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CHAPEL HILL – When it really comes down to it, all sports are games of inches. Life is a game of inches, metaphorically speaking, of course.
But within the walls of the Kenan Football Center, the phrase is preached, harped on, and conditioned: A couple of inches here or an inch there could be the difference between bringing down an opposing ball carrier for a minimal gain or allowing a big one.
This mantra, after all, comes from North Carolina defensive coordinator Gene Chizik. It’s called, “Searching for inches.”
Allow Power Echols to explain.
“Inches all around us,” UNC’s sophomore linebacker said. “It’s like, say you’re in a 10 (over the center) and supposed to be in a 30 (outside the guard), you get over late, you’re gonna miss the line and the gap’s going to be wide open. It’s inches on the ground.
“You’re supposed to be playing vision on the quarterback, and you match, and the quarterback scrambles, it’s inches all around us, and you’ll be there a half-step late and it’s a first down. It’s just inches all around, that’s what he elaborates on.”
Carolina’s inches last season were too often a greater distance from the ball than preferred. That is how a team consistently has the game-swinging breakdowns that afflicted the Tar Heels enough that a change was made in leadership on that side of the ball.
UNC finished last season ranked 94th out of 130 FBS teams in total defense, plus it was No. 105 in scoring defense. In addition, the Heels ranked near the bottom of the ACC with 132 missed tackles, including a miss rate of 17.7 percent.
Chizik says being in better position in pre-snap, quicker off the snap, thus not losing a step or two while thinking instead of reacting, and being more sound fundamentally, will shave off some of those inches.
“We talk about searching for inches all around us,” said Chizik, who is back for a second run at UNC. “When you see a guy miss a tackle because he has only one arm out, if he were to change that by moving over this far (hands gestured several feet) because he understood where he needed to be, then that tackle might be a four-yard gain instead of a 40-yard gain.
“So, there’s inches all around us that we’re trying to find, and that’s a daily challenge.”
Chizik had the same approach the first time he coached at Carolina in 2015, and it worked.
The 2014 Tar Heels, under the direction of then-coordinator Vic Koenning, had a missed tackle rate of 19.4 percent, and finished 6-7, just like last year’s Heels. In 2015, and while searching for inches in accordance with Chizik’s mandate, the Heels' missed tackle rate was 10.4 percent.
“You can stop a guy this close (inches) from the goal line, and it won’t be a touchdown,” junior linebacker Cedric Gray said, explaining the reward for finding those inches. “I think what he basically means by that is every little thing that we do matters. Every little thing that we do matters, and say we have a stunt on, we’re running a blitz stunt.
“He talks about closing space on the stunt, keeping it tight, because if you come around too wide, the guard might be easier to pick up that stunt.”
And, if players are sound fundamentally, all of this comes easier to themselves and collectively. Football 101 is a Chizik thing, and its process takes place every day.
Gaining those inches won’t mean much if the guys aren’t sound in their business.
“Tackling, number one,” Chizik said, naming the fundamentals work that are a part of UNC's daily regimen. “We’ve emphasized that ad nauseum. So, it’s been tackling, how we approach tackles, how we finish tackles, body position-wise, where we belong on tackles. So that’s been number one.”
Next is how to position oneself to best make tackles, or impede ball-carrier’s progress allowing teammates to swarm and being them to the ground.
“The other is just striking blocks and playing in gaps, and just playing the defense the way the defense was designed,” Chizik said. “It’s not about guruing up all these defenses, it’s about us being able to get off blocks, strike blocks, never stay blocked, tackling in open space, all of those things – creating and forcing turnovers, which we worked today – that are really going to get us where we need to be.”
And that leads to players finding inches, which means making more plays. That is North Carolina's mind, mission, and matter.
