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As the season opener awaits on August 29, earlier this week, Minnesota Coach P.J. Fleck and the Golden Gophers' coordinators discussed the upcoming matchup against North Carolina.
The trio talked preparation for multiple quarterbacks, the new look Geoff Collins defense, and the benefits of starting the season against a talented group.
Below is a transcript of each coach discussing the Tar Heels:
Head Coach P.J. Fleck:
Q: What do you know about North Carolina in 2024?
FLECK: “I mean we just started them with game-planning and looking at them and starting to work with our coaching staff and dedicating a lot of hours towards that between our players and training camp. First of all, I got a lot of respect for Mack Brown. A lot of you, I think it’s well documented the relationship him and I have and he’s always been really, really good to me.
"I mean, he’s been a sneaky mentor because I get him at the most opportune times and he’s always been really, really good to me. They’re really talented. They’ve got eight returning starters on defense and they added a bunch of transfers that do start other places, in the ACC or other places. They’re deep. I think it’s well documented, I think the AP All-American team came out and you know, one of the running backs, (Omarion) Hampton, he’s really, really good. We played against them last year. They’ve got a stable of running backs, they always do. They’ve got really good receivers. I think everybody’s talking about ‘Well, Drake Maye’s not there,’ but they reloaded. They didn’t rebuild, they reloaded with the guys they have.
"I know they’re not naming a starter [at quarterback] and we expect to see two or three of them, and we’ll prepare that way. They all can run, they all can throw. They’ve all played college football at a high level. They’re talented. I mean, they’re a North Carolina team, an ACC team, and a Mack Brown coached team. A lot of the guys are very familiar with what we saw last year when we went out to Chapel Hill. We gotta play our best football, we know that [and] we’re preparing to, working hard every day. Ten days out right now, still working a lot of Minnesota versus Minnesota, and as the days go on, we’ll transfer that into more North Carolina.”
Offensive Coordinator: Greg Harbaugh Jr.
Q: [What’s it like preparing] for a new defensive coordinator when you really don’t have a lot of tape on how he’s going to use his new personnel?
HARBAUGH: “It can be a challenge. You go based off of what he’s done in the past, when he was a defensive coordinator, when he was a head coach. You look at, I think the last two places in Georgia Tech and at Temple, he’s an aggressive guy by nature. You look at all that. That’s what you kind of get from his philosophy, and then schematically, we have to be prepared for a lot of things.
"You just look at all the big picture pieces of what he’s doing defensively and try to piece it together and figure out what he’s going to do with that personnel. He’s got good personnel. Power Echols and Kaimon Rucker, they’re very good. Amare Campbell’s a good linebacker too. They do a good job and I’m sure with their personnel with their secondary, they’ll be aggressive, they’ll play man coverage, things like that.”
Q: You touched on the aggressive nature. It’s pretty exotic defensively, bringing pressure from different spots. How important is pre-snap identification and communication this game?
HARBAUGH: “It’s everything. It’s what one of Max’s strengths is. He’s worked very hard at that throughout the spring, throughout the summer, and then training camp. He’s done an exceptional job at that, but it’s gonna be going back to a 100 level. What’s the first thing he’s going to have to look at, whether it’s boundary safety, field safety, maybe it’s front? Those things are going to be critical in this game.”
Q: Does this one mean a little more being a North Carolina native? Or did you grow up a Duke fan instead?
HARBAUGH: “My dad obviously played as East Carolina. My mom went there, my older sister went there, [and] my little sister went to North Carolina. I grew up an East Carolina fan so it’s cool to play against them, but at the end of the day, I haven’t thought about that one point because my main focus is making sure the offense is ready to go. I’m very excited to see what we can do. I’m very excited to see Max (Brosmer). If I’m more so talking about the quarterbacks, I’m very excited for Max…. I’m excited to open up with a great opponent. North Carolina’s gonna be really, really good, and we’re really excited to take them on.”
Defensive Coordinator Corey Hetherman
Q: What do you think you know about North Carolina’s offense without Drake Maye?
HETHERMAN: “That’s the biggest question, you know, is the quarterback situation. We’ll be prepared for multiple guys, figure out who the quarterback is, and then the offensive line situation. They lost a lot of reps there, but you know, they got some really good players up front and we got to be ready to adapt and be ready for what they throw at us with that offensive line and quarterback. They got a lot of really good players on the perimeter. The back, he’s an electric player, he makes a lot of big plays, and you just have to be ready to contain him, control them up front.”
Q: Do you relish this kind of opportunity given what the rush defense was in Minnesota last year to go against somebody that is that high quality?
HETHERMAN: “That’ll be the number one thing is to stop the run. We gotta make sure we stop the run. We got to stay ahead of the sticks and we got to put our defense in favorable situations all day.”
Q: What do you see in Max Johnson?
HETHERMAN: “I think he’s got a big arm. He’s got a lot of talent. He’s got a lot of experience. He’s started a lot of games, played a lot of reall good football down in the SEC. He’s going to be a guy that we’re going to have to, you know, the whole gameplan. We’re going to have to make it one dimensional. We’re going to have to stay ahead of the sticks. We can’t let them dictate to us the tempo and the situational football. At LSU, he made some big time throws, made some big time plays. I think he’s a really good athlete also. That part doesn’t always get looked at that way, the way he moves and makes plays with his feet. He’s a guy that we’re going to have to contain and keep the ball in front of us.”
Q: How do you go about preparing for a first game when you don’t really know how the personnel will be used and featured? Are there a lot of contingency plans in place?
HETHERMAN: “That’s the biggest question. We got to go back and look all the way [at] what has Coach Lindsey done? Where he’s been, different spots, different style quarterbacks, different playmakers. How does he distribute the ball? They have a lot of talent on that offense between the back, the tight ends, the wide receivers. [We look at] how they’re going to use the offensive linemen. Last year they did different things in different games and they had a very experienced front to sometimes help them in protection and sometimes help them in the run game.
"We’re going to take a big picture of different ways they’ve attacked different defenses, different people, different styles, [and] different things that he’s done whether it’s been at North Carolina or different places. We got to kind of take a look at the full picture and we’ll be ready. Early in the game I think we’ll get a good idea of how they will attack us and what their style for the day will be. We just got to make sure we respond to that.”
Q: On the flip side, they may not know much about you and the Gophers as a mix. Can you use that to your advantage too and spring some timely things on them do you think?
HETHERMAN: “Yeah, absolutely. We’re going to stay within what the defense is, but that’s the one thing we got to let them try to figure out.
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*SPECIAL: 60% off a 1-year subscription to Tar Heel Illustrated.
*Offer ends Friday. Promo Code: KICKOFF2024
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