JP Mining For Positives & Won't Play For 2018

CHAPEL HILL – North Carolina defensive coordinator John Papuchis met with the media earlier this week to discuss his unit’s performance against Virginia Tech last weekend, the current situation it’s facing, and about moving forward.

Here are some nuggets from what JP had to say:

On dealing with the frustration of not being on the field for 21 of the first 28 points that are scored…

“Football is the ultimate team game and our guys understand that. Those things happen that are outside of your control, (so) our mantra that we spend the most time talking about this year is controlling what we can control. That’s in every aspect of your life. You can control your effort, you can control your attitude, you can control your own attention to detail. So for us defensively, that was the message Saturday.

“Was it disappointing? Sure it was. But we know that everyone on the team is battling and fighting and doing the best that they can do, so at that point, it’s our job to take the field and do our part.”

On what positives he saw…

“I like the way we’ve started games, and that’s really been for the majority of the year. I think we got stops on our first four possessions, (and) it gives us a chance to be in games. The two things that were disappointing were we weren’t good on third down or in the red zones. Those are two areas we had been fairly good at and kept us alive in some of these games the last couple of weeks. That’s something that has to be fixed before this week.

“There were some positives. When you look at individual plays and if you break it down like that, certainly within individual plays there’s guys that play well within a play. It’s not all negative.”

On if the staff is getting close to the point where they may find ways to get in some younger players to build some for next year…

“In practice, obviously, you want to develop as many guys as you cans, when it comes to the games, though, my only expectation is that we try to put ourselves in the best position to win. So whether those guys are seniors or freshmen or whoever the case might be, we’re going to try to put ourselves in the best position to play well on defense and win the game. So there’s nothing in my mind about building guys for next year. If they earn it during the week then they’ll play, and if they don’t they won’t.”