CHAPEL HILL – New North Carolina tight ends coach Freddie Kitchens met with the media Wednesday at the Kenan Football Center to field questions about his role at UNC and his experience in the profession, most of which has been at the NFL level.
Kitchens replaced John Lilly, who spent three years at UNC before taking the same position with the Carolina Panthers last week.
A senior football analyst at South Carolina last season, Kitchens has served in multiple capacities as an assistant coach at the college and NFL levels. He was a running backs coach for four seasons in college, including at Mississippi State, and also served as a tight ends coach.
In 16 years in the NFL, Kitchens was a tight ends coach, quarterbacks coach, running backs coach, associate head coach, offensive coordinator, and was the head coach of the Cleveland Browns in 2019. They went 6-10 that season.
After being fired by the Browns, Kitchens joined the New York Giants as their tight ends coach. He was a senior offensive assistant to the Giants in 2021, but head coach Joe Judge was fired, so the staff was replaced, which is how Kitchens ended up at South Carolina last season.
Kitchens also worked in the Dallas Cowboys and Arizona Cardinals organizations. He was in Arizona from 2007-2017.
He played quarterback at Alabama in the early 1990s, including a few snaps versus UNC in the 1993 Gator Bowl.
Above is video of Kitchens’ Q&A session with the media, and below are a few notes about what he talked about. More coverage of Kitchens’ presser will be included in upcoming content items.
*So why did Kitchens reach out to Mack Brown about the open job? Why college football, and why UNC?
“I decided last year to come back to college football because it’s the ground roots of everything I’ve always believed in coaching,” he said. “I came back initially to gain more knowledge in RPO and the run and I really enjoyed myself last year.
“I came to North Carolina, number one, because I think the world of Coach Brown. He’s highly respected in this industry, in this business, and what’s there not to love about North Carolina? North Carolina’s one of the best jobs in the country, and I feel very fortunate to be here.”
*Kitchens has a long history with UNC OC & QB coach Chip Lindsey. They grew up in the same area, competed against each other in high school, went to many of the same camps, and maintained the friendship built at the time. Lindsey visited Kitchens when he was in the NFL, particularly as the head coach of the Browns, so Kitchens and Lindsey spoke with each other before Kitchens reached out to Brown.
*Kitchens hasn’t recruited in around 18 years, and things have changed dramatically on the trail since then, so how will he go about recruiting?
Initially, Kitchens addressed the on-going changes in recruiting, before settling into what he believes is important about the process.
“When you start talking about recruiting, you start talking about relationships, and this is a people business,” Kitchens said. “I guarantee… anybody that’s in any type of career, ultimately, it’s going to come back to a relationship you have with somebody, or your business relationships or personal relationships on what I feel about this guy, what kind of feeling does this guy give me. All sorts of those things. So that’s first and foremost.
“I feel like I’m a very personable person from that standpoint.”
*Kitchens says learning the offense won’t take much time and he should be ready not far into spring that practice begins Sunday.
“I think that’s an on-going learning curve for me, which is fine,” he said. “But when you start talking about offensive football, it’s all a base, it’s all just how you structure it, how you call things and terminologies and things like that. I’ve done some of the same things that we’re doing here. So, it’s semantics as far as putting Chip’s terminology in my brain and learning it that way.”
