CHAPEL HILL – North Carolina coordinators Phil Longo and Jay Bateman met with the media late Monday morning to discuss what they learned about their units after reviewing the film of the Tar Heels’ loss at Virginia Tech last Friday night.
Longo, the offensive coordinator, went into detail about the struggles his unit had with pass protection, Sam Howell’s three interceptions, the run game and more. Bateman, the defensive coordinator, noted how the Hokies gave them trouble the first few possessions but how his unit adjusted and played well enough to give the Heels a chance to win.
Below are videos of their full pressers along with transcripts of just about everything they had to say:
Phil Longo, Offensive Coordinator
On what led to the number of sacks on Friday night…
“There were six on record, and the way it broke down when we did our sack study was three of them came in true drop back protection. We had communication issues on two of them, which is not satisfactory, and then we had two that we pulled on runs that we probably should not have, we should’ve handed the ball off, so they become sacks.
“You never wanna pull on a RPO if there’s any doubt that we can complete the football, so those were two instances where plays became sacks off of RPO throws. I don’t know that we’ve had more than two over the last two seasons that occurred that way, much less two in a game, so we had two like that. One of them was credited a sack, and it was just a draw, tackle for loss behind the line of scrimmage.
“I don’t care how they characterize it, a sack or a TFL behind the line of scrimmage is a negative play for the offense. Those were six of the negative plays that we had in the game, and they just happened to be categorized as sacks.”
On if Sam should have taken the sack on the last interception rather than throwing it in danger…
“That was one of our communication issue plays. I think if I’m Sam at that point, I’m expecting a guard to pull and protect for me, and we wound up pulling him the other way, so he ended up being unprotected. He was under siege a lot sooner than he should ever be on that play, we had that play in for a reason, we wanted to run it from that hash, we’ve executed it very well in practice, and we wound up having a communication issue up front.
“I think Brian Anderson not playing was obviously as Mack alluded to, an issue for us, so we’ll get that squared away this week, you can’t have those against a good team. Virginia Tech, you gotta give them a lot of credit, they were much improved on defense, they had a good plan, they played their butts off. In games like that, particularly in conference, you gotta make sure you’re minimizing mistakes. That’s something that’s gonna be an emphasis for us this week.”
On what was most concerning about lack of offensive execution…
“I didn’t like that we didn’t get into a rhythm early. I don’t think that’s an excuse, I think teams are going to play well early on sometimes, and you’ve gotta get the offense going anyway. Again, this is without taking any credit away from Virginia Tech, but I think we could’ve impacted the game a lot more on our side of the ball if we had executed better and had minimized some of the mistakes that we made.
“This week really for us, regardless of who we are playing, is gonna be a lot more about us maintaining our focus and minimizing mistakes on an individual basis, so that we can just execute and go do what we do well. It’s the same process we go through every year. We have a certain population of the offense that’s a younger group, so this was the first time they were out there with the bullets flying in front of a large crowd in a hostile environment. Those are all facts, but they’re also excuses.
“Right now, what we need to do is lock in to what we have to do and not allow the outside things to affect us, and minimize mistakes, and I think we’ll be fine on offense.”
On how to clean up communication issues…
“I think the youth and the injuries play a part. When you have injuries you have to move some people around. We moved Asim Richards and Joshua Ezeudu around last week, we had Quiron Johnson playing center, he’s usually the backup center and a rotating guard. I think when you do that, you need to be prepared. You got guys out of position, or playing different positions than they’re used to, we just have to be prepared to do that.
“I think that’s the job of our staff to make sure we’re where we need to be mentally before the game on the weekend. The youth, the younger kids that haven’t started, I think this game that we just played will go a long way in adding to their comfort level starting a game this week. Last week, it was the first time for a bunch of them, and some of these guys like Antoine Green have played, but they’ve never been the every-down starter either, so it was a new experience for a bunch of our skill guys. I would’ve hoped we had a little bit more continuity early on in the game, I think we needed that when it was evident that they were going to try to drain the clock, minimize plays, and minimize series.
“It was very similar to a couple of the games that we had where that was employed last year. Three of those games and we handled it very well in two of them. I think going forward we just need to make sure that we understand to make the most of every opportunity when they’re gonna minimize the total number of plays that we are gonna have in a ballgame.”
On concerns with receivers getting separation for Sam to throw to them…
“I don’t think the separation in this game is what we’ve been used to. Some of that was technique, Coach Galloway had alluded to it, we talked about it, it’s something obviously that we’ll work on at that position. There were areas where you won’t get separation because maybe the speed at that position isn’t the same. There were areas where we definitely should’ve gotten more separation because we should be utilizing some better and more effective technique in that scenario.
“At the end of the day, we don’t have a lot of contested catches in this offense with the way we throw the football, but they do exist, and most of the time, contested catch situations are gonna come up, they’re gonna be evident, and they’re gonna be around on big downs, redzone plays third downs, those things, and players gotta go make those plays. What I gotta do from a coordinator’s standpoint, and we gotta do from a staff’s standpoint, is make sure we’re running some things that create some advantages for those guys, and put them in as good a position as we can to separate and make some of those plays.
