as coaches, and one of these days, hopefully pretty soon, we’ll start having a lot of fun. But with a new staff and a young team, we should be getting better each week. This thing should be working this way and not this way, because we’re on the front end. We’re not on the back end. I think that’s very important for us to note.

On the challenge of getting his team to believe in itself entering the Clemson game after back-to-back losses:

I think it’s hard just because of the situation we’re in and two losses, and our guys are really smart. That’s not a good thing this week. They can see how good these guys really are. We always face the best out of every other team. Clemson faces the best, too, because kids get excited about playing someone that good and they want to see how they live up to it. Plus, your guys who are trying to get to the NFL, this is a game that the pro scouts watch. They want to see you against the best. So, our guys will be challenged this week to step up.

On what Dabo Swinney has done to build Clemson’s program:

[Dabo Swinney]’s made them believe. We went through the same process that he’s going through. First, if you don’t win all the games at home, you’re not any good. When you win all the games but one, you can’t win the big one, they called it ‚ÄòClemsoning’ or some stupid thing. ‚ÄòHe can’t win them all. He’s just winning 12,’ which everybody in the world wanted but him. And then when you win them all, you’re a great program, but you’ve got to do it every year. So, the pressure on them is that they cannot take their foot off the gas at anytime. And the rest of us are trying to get back to that. At Texas, you play the best effort from every team every week. People will come in and say, ‚ÄòAh, North Carolina is no good. They can’t beat you.’ Dabo [Swinney] is going to say, ‚ÄòThese guys played hard. They were good enough to beat Miami. They were good enough to beat South Carolina. Obviously, they’re good enough. So, we’ve got to really be ready to play.’ But he’s right. This is a week for the guys who are going to play, they get ready to play.

On how his program is run like Clemson’s and why he decided to do that:

Dabo [Swinney] came to see me before he ever took the head job. Coach Gene Stallings is his mentor and Coach Stallings is a dear friend of mine. And Woody McCorvey and I have known each other since I was the receiver coach at Southern Miss and he was the defensive backfield coach at a high school in Pensacola and we recruited one of his players. We’ve been dear friends ever since. Woody has been a head coach, but he was the assistant coach for Coach Stallings at Alabama. Woody and Dabo brought the whole staff out to visit with us for three or four days when we were at Texas and things were going really well. Coach Stallings and I were a lot alike anyway ‚Äì a lot alike in our thoughts and process. We just believe in the right things and the same things and do the same things, not that anybody else doesn’t do a lot of those same things. But Dabo and I have kind of grown up together. I spoke to his charity a couple of years ago. He was the first to text me when my name popped up in this job and he said, ‚ÄòAre you really going to do this?’ And I said, ‚ÄòI’ll do it if I can petition the NCAA to get you off our schedule. I do not want to play you.’ And he laughed, and now here we are. Obviously, the NCAA didn’t cooperate.

On what separates the great programs, like Clemson and Texas when he was there, from the rest:

Players and therefore depth and therefore morale. When you’re beating everybody, everybody gets to play. I think they’ve played 111 people or something, so everybody gets to play. All the moms are happy, all the dads are happy and nobody gets hurt because they don’t even play very long. In a lot of games, we had all of our starters out usually after the first series of the third quarter in most of our games at Texas when we were really good. And I mean everybody is happy and everybody is fresh because they don’t play that much. The one thing you’ve got to worry about is conditioning. If they don’t play enough in the games, you have to run them in practice. But that’s the biggest thing. And then when you keep winning, you’ve got happy players and you’ve got happy mommas and you’ve got happy dads and then you’ve got happy recruits because they come down to see them and everybody is happy because everybody gets to play. So, I think that’s the biggest difference in the rest of us. The rest of us are trying to find enough healthy guys to get out there every Saturday and these guys just roll them in and out.

