Heels Midweek: Gearing Up For Pittsburgh & More

CHAPEL HILL – With North Carolina playing on a Thursday night this week, the Tar Heels’ media obligations have been altered so the players were made available Monday evening instead of Tuesday, which is the norm.

Carolina travels to Pittsburgh on Thursday, and Monday evening four Heels discussed their bye week, some interesting things about themselves (Jordan Tucker eats a lot of gummy bears during games), preparing for the Panthers and much more.

Here are their interviews along with some excerpts:

Senior offensive lineman Nick Polino closed out fall camp as UNC’s starting center and held that job for the first two games, but was injured during the victory over Miami and hadn’t played until the Nov. 2 loss to Virginia. In his absence, sophomore Brian Anderson has taken the snaps, so how does Polino think Anderson has performed?

“Brian’s done great. I’ve always said, ‘He’s going to go out there and he’s going to give it everything he’s got.’ It’s a tough position to come into… it’s something mentally that can be a little bit of a curve ball but he handled it well. He’s been playing really good ball. He’s smart, he’s just a tough kid.

“When I was hurt, I would watch him, go up to him on the sideline and just tell him little technique things that worked with me if he was struggling with a certain block or certain things like that. But, he’s the type of dude that he’s going to work as hard as he can to make up for whatever deficiencies he does have and that’s all you can really ask and he’s done a tremendous job.

“I couldn’t say any better things about him, I’m super proud of him. I love the kid to death and I think he’s going to have a good career after this.”

One of the mandates Mack Brown and offensive line coach Stacy Searels placed on that unit in August was it needed to get much tougher. So, nine games in and three months later, how much tougher does sophomore right tackle Jordan Tucker believe they are?

“I think, as weeks have progressed on, we’ve seen that we can be dominant when we want to be and we just have to really be physical from the point of attack from the first snap to the last snap. I think we’ve proven that we can play physical and that’s what we’ve got to do this week.”

Mack Brown said Monday that reserve defensive linemen Ray Vohasek and Jahlil Taylor have made huge progress and maybe even surprised him some by their development. What has senior defensive tackle Jason Strowbridge seen from Vohasek and Taylor explaining why they’ve gotten so much better?

“Their effort. Day in and day out, they’re always busting their tails running everywhere. Special teams, whatever it may be, they’re always trying to get better. Their work ethic is so much better than before so I think just them working so much (and) trying to contribute as much as they can."

*With UNC basketball player and freshman Cole Anthony off to such a great start to his college career, there’s talk nationally that Carolina has the best combination of a true freshman football and basketball players in the nation, of course matching Anthony with quarterback Sam Howell. What does Howell think about that and how much does he know Anthony?

“I’ve talked to Cole a couple of times and I got to watch the end of the game against Notre Dame, I definitely hit him up after the game and told him congratulations. He’s a really good player and he’s going to play the game for a really long time. It’s definitely exciting to have him here.”

*Howell has been hit a lot in UNC’s games, so how much did the rest during the bye week help him get a bit healed and ready for this week’s game?

“I think everybody benefits getting an extra week of rest. I think that’s big for us, especially in college football.”

*Howell and the Tar Heels will be in Pittsburgh on Thursday night where the temperature at kickoff is supposed to be around 37 degrees and should drop into the 20s by the start of the fourth quarter. What does Howell think about playing in such cold weather and does he have much experience doing so?

“In high school going through the playoffs we played in a lot of cold weather games. It hasn’t really affected me. I just know we’re going to go up there and do what we do.”