CHAPEL HILL – North Carolina’s coordinators met with the media Monday via zoom for their weekly press conferences, this time in advance of the Tar Heels’ game Saturday night at Florida State.

Phil Longo was quite pleased how his offense performed in a 56-45 victory over Virginia Tech this past weekend at Kenan Stadium, while Jay Bateman wasn’t as happy with his unit’s play.

Here are the full pressers for both along with some notes and pulled quotes from what they had to say:

*One reason the offense was much more productive against Virginia Tech than it had been in the first two games is because Josh Ezeudu was back in the lineup. The starting left guard, and perhaps the team’s best offensive lineman, Ezeudu is also the group’s most versatile player. He saw action on a few spots Saturday, playing 59 snaps.

“He’s a benefit for a number of reasons,” Longo said. “One, just his physical presence on the offensive line. It gave us another guy up front that can be a dominant mover up front in the run game and does a really good job in pass protection. It also gives us a guy that is versatile and can play numerous positions.

“(Offensive line) Coach (Stacy) Searels uses him to spell a number of different guys… So, he’s just a guy right now, he’s our everything guy. He’s an every-down starter, so he can help us spell the guards and the tackles.”

*Last season, the Tar Heels had 55 trips into the red zone scoring 49 times, which is pretty good. The problem, however, is Carolina managed just 31 touchdowns, thus it crossed the goal line only 56.3 percent of the time. The breakdown: 21 passing touchdowns and 10 on the ground. In Saturday’s win over the Hokies, the Heels were 5-for-5 in the red zone scoring touchdowns each time.

(Note: they were 5-for-6 technically, but the sixth possession was the final possession of the game and UNC took a knee, not trying to score as the clock ran out.)

“This year, we’ve been a lot more like the second half of last year,” Longo said. “The first half of last year, we probably made more mental mistakes in the red zone area than we would like to have down there. We probably didn’t run the football as effectively down there as we would have liked. That improved and got better in the second half of the season, and our red zone offense improved and got better in the second half of the season.

“I think we’re just continuing the red zone momentum from the end of last year. I’ve very, very happy with the attitude of our offense, particularly up front when we’re running the ball in the red zone. And I think we’re doing a better job right now, 11 people across the board executing from an MA – missed assignment – standpoint. We’re a little more focused, we’re making fewer mistakes, and obviously we’re more physical up front.”

*Carolina has scored a touchdown on its first possession in all three games. What is Longo’s explanation for the early success in each contest?

“I’d like to say it’s the staff,” Longo replied. “I think the game planning and running the best plays early on, the ones we like the most. I always ask our guys for their top 10 plays (and) a lot of that input from them goes into our checklist for the opening drive.

“But the truth of the matter is our guys are really the biggest reason. The players prepare themselves well during the week so we have confidence on Friday and Saturday morning heading into the game. We’ve had three really good pre-games right now and I think the focus in the locker room is where we want it. When all those things are heading in that direction, typically you come out of the blocks and you play well early.”

*Carolina was tagged with missing 19 tackles against the Hokies, which is obviously way too many.

“We didn’t tackle well, and that was the most disappointing thing to me,” Bateman said. “We missed twice as many tackles as we missed the first two games. Credit goes to Virginia Tech, they made us miss. I think what they do on offense is difficult, we obviously have to have a better plan for it.

“But we didn’t tackle well, I didn’t think we got off blocks very well and I think what ultimately happened is the secondary was too involved in the run game for too long, and I think that’s one of the reasons we gave up some of those big ones at the end… We certainly have a lot to work on.”

*The Hokies scored 22 points and gained 228 yards on 25 snaps in the third quarter. Why did that happen?

“Whatever I tell you is going to be an excuse, right? We didn’t get it done,” Bateman said. “We need to tackle better (and) we need to get off blocks better. I think they made some schematic changes in the way they were blocking a couple of things that I didn’t do a very good job of adjusting to.”

*The diminishing depth for a defensive unit that didn’t have a lot to begin with may have revealed itself some during the quarter, too. Not having Ray Vohasek, Storm Duck and Ja’Quarious Conley was obviously big during that stretch. But Bateman isn’t going to make any excuses. Next man up, regardless.

“It certainly didn’t help but that’s an excuse,” Bateman said. “Who cares, right? They get an onside kick, no one cares. We gotta go play and we need some of our younger guys to go in the game and play better than they did. That was part of it, too…

“We’re never going to say we played too many plays, that’s the way college football is these days.”