CHAPEL HILL – North Carolina offensive line coach and offensive coordinator Chris Kapilovic met with the media following Tuesday’s practice to discuss the running problems at Virginia, Nathan Elliott’s progress and how offensive mistakes are magnified when playing Georgia Tech, this weekend’s opponent.
Here are a few outtakes from what Kapilovic had to say:
On Nathan Elliott’s clear improvement since the Cal game…
“The number one thing is trying to take care of the football. He had the fumble Saturday, obviously that we don’t want, but he hasn’t been throwing the ball in harm’s way. Sometimes, you want a happy medium – you want him to make a play instead of just throwing it away, but he’s taking care of the ball, for the most part he’s making good decisions. So there’s definitely been improvement there.”
On Elliott completing more passes over the middle in recent games being a product of his growth or what defenses are show or perhaps even both…
“I think it’s a little bit of both. Sometimes for him, it’s trusting the pocket and progressions and getting down to his second and third progression and throwing it there. And some of the things we’ve seen coverage-wise has allowed us to throw the ball over the middle.”
On the stress the offense faces when taking on Georgia Tech because there are always fewer possessions in those games, so mistakes with the football can be magnified…
“That’s exactly right and that’s what we talk about. It’s kind of, you feel funny because in every game in every series you’re trying to go out and score, it’s not like that’s new, but you also know you’re not going to have as many opportunities. So, every time that you don’t get that ball downfield and score points, it’s magnified.
“In the six years (versus Georgia Tech), we’ve probably averaged around 10 or 11 a game – in the games we’ve won, as well, and scored a lot of points. The keys are in the wins we’ve only had one turnover in all of them, in the losses we had five total.
“And then the other things is the three-and-outs, we can’t have the three-and-outs. We’ve got to be able to give our defense a little bit of rest, flip the field, and we need to go out and score points. It is a premium, because it’s not a normal circumstance.”
