Longo & Bateman Pressers, Notes & Quotes

CHAPEL HILL – North Carolina coordinators Phil Longo ad Jay Bateman met with the media Monday for their weekly press conferences to discuss what they learned from Friday’s loss at Wake Forest and to look ahead to Saturday’s home game versus Appalachian State.

Here are some notes and quotes from what the coordinators had to say along with their pressers:

*UNC was 2-for-16 on third downs at Wake, which included the Tar Heels failing on their first 11 attempts.

“When we are in a third-and-long situation, which in football is the worst place to be in offensively, we still have to make sure we’re directing the ball towards the strengths that we have offensively schematically,” Longo said. “There’s kind of an emphasis this week on higher percentage plays on third down to try and help our guys.

“But, I still say, the best way of handling third-and-long is to stay out of it and that goes back to our first and second down production. As we can minimize those negative type situations like third-and-long, we’ll do better overall offensively.”

Avoiding third-and-longs means having more success on first downs.

“It’s important for any offense to have some early down success,” he said. “The first two games, we had a lot more success on first downs and that got drives going and got Sam (Howell) confident and the rest of the guys confident. Wake Forest did a great job on first down of winning the down in the first half and in effect we got behind the chains in the first half and it affected us.”

He was asked another question along the same lines and was more specific about the need to have success on first downs.

“We’ve got to do a better job of executing on first downs so we have positive plays,” he said. “I’m very used to dictating on first down and getting six, seven, eight yards. We want to be in that second to four and six range and we didn’t go a good job of that in the first half."

*Senior running back Antonio Williams was expected to have a fairly significant role in UNC’s offense, but that hasn’t been the case through three games. He carried the ball four times for 53 yards versus South Carolina and then just two times for five yards against Miami. In Friday’s game at Wake Forest, Williams didn’t carry the ball once. In fact, while he played on special teams, he didn’t get one snap on offense.

“Make no mistake about it, Antonio is a weapon and he’s a running back that’s in the rotation for us,” Longo said. “He’s kind of in the same boat as Jace (Ruder), there’s an intention to use him every week (but) it’s going to be dictated by situation. Coach (Robert) Gillespie will handle our roll through the three running backs.

“As I said last week, we’re going to use guy's based on how well they’re playing and occasionally it’s by situation. So, Antonio’s always in the plan and I think before long you’ll see him out on the field as well. It’s just hard to tell you when because it’s going to be based on how the game goes."

*Defensive tackle Jason Strowbridge just mat be the best player on the Tar Heels’ roster, so when the staff learned moments before the start of Friday’s game he wasn’t going to play because of what some teammates have said is a bum ankle, it was certainly a loss the Heels felt.

Yet, Bateman doesn’t think it affected the Heels as much as some may have figured.

“You always prepare for the worst-case scenario, which was that he wasn’t going to play,” Bateman said. “And then, for a while there, we thought he might play some so we kind of went in thinking, if he played at all, we’d try to get him in on third down some. But, I don’t think it affected us a lot.

“Obviously, Jason’s a really good player but I thought Xach (Gill) and Ray (Vohasek) battled pretty good in there honestly when they were in there. Wake Forest did a great job of not allowing a lot of one-on-one pass rush opportunities so I don’t know how much it would have made a big difference really."

*It wasn’t exactly rocket science knowing Wake’s slow developing RPOs would challenge the Heels’ defense. Disciplines are big, especially when a player has to fight against the go go go instinct.

The Heels had some trouble with it at times in the first half but adjusted and were much better after halftime.

“I think you’ve got to give Wake Forest credit, they do a really good job,” Bateman said. “We’ve preached all week, we’ve showed them all week and then they get in the game and we make some of the same mistakes other people have made which I think is a tribute to their coaching. They make you play passive in the front and that’s hard for kids to do sometimes. And then I think we kind of got in some calls that kind of cleaned the picture up for our linebackers and that made it a little bit easier too. “Obviously, the 52-yard touchdown, we didn’t cover anybody so we covered better after that but I thought we were in good shape. A lot of throws were really contested throws and they made good catches. I knew going in they were going to bang a couple of those, I’ve got a lot of respect for that quarterback (Jamie Newman) and for Sage (Surratt).

“So, I think going in we knew that was going to happen a couple times I just wish it hadn’t happened on third-and-13. There was probably about four or five times in that game where it was one-on-one throws and they won a couple and we won a couple and I kind of thought that going in. I thought that, if we could stop the run and then end up fifty-fifty on those throws, we’d have a chance to win the game."

*Jacob Turner contributed to this report