Players Tuesday: Chapman, Gray, Maye & Jones

CHAPEL HILL – Every Tuesday during North Carolina’s football season, several Tar Heels meet with the media to discuss the previous game, themselves, and look ahead to the next opponent.

This week, with UNC at 3-0 and coming off a 31-13 win over Minnesota, Don Chapman, J.J. Jones, Drake Maye, and Cedric Gray fielded questions, as the Heels prepare for their game at Pittsburgh this weekend.

Seventeenth-ranked Carolina and the Panthers (1-2) are slated to kick off at 8 PM at Acrisure Stadium. The game will air on the ACC Network.

Below are videos of each player’s Q&A session along with some notes about what they say:

*Chapman nearly had an interception the other day versus Minnesota, but couldn’t corral the ball that was right in his hands. He also had plenty of daylight in front of him, and could have returned it a long way. Naturally, his teammates let Chapman hear about it.

“Yeah, they were on me in the meeting room,” Chapman said.

And they said?

“They were just like, ‘You gotta have those, that’s six.”

How many times has he played that back in his mind?

“Too many times,” he said smiling.

*The Tar Heels got hands on quite a few of the Gophers’ 30 pass attempts, and were quite active in the secondary. Chapman says a wave of picks are coming.

“For sure. We’re right there on a lot of plays. We’ve just got to come up and finish them.”

*A theme right now when speaking to any of Carolina’s defensive payers is having a better understanding of the defense now than they did a year ago. Chapman also spoke about it.

*Chapman said he knew East Tennessee State transfer Alijah Huzzie could play not long after watching him play. He quickly thought to himself, “That boy can go get the ball.”

*Gray’s leadership has come up quite a bit going back to the start of fall camp, and was clearly on display this past Saturday. UNC Coach Mack Brown told a story after the game and again Monday about Gray getting the unit on the same page to go out on the field and shut down the Gophers.

Gray says he senses teammates receiving and embracing his message more than before. He also said it’s something he doesn’t really plan on doing going into a game, it’s just more instinctive and reactive to the game.

“I just try to gather the defense up, so as I’m trying to gather the guys up, I might kind of think about what I’m going to say,” Gray said. “But like I said, it’s usually kind of in particular moments in the game where it’s just we have to get a stop. It’s one of those moments in the game when I try to speak up.”

*The Tar Heels’ defense has faced five sudden-change situations this season – four after interceptions and one after a recovered onside kick – and have limited opponents to just a pair of field goals in those situations. Why have they been so effective in such tense moments?

“That is something that Coach (Gene Chizik) Chiz has talked about, sudden changes. But not only that, red zone defense in general. And those sudden-change positions (sometimes) put us in the red zone right off the bat, and I think that’s just something we’ve been performing on.

“We’ve got a little saying on the defense, ‘Bend don’t break.’ So I think that’s what we’re able to do, just play great fundamental defense.”

*Maye continues to challenge defenders trying to get that extra yard when he’s running the ball, but there is a fine line between needing to risk injury for a yard or two and simply laying up and going down or getting out of bounds.

“I need to do a better job of protecting myself… It’s just so hard,” Maye said. “I mean, the first down is right there, it’s hard for m to run out of bounds. Just my mentality. Whether it’s just growing up having that edge, or watching Sam do it here. You never saw Sam run out of bounds unless first down was near.

“I need to do a better job, but at the same time, I’m going to leave it all out there.”

*Mack Brown said Monday that the ball Andre Greene almost caught Saturday would have been a breakthrough catch had he done so. Greene is close, Maye said, perhaps very close to turning the corner.

“He’s right on the verge. He texted me after the game, ‘I gotta make that catch,’ and he wants it. He’s got the tangibles, is still kind of learning it and he’s getting (it) down. Last year, the problem (was) knowing what to do and how to do it, and he’s got that down.

“So, just his confidence, making that play you saw in the Oregon game making that big catch. So, he’s got it in him and he’s getting more confidence.”

*Maye also talked a lot more about taking hits when running the ball, plus how he works on throwing on the move, Nate McCollum, Pitt’s defense and more.

*In addition to talking about wanting to get into broadcasting after college, noting he is in UNC’s journalism school right now, Jones also talked about the effect Nate McCollum has had on the WR room and how teams defend them, that the offense hasn’t come close to hitting its stride, how much he loves the deep post pass, and about Pitt and generating energy on the road.

*Also, Jones was asked a few questions about Tez Walker in which his answers made it worth noting here. For example, the fans chanted “Free Tez Walker…” late in the game this past Saturday, so what was Walker’s reaction?

“Our fan base has rallied behind Tez, and there’s so many people outside of UNC are behind him. And we just want him to understand we support him 100 percent. It’s not just the football team, it’s not just North Carolina, it’s not just the East, Southeast, people on the West Coast; people all over the world, who support Tez.

“We want to make sure we understand his situation and we’re all behind him. So, at the end of the day, I think it was a really nice chant, and think it was great for his morale.”

*Walker isn’t on the field yet and likely will not play this year, but he’s still impacting the game on the sidelines. Brown noted the other night how much Walker lifts up his teammates during games, which was backed up by Jones on Tuesday.

“He’s such a motivator. You can tell he’s being a leader. And the way he’s handling this situation is amazing. I don’t know a lot of people that can handle this the way he is right now. Personally, I believe he’s being screwed completely.

“But at the end of the day, he’s going out there and he’s still coaching up the young guys. He’s helping me out. He’s still watching film, he’s still a part of the team. And when we see that, we know we’re playing for a bigger purpose.”