Howell Talks What Was Learned, NC State's D, Drops & More

CHAPEL HILL – Following practice every Tuesday morning, several North Carolina players are made available to the media to discuss the previous game, what was learned, to discuss growth, the next opponent and other things.

Sophomore quarterback Sam Howell always goes last because he usually gets the most questions. That’s life as the quarterback.

Joining Howell this week were Javonte Williams, Tomon Fox, Brian Anderson and Jeremiah Gemmel, each of whom we featured in our Players Tuesday report. We pulled Howell out separately and here is his video interview as well as some notes and pulled quotes from what he had to say:

Note: No. 14 UNC hosts No. 23 NC State on Saturday at noon at Kenan Stadium.

*The Tar Heels and Wolfpack go into this game both ranked this week for just the third time in their 110 meetings. It’s a treat for statewide football fans, especially those in the Research Triangle area. For Howell, however, that’s nice but he doesn’t really care where the Heels or any opponent are ranked. Getting ready to play is still getting ready to play.

“I don’t really care about the rankings,” Howell said. “I guess it’s kind of cool for the fans, but it really doesn’t make a difference to me. They’re a good football team and we’ve got to bring our best on Saturday to have a chance to win.”

*NC State’s defense is ranked No. 47 in the nation allowing 421 yards per game and also 47th allowing 31.4 points per game. But, the Pack has been better the last couple of weeks. A year ago, however, Carolina rolled to a 41-10 romp over the Wolfpack, so are the Heels taking anything from that performance with respect to facing many of the same guys Saturday?

“Honestly, we haven’t really talked about that too much,” Howell replied. “We had a lot of success against those guys, but I think they’re a lot better football team this year than they were last year, so we definitely have to be prepared for that. And we’re not the same team as last year, so it’s a new year, both two new teams so we can’t really look at last year.”

*With that said, Howell has been quite impressed with some elements of NC State’s defense watching film the last few of days.

“There's not much difference as far as schematic-wise goes. It's the same DC, so they're doing similar stuff,” he said. “It just looks like their whole mentality on the defensive side of the ball has changed, honestly. It just looks like a completely different team than last year. When you turn the film on, that's probably the first thing you notice.

“There's 11 guys to the ball every single play and that's something you really didn't see last year from those guys. They've done a really good job during the offseason preparing for this season and they've had some success on defense, they're creating turnovers, they've got a good defensive front. 29's (Alim McNeill) a really good player, he's definitely a future NFL guy.

“Ten (Tanner Ingle), the safety, he plays really, really hard, he comes down hill, he'll hit anybody. I don't think he's the biggest guy, but he's definitely not scared to hit anybody. There's some guys on that team that are gonna fight, so we've got our hands full on Saturday. We've got to be prepared for it.”

*What else jumps out on film to Howell about State’s D?

“I think they play a lot harder,” Howell replied. “I don’t know what it was that changed, but it just looks like the guys are flying around the field a lot more than they were last year; that’s something you really didn’t se from their defense last year. I think they do a really good job on defense.”

*In spite of all that went wrong in Tallahassee, the Tar Heels were on the move inside the final minute giving themselves a chance to steal a victory on Saturday night when three straight dropped passes ended their hopes. Drops were an issue last season and, while there appeared to have been improvement over the first three games, that problem resurfaced at the absolute worst time at FSU. How can that be fixed during practice?

“We try our best to keep balls off the ground in practice,” Howell said. “We try to create practice like a game atmosphere, (though) you can’t really create a game-like atmosphere in practice, I think it’s kind of unrealistic, so in your mind and mentally you just have to prepare like it’s a game (and) go out there and treat every play like it’s the last play of the game.

“And going back to the drops on Saturday, the last three plays that we had, there were some really hard catches. I could have thrown a better ball on all three of those passes. It’s not all on the receivers, I can do a better job. We definitely gotta come out here and aim for perfection every single day, and I think that’s the only way we can get better.”

*Jacob Turner contributed to this report