CHAPEL HILL – UNC defensive coordinator Gene Chizik met with the media following Tuesday’s practice to discuss his unit preparing for this week’s game versus 10-0 The Citadel and about last week’s loss at Duke.

UNC head coach Larry Fedora said Monday he was interested to see what kind of recall the players had in practice Tuesday from two weeks ago when they prepared to play Georgia Tech, which runs the triple option offense just like this Saturday’s opponent, The Citadel.

So, how much recall did the players have?

“I thought it was good tonight,” Chizik said after Tuesday’s practice. “I didn’t know what it would be, either. We actually started a little bit Sunday with some recall, but they did well. I think they understand the offense a little better now because there are some similarities. But overall, the recall was good.”

The Citadel is 10-0 and leads FCS in rushing averaging nearly 380 yards per game on the ground. As for those similarities Chizik noted, are there are distinct differences the average fan may recognize?

“To the naked eye, there would be a lot of similar formations and a lot of very similar run plays and pass plays,” Chizik said. “So, If you’ve seen Georgia Tech enough, it will resemble that offense quite a bit. There’s a little bit of intricate differences here and there the naked eye really won’t see but we do.”

A few more notes:

*Chizik said that he thought the defense had truly been ascending for a month before going to Duke, but was disappointed in what happened there, especially in the second quarter.

“I felt like for sure, for one quarter, we had a meltdown,” he said. “We weren’t playing college level football.”

*A lack of discipline and guys not doing their job was a big part of the problem, and then some guys were trying to do other players’ jobs. It was the perfect storm to a perfectly awful quarter.

“That’s what happened in a big game that’s very important when you decide to take a quarter off,” he said.

*Asked if he’s seeing the kind of leadership from the upper classmen to get past what happened while learning from it, Chizik said, “I see a really great attitude from these guys. I see a want to – nobody tried to not do their job. I think people strained a little bit to try to maybe make plays that weren’t theirs.

“In defensive football, the plays that you’re supposed to make are the ones that require that you do their job. You don’t your job and make someone else’s play, that’s not how it works.”