CHAPEL HILL – North Carolina defensive coordinator Gene Chizik met with the media Monday at the Kenan Football Center to field questions about what his unit did during the open week, and discuss other elements from that side of the ball.

Above is the video of Chizik’s Q&A session, and below are some notes from what he had to say:

*Chizik praised his unit for how “attentive” they were last week about all that must be fixed. Much has been made about the Tar Heels allowing Pittsburgh touchdown drives on its first two possessions in the 41-24 win at the Panthers on September 23, and Chizik said the staff coached up the unit hard about what it didn’t do well then.

“I was real proud. I feel like a lot of times, and it matters where you are in the season, a lot of guys can kind of lose focus in those environments when you know you don’t have a game the next week. But our guys did not. They were very focused.

“They were really attentive and really interested in when we weren’t good and why, and the focus was fixing those problems that we identified.”

*But he also praised the defense for never panicking and allowing things to spiral out of control, which happened a few times a year ago, and too often before he arrived.

“You try to create habits in guys that allow you to function when things aren’t necessarily going well all the time. It’s a mindset in a lot of ways, right? But it also comes from some confidence that you know everything’s gonna be okay. And to your point, that happened at Pitt.

“That happened the first couple of drives where that we saw some things we needed to adjust to, and there was never any panic.”

*Chizik says senior jack Kaimon Rucker works hard every day at his craft, and that he knows when something doesn’t work as soon as it happens. He has “intelligent football conversations” with him. “And I think it’s unlimited for him where he can go for him for sure.”

Rucker has 7.5 TFLs so far, 4.0 sacks for 59 yards, which is an average of 14.8 yards lost per sack. He also has 18 hurries, according to PFF, and owns a grade of 81.0.

*Syracuse QB Garrett Shrader ran for 195 yards in a win at Purdue a few weeks ago, averages 5.6 per carry on the season, which includes the 14 times for 56 yards he’s been sacked. In addition, he has run for 21 first downs, has 13 runs of 10 or more yards, and four of 15-plus yards.

Shrader is excellent at escaping pass rushes and picking up large gains, and is also often used as part of the Orange’s ground game. Chizik says containing him is a task.

“He’s just a big guy and he’s really athletic and moves so well in space. But he’s a hard guy to tackle. He’s a combination of both… There’s a really good mix in there with how he gains his yards, but what you do know is that you always have to account for where he is and what the situation is, and his ability to take the football and run with it, whether it was planned as a designed quarterback run or not…

“We’re very aware of what he does as a runner. It’s a huge challenge for us to be able to make sure that we can keep him in the pocket… and minimize how many yards he gets by improvising.”