CHAPEL HILL – New North Carolina offensive line coach Randy Clements met with the media at the Kenan Football Center on Monday for the first time since joining the staff.
Clements, who is replacing Jack Bicknell, who left to Wisconsin with former offensive coordinator Phil Longo, spent the last two seasons at North Texas working for former UNC OC Seth Littrell, and before that was at Baylor for a decade.
Clements spoke about his motto “Run the damn ball,” his philosophies about recruiting offensive linemen, coaching them, the fine line between teaching technique and physicality to execute in the red zone, and much more.
From UNC’s press release last week: Clements has a track record of being one of the top offensive line coaches in the country. From 2010-20, he was part of nine offenses that ranked among the top 13 in the country including three straight No. 1-ranked units from 2013-15 at Baylor. He comes to Carolina after spending the last two years at North Texas.
Above is video of Clements’ presser, and below are a few notes and pulled quotes from what he had to say:
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*One of the things Mack Brown mentioned about Clements on Monday was hos motto “Run the damn ball” stood out to him. Said he as wearing a hat with it on there. So, what does the slogan mean to Clements?
“We had a lot of pride (at UNT) of running the football as o-line guys,” Clements said. “And the offensive coordinator, he actually played for me when I was at the University of Houston, and I had another guy that was helping me. His name was Jason Smith, he played for me when I was at Baylor, and he was ended up the number two pick overall. And he wants to get into coaching and was helping.
“He actually had the hats made up… Next day he comes in with all these hats, and we’re walking around the building with “Run The Damn Ball” on our heads. It became a mantra for us.
“We adopted that and it’s something the guys took pride in, something they gravitated to.”
*The mandate Clements applies to his o-line is they must be “fast and physical.”
“Just be fast and physical,” Clements said. “Don’t tie up, this is any position in football, but you don’t want to tie them down to with a lot of thoughts between the time that they hear what the play is until the time the ball is snapped.
“Keep them focused on the technique they’ve repped over and over again that they’re going to use and rely on, and just don’t make it complicated. The fastest way to make a fast guy slow is to make him think.”
*Seth Littrell was Larry Fedora’s offensive coordinator at UNC for two seasons, as he left following the 2015 campaign to take the head coaching job at North Texas. Littrell was let got at UNT a couple of weeks ago, but he was a valuable resource for Clements during this process.
“Seth’s awesome. He’s a fabulous human being, has a great family,” Clements said. “He was awesome to work for. Can’t say enough good things about him. And he had nothing but praise for this place. Said it was awesome, his family loved it here. Said it’s a place you can come and compete on the highest level. It made the decision pretty easy for me.”
*Most UNC fans remember the 2015 Russell Athletic Bowl Sports Bowl in which the Tar Heels were run over by Baylor, 49-38, racking up 645 rushing yards, a record for any bowl ever played. Clements was the Bears’ OL coach that season, and he even has a game ball for his unit’s performance that night.
“That was a year we had a good team,” Clements said. “We had a really good o-line that year, but we lost all our quarterbacks – they’d gotten hurt at some point during the season. We had three of them, and by the end of the year, we didn’t have any.
“Going into that bowl game we just went into wildcat mode. We quit calling them quarterbacks, we called them ‘snap catchers.’ So I think the first touchdown in that game we had seven different guys take snaps on that drive.
“It was a big day for us. We had a lot of rushing yards and won the game there. Coach (Gene) Chizik probably won’t bring it up much around the office.”
Will the game ball stay at home, or might he bring it to the office here at UNC?
“If I do, I won’t display it out front,” Clements replied, laughing.
