Longo & Bateman Pressers, Notes & Quotes

CHAPEL HILL – North Carolina’s coordinators were made available to the media following head coach Mack Browns press conference Monday at the Kenan Football Center.

Here is what offensive coordinator/quarterbacks coach Phil Longo and defensive coordinator Jay Bateman had to say with tid bits from both noted:

*Longo wants his offense to go fast, so fast that the Tar Heels have said many times he wants a greater pace than former coach Larry Fedora had them run his offense. That’s fast. So, what did Longo think of his unit’s pace Saturday?

“You can only go as fast as the officials go,” Longo said. “Coaches are constantly trying to find a way to go faster but you’re never going to be able to go faster than the 9-11 seconds average that an officials’ crew takes to get the ball back in place. And we snapped the ball (right) after (the official) on numerous occasions, probably more than half the plays. So I was happy with it.”

*One game in and to nobody’s surprise running back remains the Tar Heels’ best position group, as they were outstanding Saturday. The trio of Javonte Williams (102 yards), Michael Carter (77) and Antonio Williams (53) combined for 232 yards on 38 attempts, which is an average of 6.1 yards per carry.

Carter said after the game the coaches tell the players to end their runs with an exclamation mark instead of a period. It means getting that extra yard and falling forward. Longo laughed when told what Carter said, essentially citing it as another Carter-ism, which the junior running back has become known for. But Longo also echoed the gist of what Carter said.

“As a coach you have to challenge your running backs,” Longo said. “You don’t want to be the running back that if you block for four (yards) they get four… That’s not what we’re recruiting and that’s really not what we have here. You want a crew of running backs that if you block a player for three yards, they’re going to get four or five and every now and then they’re going to make you miss and then it becomes an explosive run.

“And we are blessed right now with Antonio Williams, Javonte Williams and Michael Carter… Those three are really talented, we’ve got to continue to do a good job of getting them the ball. And I think at the point of attack Saturday, the running backs graded out really well with regard to staying on their feet and having good balance and warding off tackles and creating yardage beyond the point of attack.”

Javonte Williams accumulated 79 yards after contact, Carter had 56 and Antonio Williams had 13.

*UNC didn’t throw a pass in the red zone until its 12th snap Saturday, which came in the third quarter. It was in some respects by design, as Longo and head coach Mack Brown wanted to ease true freshman quarterback Sam Howell into the game. But there were a couple of plays that could have ended up as passes instead of runs.

“We were a little bit more conservative then I’m used to being because we wanted to make sure we came away with points,” Longo said. “We had a couple of opportunities in the red zone with Sam and the offense to maybe take a shot – there was a run option and a pass option on the play and we chose the run option when maybe we could have thrown one or two of them.”

*Chazz Surratt turned in a productive performance in his first outing as a linebacker Saturday, registering 12 tackles including a sack, with a PBU and a QB hurry. That he adjusted during the course of the game is what most impressed Jay Bateman.

“I’d say initially it was about what we thought it would be, it was moving a little fast on him,” Bateman said. “He missed a couple of tackles early that I think he made later in the game. Once he got into the flow, he played really well. He was really productive, too.”

Bateman then offered an example of what Surratt’s potential at linebacker is, and it’s considerable.

“He made a play, it was the second quarter (and) it was a 3-by-1 formation, a number three vertical, and he went and grabbed number three and broke the throw to the tight end. That’s a coverage that about 28 of the 32 NFL teams play, and I’d say about 20 of them have a guy that can do that.

“So yeah, I think he played really well. We’re excited about him.”

*Now that Dominique Ross will be available this weekend versus Miami, the staff must figure out a rotation with Ross, Surratt and Jeremiah Gemmel.

“I think we have a problem that we anticipated on having,” Bateman said. “I think we can have Dominique got out and play on the edge some, we can play them both together some, we have some packages where all three of them are in the game. So there’s a lot of things we’re going to be able to expand upon with Dominique back.”

*Tackling was a big problem for the Tar Heels early in Saturday’s game. They missed quite a few over South Carolina’s first two possessions, which ended with the Gamecocks scoring 10 points and amassing 133 yards of offense. But as the Heels got better tackling the Gamecocks’ production slowed. In fact, USC managed just 137 yards over its final 11 possessions of the game.

“I think going in we kind of knew that would be the case,” Bateman said, referring to missing some tackles. “Myles (Dorn) missed a few early I don’t think he misses. We knew once we got into the flow of it – tackling is a skill we work on a lot. It’s one of those skills you work on but you never really do it until you go out and play the game full speed and you’ve got to launch your body.

“I think once we settled down we tackled really well.”