On if the team is missing anything in scouting and if that’s contributing to slow starts:

No, if you look at App State, the only thing you didn’t know was what Ted Roof was going to do. You knew what Eli [Drinkwitz] was going to do because he was at NC State last year as the offensive coordinator, but Ted hadn’t called them in a couple of years so you weren’t really sure what he would do different. We knew they wouldn’t show anything against Charlotte or against East Tennessee. They can beat them without a lot of energy and they can beat them without showing a lot of energy. We knew that. So, we knew we would see different things. When you look at Wake Forest, their offense is very, very difficult for a new defense to see because of that slow ride up inside, the fact that they’re so unique ‚Äì they’re more like a military school with their running game, and that makes it really, really hard on your defense to prepare for one week. When you look at Miami, you had entirely new coaches. You knew pretty much what Manny [Diaz] would do on defense, but you didn’t know what they were going to do on offense because did they do at Alabama what Nick [Saban] wanted or did they do what the new coordinator wanted? He hadn’t been the boss for a couple of years. And South Carolina was kind of new with their offensive coordinator, too. I really think all of our coaches working together new and we’ve seen new things, unique things, in each of our four starts is probably one of the reasons we’ve started slower.

On other underlying reasons behind second quarter struggles:

Our starts haven’t been as bad as our second quarters. If you look at it, I think 33-27 has been the score at the end of the first quarter. I thought it was that. We were ahead of Miami 17-3. It’s that second quarter that’s killing us and that makes no sense to me. It makes none. I’ve never seen a second quarter that’s as miserable as ours, so that’s the thing we’ve got to look at. The other thing we have to think about is the more injuries you have, the simpler you get because you’re playing new guys. You’ve got to really simplify everything you’re doing so, really and truly, Phil [Longo] and Jay [Bateman] can’t be who they want to be right now. They’ve got to be what we can understand. With our injuries in the offensive line, we’ve had to simplify so much. We’ve had to take out a lot of protections and do what they can do best. Even on the first-sack touchdown against Sam [Howell], that’s the backside tackle not hinging when he didn’t have anybody or that’s protected, and we had to throw the ball away or have a big first down. Instead, it turns out to be a touchdown for them. So, those are things we can correct, but it’s a redshirt-freshman offensive tackle that hadn’t been in that situation before.

On whether they’ve pinpointed a reason for second-quarter struggles having now played four games:

No. If you’ve got one, please, anybody with suggestions send them to me.

On if there’s a common thread between the second-quarter performances in each game:

I don’t think so. I think if we knew it, we’d correct it. For four weeks, we haven’t so that’s why I kind of took a synopsis of the first four games yesterday and said, ‚ÄòOkay, let’s figure out what we’ve done in these four games. We’re happy with two and we’re really sad with two others. Kids played hard, they did what they were supposed to do. Now what’s the difference in winning?’ I think the biggest thing is that we’ve got to do a better job of making sure that we continue to sell players on fundamentals. We shouldn’t have a corner inside with a quarterback keeping it outside. That we can correct. We’ve got to get more pressure on the quarterback. Don’t know that we can do that. We’re trying. We’ve got to strip more balls. When you’re fighting to get to the ball, you’re fighting to hang on and make a tackle. You’re usually not thinking about stripping so we’ve got to figure out how we can do those things better. We’ve been taking care of the ball so well that hadn’t been an issue, and then it came up three times on Saturday‚Ķ The Clemsons in the world and the Texas when I was there ‚Äî and Tom [Herman] is getting it back ‚Äî you can make all of those mistakes and still win the game. Nobody noticed them. We just can’t make mistakes right now. We have to be perfect in what we’re doing and that’s our job. That’s what I told the coaches ‚Äî if the players aren’t getting where they need to be, to me, that’s coaching. That’s on us. And then we’ve got to teach the players about those momentum changes and why we couldn’t stop Wake Forest and [Appalachian State] the last drive. That’s our job. We’ve got to get out and stop them so what can we do differently in situations to have somebody step up. Our theme’s ‚ÄòBe The One.’ Well, be the one to make that stop, be the one to step up, be the one to excite them in the second quarter. But we’ve got so much stuff on us right now, it’s hard to pull out the second quarter and say, ‚ÄòOkay, where does this fit in priorities?’ Because we’ve got a big list of stuff we’ve got to get fixed.

