CHAPEL HILL – North Carolina defensive coordinator Jay Bateman and offensive coordinator Phil Longo met with the media for their weekly press conference Monday at the Kenan Football Center and the topics focuses on correcting the Tar Heels’ wrongs and this week’s opponent, No. 1 Clemson.

Here are a few notes from what they had to say along with their pressers:

*UNC’s defense had been quite effective on third downs through the first three games, allowing conversions 28.9 percent of the time, which had the Tar Heels at No. 26 in the nation. App State, however, converted 7 of 15 attempts, a few times when quarterback Zac Thomas ran for first downs. One of his runs went for 50 yards.

Mack Brown said Saturday containment was an issue, Bateman agrees.

“Certainly on the long run we lost containment,” Bateman said. “Sometimes, containment issues are a byproduct of the pressure we’re running. We’re tying to flush him a certain way, so the one third down he converted when (linebacker) Jeremiah (Gemmel) got the targeting penalty, we have a guy coming scot free and he falls down, so I don’t have a great answer for that. Don’t fall down.

“So, I think part of that is guys doing their job and staying up and if you have a chance to make a play make a play. Most third downs this year, when we’ve had the opportunity, we’ve made those plays.”

*The Heels are thin just about everywhere, but the secondary is a group where the team simply couldn’t afford any injuries yet it got one during the App State game when junior safety Myles Wolfolk went down. It required the staff do some shuffling which means playing true freshmen.

“We’ll see what the doctors say,” Bateman said about Wolfolk, who is listed as questionable for Saturday’s game versus Clemson. “We put D.J. (Ford) back there against App State and I thought he did well. I think Don Chapman and Cam Kelly are both really talented young guys that we’re excited to play and they’re going to have to play some. I thought when Cam Kelly went in he flew around pretty good.

I love Wolf (Wolfolk). My son’s eight and if you told me my son was going to be Myles Wolfolk when he’s 21, I’d sign off on it right now. So, I’m hopeful we’ll have him soon."

*The Tar Heels’ starting offensive line going into the App State game had a combined 10 career starts among them and all were either freshmen or sophomores. Was that the least experienced line Longo has ever had going into a game?

“Probably,” he replied. “I didn’t go compare it to other years or teams, but we know that, as a staff going in with regards to number of starts and experience and our age and the years our guys are in, it’s a process. Just like building the offense or building the team, you’re doing that with each unit too and I think the key for us is to not lose sight of the process.

Popped Howell

“We know where we’re going, we have a plan, we believe in the plan, we like it. And there’s growing pains along the way, that’s the way it is, but the good thing in the process is that our guys are working their butts off and we are getting better and we’re doing things better that we didn’t do well last week or the week before. We’ve got to keep doing that and, eventually, those improvements will pay off for us.”

*One of the game’s crucial mistakes, and a key for App State winning, was Sam Howell’s fumble the Mountaineers returned 20 yards for a touchdown. Longo said there was a mistake in the protection allowing an App State defender to get around UNC’s left tackle (Joshua Ezeudu) at the time. He popped Howell from behind knocking the ball loose.

“We have two linemen that are going to slide and then drop and we didn’t drop quick enough,” Longo said, explaining what went wrong on the play. “It kind of folded inside and it slowed us a little bit in terms of identifying it. We didn’t drop and get out in front of it. I think Sam could have stayed on the move a little bit.

“There are scenarios where you have to pull up and step underneath and I’m not sure that was one where we had to. So, it was a little bit of everybody. They brought two off the edge and we should have been able to handle it and we didn’t."