Players Monday: Fox & Rene

CHAPEL HILL – Typically, North Carolina’s players are available to the media on Tuesday mornings during the week, but with the NCAA mandating no team-related activities can take place on election day, the Tar Heels flipped Monday and Tuesday.

UNC always practices on Sunday and has Monday as the players’ day off each week, so the interviews took place Monday morning instead,

The Tar Heels are coming off a 44-41 loss at Virginia on Saturday night and are preparing to face Duke this Saturday at Wallace Wade Stadium in Durham.

Here are the video interivews with seniors Tomon Fox and Patrice Rene along with sme notes and pulled quotes:

*Saturday wasn’t a pleasant experience for the Tar Heels, as they lost for the second time in three weeks, and on the road to another team that entered with just one win. Mistakes did in the Heels, so what was the mood around the team at practice Sunday and Monday morning?

“Our guys are very disappointed, especially on the defensive side, we’re very disappointed with the way we played on Saturday,” Fox said. “But we take one day at a time, and after a game, whether we win or lose, we forget about it the next day and get focused on the next opponent.”

The Tar Heels allowed 418 total yards in the loss to the Cavaliers, including surrendering 210 rushing yards.

“We’re just extremely disappointed with ourselves,” Fox said. “We know that’s not us as a defense, that’s not us as individual players. We know we’re a lot better than that and we’ve shown that we’re a lot better than that. So, we’ve just got to make sure each week we come to play.”

*UNC had a tough time against the run at UVA, making it the third time this season the Heels have struggled stopping the run. What does Fox see as the primary problem there?

“I think our defense as a whole just has to be more consistent from a week-to-week basis,” Fox replied. “We have a good enough plan, we have good enough players, we just have to go out there and execute. In order to be a great defense, we have to get better each week, we can’t have these up and downs like a roller coaster, we’ve just to keep getting better each week. So I think guys just have to focus each week and execute.”

*Carolina faces Duke this weekend, so what are some of the concerns Fox has with respect to the Blue Devils?

“They have good players, we know they’re going to come out hot because of the rivalry, just like NC State did,” Fox said. “But we have to stay to ourselves, stay true to what we do and we’ll be okay.”

*The NCAA announced during the summer all team-related events and structure would be cancelled on election day, which is Tuesday. So that means if the players want to use the facilities for any reason, they must do so on their own. No team-related activities are permitted. This is to make it easier for athlete to vote, considering most practice and class days are too full and don’t enable them the time to stand in line and cast their votes.

Fox already voted, as have most of the Tar Heels, but he appreciates the NCAA making this decision.

“I think the NCAA did a great job by giving players the opportunity to vote, even if they haven’t before or even if they did before,” he said. “They gave us this opportunity to use our rights to vote this year. I think it’s important for everybody to vote.”

*With Storm Duke out for a few weeks and now Kyler McMichael out, along with Rene himself being in and out of the lineup, some other players have had to step up. How does Rene think the younger defensive backs have done filling in?

“One thing that’s special about our room the DB room, is that everybody can play,” Rene said. “Everybody’s talented, everybody has abilities and we’re confident in everybody out there. We can roll the dice and put any two corners out there and be confident about how they’re going to play. That’s something we definitely have in our advantage.

“It’s unfortunate to see guys go down, but next man up, we’re able top pick it back up, everybody knows what to do. We don’t really do any ones or twos, it’s just one group, one unit, one heartbeat.”

*There was no shortage of mistakes by the defense in Saturday’s loss at Virginia, so how does the staff deal with key mistakes the players made in the previous game, especially the ones that are potentially game-changing?

“At the end of the day, the coaches can coach us as hard as we can, but it really falls down on the players. We’ve got to be accountable and disciplined, that’s on us,” Rene said. “The coaches are not the ones out there committing these penalties. So, we’ve got to really take that accountability on us as players and as leaders, make sure the guys understand that we can’t afford to have those penalties and those penalties can definitely change the outcome of the game.”

*Penalties have been a problem for the Tar Heels all season, and that was the case in the loss at UVA over the weekend. UNC committed just six penalties, but most were quite damaging. So how does the staff handle this issue the day after games when the Tar Heels have their Sunday practices?

“First, they just acknowledge what happens,” Rene said. “Being accountable for it. Guys who made mistakes know what they did when we acknowledge it. And the second thing is just knowing what we did and being able to fix it. A good thing about it is all those mistakes are fixable mistakes. Unsportsmanlike conduct, we know what to do, we know just not to retaliate. Those are things that you can fix.

“A lot of stuff on special teams are errors that we can fix, so that’s a positive thing. We know we’re able to identify what’s going on, identify what’s wrong and fix it for the next week.”

*The Tar Heels travel to Duke this weekend, but while the Blue Devils are struggling at 2-5 overall and 1-5 in the ACC, they are coming off a 53-19 win over Charlotte, so they will be confident and anxious with the Tar Heels visiting. What does Duke do offensively that concerns Rene and the Tar Heels?

“They’re a good team, smart team, disciplined team, they have good execution, good backs,” Rene said. “They’ve been talking about their backs a lot so we’ve got to make sure we handle them. Good quarterback and receivers.

“They’re going to go out there and give it their best. It’s a highly anticipated game for them, they’re going to really go hard, so we’ve got to be ready for everything they’re going to throw at us.”

*Jacob Turner contributed to this report.