On young offensive line:

I thought they did a good job. At times, we ran the ball really well. We didn’t run it consistently well, but they’re all freshmen, sophomores or redshirt freshmen or sophomores. There’s not a junior on the team, in fact, on the offensive line which is kind of strange. And there were only two seniors. That was Charlie Heck and [Nick] Polino, and both of them have been out. So what we did is really challenge the offensive line to just be better at what you do. The other thing is Stacy Searels and Phil [Longo] are trying really hard to limit the number of protections or any protections that really puts a guy one-on-one in many cases, and it hurts Sam [Howell] and it hurts Phil [Longo] in our play selection because it really limits some of the things we like to do in our passing game. But I think‚Ķ we gave up [three sacks] Saturday. Still too many, but it was better. We’re starting to do a better job. I think the biggest thing is that we are who we are, and every snap that these young guys get, they’re going to get better. Hopefully at the end of the year, this offensive line is a lot lot better than it was Saturday.

On mentally preparing the team to face the No. 1 team in the country:

When they see film, they’ll be mentally prepared because they’ll be excited to play the best team out there. Practice yesterday was great. They’re excited so that will not be an issue. Playing them will be an issue, getting ready to play them will not be. Pregame talk this week will not be a big deal. Clemson will give us a pregame talk by what they’ve done on the field.

On the spread for the Clemson game:

I think [Clemson] is real good. I don’t remember ever being that big an underdog, but it is what it is.

On whether he uses the underdog story to motivate the team:

What I do is focus more on us. To me, if you focus on Clemson, then you focus on [Appalachian State] and then you focus on Wake [Forest]. Every week, you’re trying to get a chip-on-the-shoulder deal. This is not a chip-on-the-shoulder school. We need to be a great program, we don’t need to be a chip on the shoulder. That’s hard to sell here. I didn’t come here because we haven’t ever been any good. This place should be great, so what I’m preaching to our guys is, ‚ÄòLet’s worry about us.’ If you constantly talk about who you’re playing then you’re not getting better. We need to play better as a team regardless of who we’re playing. I don’t want a team that plays up and down. One thing I’m really proud of is these guys have given us everything they’ve got for four-straight weeks. I’m really proud of that. That’s hard to do. Most teams can’t do that especially when you haven’t had a lot of success and especially when you’re not very deep, and I don’t want to coach a team that doesn’t try every week. I’ve told them that. I said, ‚ÄòSo, if you give me all you’ve got, we’ll learn to win. That’ll happen.’ But so far they’ve done that and I think we’ll see that this week.

On home field advantage:

I think [playing in Kenan Stadium] helps. Clemson’s been pretty good home and away. I don’t think it bothers them very much. In fact, they’ll have so many fans here ‚Äî that’s what happens when you’re that good ‚Äî everybody gets on board. Everybody’s on that train. That train’s going.

On the first step to closing the gap between Clemson and the rest of the conference:

Recruiting. Period. They’ve got better players than everybody else, and I don’t want to take away from the fact that they coach them so well either. That’s the thing. When you look at Clemson, sometimes you just see great players. You see great players that are motivated and being coached. And they know what they’re doing. They’ve got a very good plan on offense. You know what it is, they know what it is. They’re going to run it up inside until you put enough in there to stop them. Then they’re going to throw to 6-foot-4, 6-foot-5 receivers that are first-round draft choices outside. Then if you stop trying to tackle one of the best backs in the country, then the 6-foot-6 quarterback that can fly just happens to keep it and run out the back for about 30 yards. On defense, Brent [Venables] coached against us at the Oklahoma and Texas game so I’ve known his for a long time. He does a tremendous job, and Clemson’s been smart. They’ve built the best facilities in the country because it was important to them. They’re paying both offensive co-coordinators a million dollars plus. They’re paying Brent I think two million or something, so they’ve made it really, really important to be good and to stay good. And you have to compliment them for that.

On parallels between Clemson’s conference dominance today and Florida State’s during his last tenure at UNC:

That day we played Florida State out here in 1997, I thought they could have beaten probably a handful of pro teams. They were that good on defense. I remember [Chris] Keldorf got hit 12 times, knocked down seven at least. Maybe sacked seven. So, it was a 20-3 game and we were as good as they were on defense, but we could not block them. And Clemson’s in that role right now, and all of us in this league have to do everything we can do to get better and try to catch them. But they’re better than anybody else in the country. It’s not just the ACC. If you look at them, they dominated [Texas] A&M. They’re dominating everybody. That’s just who they are right now.‚Äù

On Sam Howell’s progress on getting down before tackles:

I thought Saturday [Sam Howell] did a great job on the zone read. We ran for about 20 yards, he got down and he’s been much smarter there. He’s also getting out of the pocket better and we’ve worked really hard on the scramble drill. He hit a couple of balls as he was running. I thought other than getting caught up inside with a couple of sacks, he’s really done a good job. Sam’s so good. He doesn’t gripe about anything ‚Äî he doesn’t gripe about the offensive line, he doesn’t gripe about somebody not blocking anybody. When he gains confidence, he’ll address it more, but right now he just plays. He has absolutely no excuses and as I said before, he plays pretty much like this all the time. Wants to win, competes, but he’s not going to show bad body language and he’s not going to be yelling at kids in a bad way on the field. He’ll encourage them, but he’s a special young guy.

