CHAPEL HILL, N.C. - John Shoop was officially announced by Butch Davis as his new offensive coordinator in a Friday afternoon teleconference. Shoop brings over a decade of NFL experience to his new job. Shoop spoke energetically about his new opportunity, and some of the influences that helped him get to this point.

Coach Butch Davis

Thanks for your patience and participation. I'm very excited to announce John Shoop for the position of Offensive Coordinator. I think it's an awesome hire for our coaching staff, and team, for the University of North Carolina. John's going to do great job.

I have a great deal of respect for John on many levels. He is a very bright man, smart man, and an outstanding husband and father. He has many outstanding qualities that are going to help us win in the future.

During the interview process, and the times we visited and talked, it became extremely apparent to me that John's ability to build an offense to utilize the athletes will be exceptional. We are thrilled to death to have him as a member of our coaching staff.

I want to thank Coach Davis for this opportunity; I couldn't be more excited.

In trying to find good situations, wherever they are, when my family looked at it, I didn't see any better situation than the one that has presented itself here.

Chapel Hill is the type of place where we want to raise our family. This is the type of school we want to be associated with. It has first rate academics, and first rate people, through and through. Coach Davis's reputation as a coach, and as a recruiter, has been extremely attractive to my family.

I did my homework on the rest of staff. Coaches Hagen, Pittman, and Charlie (Williams) are as much of a reason as I want to be part of this as well.

Especially the people here, is the primary reason I'm so excited to be a part of what's happening here.

This is a really good situation; it (UNC) has good resources, and has a Coach that knows how to use those resources. It wasn't lost on me that Davis recruited 28 first rounders, when you combine a place like Chapel Hill, it's a great situation. My wife is an ordained Presbyterian minister, and the pastor of a large church in Oakland; They're not going to change the Sabbath, could be on Saturday. I think coach Davis and this place can offer that. We could have stayed.

We're going to try to really evaluate the players we have now, and the players that are going to be here starting in the fall, next season, and the vision of the offense, what our quarterback does best, we're going to do, and whoever our best players are, we're going to get them the ball.

We're going to run the ball when we decide it's time to run the ball. We're going to have balance, being able to do both, run and throw the ball, equally well, and do what's necessary to win the game. Some games are going to be 40-30, and some games are going to be 10-7.

I didn't formally meet Coach Davis until I arrived on campus. We have competed against one another. I was in Chicago; he was in Cleveland; that didn't work out so well for him. I've had a deep respect for Coach Davis for a long, long time.

Obviously, Chuck Pagano was in Oakland when I was there, so that is one connection I have with this staff. Norv Turner is a close friend of mine as well. I initially went to Oakland to work with Norv Turner; that connection was awfully strong. That may be a better question to ask Coach Davis.

The NFL coaching family is like a small fraternity. I developed a lot respect having competed against him; one of the guys that I reached out to was Norv Turner. Like John, I have the utmost respect for him. Norv's recomendation of what a quality coach, and what a quality man he was, spoke volumes. Yesterday at the press conference, I said that as much as you want guys that are talented, it is extremely imperative do determine how they affect the chemistry. I have no doubt that adding John Shoop adds to that chemistry, with developing relationships not only with the coaches, but his wives and children, and the other coaches wives and children.

That's the interesting thing about the NFL nowadays; you do quite a bit of recruiting. You recruit free agents; you recruit guys to stay with you. I've done a lot of recruiting over the last 12 years.

I can help you get better. I can show ways to get you the ball. I can show ways to maximize you strength. I'm going to be studying my tail off to pass the (NCAA-mandated) examination in order to go out and recruit college guys; that's a certain requirement that there's going to be taken very seriously.

I have a head coach who has been through it, and has recruited 28 first round NFL draft picks. I've got another guy, John Blake, who's probably as good as a recruiter who has ever lived. However, I'm not going into this blind. I certainly understand that there is a difference between college recruiting and coaching in the NFL.

Interestingly enough, in my first nine years in NFL, I worked with defensive head coaches. I really liked that. Some of my strongest influences are Dom Capes and Dick Jauron, because defensive coaches teach you what you really need to do to win the game.

Having said that, I think I've worked with two of the greatest offensive minds, Jon Gruden taught me so much football, it's unbelievable the amount of football I learned from Jon Gruden, and about how to stimulate players; he showed me that every day.

Norv Turner is as great an influence as there is. I think he took some of my weaknesses, such as not throwing the ball downfield, and showed me how to use guys to utilize their strengths.

They are tremendous resources; I talk with a lot with them about football. Dom Capers and Dick Jauron taught me a lot.

There are a few similarities, and a few differences, with each; the time you are going to spend with the players, during the regular season and the offseason, the volume of time you have with the players in the college game is less than the volume you have in the pros.

The second thing is that in the pro game, the ball is in the middle of field, because the hashes are narrower. In college, the hashes are wider.

First of all, it's going to be our style, and this sucker takes a village. Hagen, Pittman, Charlie, we've got a great staff, it's going to take a village and be on a community level.

I will say this about the quarterback; you need a really good decision maker. I've had the most success with guys who were kind of cerebral, and will never lose the game.

One, you need a good decision maker, who is always going to put you in the right place, in other words, you never run a bad play, or waste a play.

You've got to be the most accurate guy on the planet. But I've got a great deal of confidence in my ability to help a guy become a great decision maker, and tweak to his strengths. I'd say those are the biggest things; you have to be super smart, and super accurate.

We've got to be better on third down, there's no question about that.

(With the Raiders) the majority of our completions for the entire season came in the last five games, so we became more efficient. There's was a guy on our team you may know, named Ronald Curry. He made 20 catches in two games for us. I tried to get the ball to guys who made plays for us, and get plays for those guys.

And two, stay on the field. We got better on third down, and that helped us in some ways.

We completed a lot more balls than at any other point in season, and got the ball to guys we didn't utilize earlier in the season.