Papuchis On Preparing For The Unknowns Of Cal

CHAPEL HILL – UNC defensive coordinator John Papuchis met with the media following Wednesday’s practice to discuss his unit and preparing for Saturday’s season-opening opponent, California.

Here are some notes and quotes about what Papuchis had to say:

*Preparing for Cal has been a bit difficult because it’s a new staff, but at least the defense can look at what Eastern Washington has done the past few years, because Cal’s offensive coordinator, Beau Baldwin, was the head coach there the last few years. Papuchis said that teams change a lot from year to year, so the unknown is there for all openers, but it’s raised a few notches in cases such as this.

“Opening games in general there are a lot of unknowns. From year to year to don’t know what schemes change based on personnel or philosophies people may have. But when you have a new staff you really don’t know, because I’m sure coach Baldwin carried over a lot of what they did at Eastern Washington, but his whole offensive staff has so input. Will it be exactly the same? I would doubt it.”

*The defensive staff still looked at tapes of Cal’s offense to get a gauge on its personnel. Included is that the staff went so far back as to watch some high school film of Cal QB Ross Bowers, a redshirt sophomore who was named the starter earlier this week. Bowers has played just one series in his college career, so the staff looked at high school film of him, as well.

“We’ve gotten pretty familiar with him. Really, when we were not sure who e quarterback was we watched all three of them with whatever we could have: spring game, anything from the year before, high school stuff. So we try to get a feel for it the best we can and be able to go from there.”