On lack of turnovers caused is a result of guys missing plays or being in the wrong position:

It’s all over the place. It’s interesting that we broke more tackles Saturday. I think we broke 17 tackles and we missed 15, so they missed as many as we did. Still, when you’re missing tackles like we did on the play after the interception on the screen ‚Äî the four or five plays there in a row ‚Äî we didn’t tackle anybody. You sure can’t get any strips. And they were in the right places, they just didn’t tackle on the 31-yard run by their tailback [Darrynton Evans]. We’re in the hole and then we get too wide. We had a safety inside out. All he has to do is knock the guy to the side and that’s when you get balls knocked loose. He’s a great back and he faked us out, came back inside and runs for 31 yards down to the 1. I think it’s kind of all over the place. We’ve had to take every play as an individual play and not say, ‚ÄòAs a team, we’re doing this.’ The other thing you can’t say is, ‚ÄòAs a team, we’re missing tackles,’ because some guys aren’t missing tackles. What we’re saying is, ‚ÄòCollectively, here are things we need to improve. Some of you are doing these things, but not as a team.’ We got beat in a big game at Texas where we didn’t play well at all, and I made the statement in the dressing room, ‚ÄòYou guys quit. You just quit. It makes me sick. It makes me want to throw up.’ And I slammed the door and walked out. I got home that night and Coach [Darrell] Royal, the legendary coach from Texas, called and said, ‚ÄòNot very happy, are you?’ And I said, ‚ÄòNo sir. They quit.’ He said, ‚ÄòNo. You’ve got to be really careful. Maybe a few guys quit, address them. Your team never quits, so don’t tell your team that they quit because you’re addressing everybody in that dressing room. And you’re going to be really embarrassed tonight when you go home and watch that video, and some of those guys busted their tail and they played as hard as they could. So don’t ever say that again.’ And I think that’s true. What you do is you address the guys that aren’t getting it done, and then you look at if it’s effort. You challenge them, but you usually put somebody in their place. You can’t have a guy that’s not trying. If he doesn’t know what to do, I’ve always said that’s back on the coach. And when our coaches say, ‚ÄòWell if he’d only‚Ķ’ I say, ‚ÄòHe didn’t. So either change the defense, change the play or change the guy. But let’s don’t play the what-if game.’ If he didn’t, he didn’t and there’s a reason. Is it us? Is it teaching time in practice, is it technique or is it him? You have to make this thing very, very simple and try to work through it.

On if he thinks it makes sense to expand conference play to nine games with the growing conference:

It is what it is. In the Big 12, they play everybody and then they have to repeat a game with the conference championship. So is that good? That if last year, Texas beats Oklahoma, but Oklahoma beats Texas in the conference championship game‚Ķ who comes out on top? Oklahoma ends up being conference champ so the middle game doesn’t mean as much as the championship game when you’re probably going to have the same teams play for it every year. That’s what’s confusing. I do miss Colorado-Nebraska, Oklahoma-Nebraska, Texas-Texas A&M. I do miss those games. I thought it was really strange playing Wake [Forest] out of conference because they’d never done that before. Everybody at ESPN, all my buddies kept calling and saying, ‚ÄòWhat’s this? What’s this about?’ So, when you explain it, it makes some sense, but I think it’s modern-day conference realignment. It’s changed and it takes away a lot of those key rival games. And I am seeing a little bit of a trend that people are trying to go back and play some of those games now even though they’re not counted as a conference game. I think Colorado and Nebraska played a couple weeks ago and that was a huge rival for Colorado, at least at that time, and I think Nebraska and Oklahoma are going to play again. So, I think people are trying to bring some of those classic match-ups back that we’ve missed because of conference change.