Bye Week Progress? Carolina's Staff Thinks So

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CHAPEL HILL – Open dates for a college football team can be tricky.

Some coaches don’t like them, saying they’d rather remain in routine and not break from anything. Some don’t like having them before big games because it’s too long to wait for an emotional contest.

Some coaches, however, embrace it using them to hit reset buttons, get their teams healthy, and in the case of North Carolina last week, do a full re-evaluation of all phases within the team. So, that is what the 3-0 Tar Heels did with a visit from Notre Dame this Saturday up next on the slate.

They self-scouted every nuance of what they were through the first three games, and the results are as follows: They had plenty to fix and clean up, and they think they accomplished some of that mission.

“We went back and re-evaluated everything we’re doing… of all three phases,” UNC Coach Mack Brown said during his weekly press conference Monday at the Kenan Football Center. “And it was really healthy.

“We had some other people do it that weren’t sitting in the staff rooms all the time, to be very critical of, ‘you’re doing this well, you’re not doing this well.’ And then you fix this.”

The critics certainly had enough to point out, especially on the defensive side of the ball.

Carolina is ranked No. 123 in total defense allowing 468.3 yards per game. The only Power 5 team rated lower among the 131 programs at the FBS level is Nebraska. There’s more: The tar Heels are No. 111 in rushing defense (193.0 yards per game); No. 112 in passing yards allowed (275.3 per); No. 126 in pass efficiency defense; No. 119 in scoring defense; No. 114 in red zone defense, and No. 119 in first down defense.

Granted, three games in are a small sample size, and one horrible performance, such as allowing 61 points, 664 yards, and 37 first downs to Appalachian State, will skew the numbers. But the Heels had rough stretches versus Florida A&M and Georgia State, as well.

And, as defensive coordinator Gene Chizik said Monday, they didn’t focus on a bad period or two, they crunched the three games together for a fuller evaluation. And what kept coming up as priority number one on the fixing docket was defensive communication.

“I really believe over the last four practices I think we’ve made a lot of strides,” Chizik said. “I think the communication’s gotten better. I think to get a breather and go back and look at when you were playing poorly, why, and you can put it all together and not just look at a single event or a single game, but put three of them together, I think it’s pretty glaring.

“So, I feel like in the last four days, we’ve definitely have improved in that regard. Now, we’ll know more Saturday night. But I feel really good in terms of the players seeing what we need to do a better job of collectively together.”

As productive as the offense has largely been, and it ranks No. 5 in total yards and No. 4 in scoring, it didn’t get off scot-free.

Three turnovers and a failed fourth-and-two at their own 39-yard-line, which resulted in a sack and loss of eight yards, were something to pick at from the win at Georgia State. Running the ball conventionally, too.

“The area I’d like to see more improvement is in our first and second-down execution in the run game,” offensive coordinator Phil Longo said. “And that’s been our focus the last week and will be this week.”

Carolina’s rushing offense is No. 13 nationally, averaging 237.5 yards per game. While the first and second-down rushing numbers are solid on the surface, digging into them reveals a need for improvement.

The Heels have run the ball 94 times on first and second down for 589 yards, which is an average of 6.3. However, five first-down runs totaling 223 yards bend the numbers. Remove those five runs, and UNC is averaging 4.1 yards per attempt on first and second down. Brown has maintained the goal on first down is five yards, so that’s off some.

Then consider of the 94 rushing attempts, 54 have gone for three yards or less. Hence, that is what Longo is referencing.

Three games in, the unbeaten Tar Heels can point to plenty of positives, but their open date last week afforded them an opportunity at cleaning up the other stuff. And they believe they made progress.