CHAPEL HILL – North Carolina defensive coordinator John Papuchis took the time during an unexpected break this past week to recalibrate things a bit regarding his defense.

With Hurricane Florence shutting down school and forcing the cancellation of the Central Florida game, Papuchis had time to step outside of the normal routine using it to his advantage.

“The way I looked at it was to make the best of a frustrating situation,” he said Tuesday after practice. “We obviously wanted to play last week. You only get 12 guaranteed opportunities, so you don’t want to throw one away.

“But when we did have the break and a chance to catch our breath, there was a lot of recalibrating in terms of how I approach Pitt, we could probably be a little bit more expansive in our game plan than we would have in a normal game week because we kind of picked up an extra day of practice on it.

“It also let me step back and take some time to evaluate where I think we are as a defense and what we need to do going forward.”

Here are some more tid bits from what Papuchis had to say:

On an additional challenge getting them back into shape while also preparing for an opponent…

“The two greatest concerns that I had, number one our hydration. When they’re in our building, we do a good job of our guys staying hydrated and making sure that they’re taking care of their bodies. When they’re away from us, we can’t control what they’re eating, we can’t supply them with meals, we can’t make sure that they’re drinking the fluids that they need to play at a high level. That’s a concern.

“The conditioning aspect and how we took care of our body during the break. We gave them plenty of water when they left, plenty of Gatorades, but it’s a matter of making sure that we stay hydrated and taking care of our bodies when we’re away like that.”

On how they try to get around not having Malik Carney’s leadership on the field while he’s serving a suspension…

“The thing about that is it wasn’t a surprise, we’ve all know for a very long time that was going to be the case starting in week two. That can’t be a reason or an excuse for us not to play up to our level. If somebody is not in, the next guy has to step up and the leadership has to be owned by all of the veterans on the team, and that’s including the coaches.”

On Chris Collins (27) and Jake Lawler (15) combining for 42 snaps at ECU, the value of them getting on the field and if he’s seen an immediate dividend…

“I think it’s going to take time to see the payoff there. They’re going to be better this week than they were last week, that’s at least the goal and the hope. I don’t know that you can expect an immediate dividend, now in week five and six and seven and eight, as they continue to accumulate and pile reps up I think you’ll definitely see the difference.”

On prepping a bit easier because at least they now know the game speed and physicality of an actual game…

“That’s the one thing that you can’t simulate during the week is just how fast things really happen. Now that they have some game experience, the nerves and some of the anxieties that they probably had going into that probably can be lessened this week.”