“I think collectively as a staff and as a unit, we could’ve done a better job in some of those areas last week.”
On communication with Sam during the game…
“I think the conversations during the game have been relatively the same throughout these three years. If there’s some adversity, and we’re seeing some things we haven’t seen, or we’re just not playing well, or we get stopped a few drives in a row, you’re accountable for what’s not happening.
“At the quarterback position, our first question we ask ourselves is did the drive stall because of something we’re doing at quarterback, and if it is, we’ll coach it and we’ll talk about it. If it’s because of something else, another problem, then we’re gonna handle that at another position. I’m usually gonna share with Sam and the other quarterbacks, listen, when they do this, here’s how we’re gonna answer it, so that it’s not a problem for us in a future drive. I think it’s human nature, particularly at the starting quarterback position, to wanna go make plays.
“If you remember anything that I’ve said in the past, probably the most common piece of advice that I give Sam on a drive-to-drive basis is play every play within its own world. I always say this, you throw a hitch on a certain play out to the field five times, you don’t wanna automatically assume the hitch is going to be there on the sixth play. You wanna play that play within its own little world in case the defense is doing something different, and just take what they give us. That was part of our conversation on Friday, I think Sam and I would both tell you we need to do a good job of getting rid of the football when we’re under duress.
“On the other side of that, we gotta protect him better, we gotta establish the run game more effectively early in the game, and we gotta get some separation at receiver. I think if each of the rooms take care of what we’re emphasizing this week, then the team gets better, and Sam Howell gets better, it works both ways. I love the corrections period that we had yesterday, I love that nobody was talking, everybody was locked in.
“I love that there’s a focus here, I love that these guys know we could’ve played better on Friday, and I think you’re gonna see the product of the result from this game moving into game two, and into the rest of the season.”
On if Sam took the loss harder than usual…
“I don’t think so, we haven’t talked about that specifically, so I don’t wanna put words in his mouth. I know this, on a play, or a practice, or just a day, or a game, when Sam feels like he didn’t do something well, the only thing he wants to do afterwards is work on it, and get better, so that that mistake doesn’t happen again. I would hope that’s the approach of everybody, and I think, I talk about how high character our locker room is all the time, I think that’s how our guys approach it, and that’s why this team gets better week to week.
“I don’t know that Sam’s any different, I know that if I made any big mistakes on Friday, that I’m gonna self evaluate, I’m gonna get some critical feedback from Coach Brown, and anybody else that wants to share with me, and I’m gonna make sure that I don’t make those mistakes again on Saturday. I don’t ever wanna be a guy that costs us plays on gameday, and I think Sam is the same, and I think a lot of our players are the same. Hopefully the mistakes that we made at Virginia Tech, I know those will get cleaned up, we work on making fewer mistakes, and get back to executing the way I know we all expect to.”
- Noah Stabrowski
Jay Bateman, Defensive Coordinator
On Virginia Tech's plan in the first few possessions and what changed afterward...
"I thought they had a good plan. The way they were huddling, and coming out of the huddle, and giving us some shifts. I think once we settled down, we played better. The third play of the game, the wheel route, it was a good play by them, (a) good call by them against what we were playing. They switched the back on us fast, and kind of got our coverage messed up.
"I thought really after that, once we kind of got them on the sideline, settled down, and we kind of went to playing a little bit more static defense a little bit to try to get our feet underneath us. I think once we did that, then we did add the blitzes. We were able to create some negative plays. We haven't played in an environment like that in a while. I told Coach Brown this too.
"The first two drives, I was trying to calm them down. You never want to have to say sic ’em, you’d rather have to say woah. I was saying woah, like calm down, calm down, we're gonna be fine. They wanted to play. They were ready to compete. I think once we kind of got ’em settled down and got the communication a little better, I thought we played better."
On Ja'Qurious Conley...
"I'm really proud of him. He's worked really hard. He's worked in the offseason to be a more knowledgeable kid in the defense. Our other players have done a good job of mentoring him, and helping him with film study on their own.
"We knew obviously he’s got a lot of ability. I do think he played well. I think he plays fast; I think he's a really good tackler. Early on there were sometimes where he wasn't quite right. I think once he settled down to the flow of the game, he played really good and, I'm glad we got him"
On playing a lot of defensive players...
"I thought going in, it was going to be a 15 round fight. I thought it was going to go down to the last possession. That's kind of my mindset.
"I didn't want to get into a situation when things weren't going great early. You know it's easy, I think at that point, to say put the starters back in, but we trust those kids. Those kids worked really hard, and the other kids that maybe don't start the game. I said, ' In the fourth quarter, we're gonna need these guys.' I think we were fresher in the fourth quarter than the opponent.
"I think that helped us (with) some of the run fits. Later Ray (Vohasek) had had some snaps off, Myles Murphy had some snaps off, Des Evans had some snaps off. We got kids we think are good players. We tell them all the time, 'if you give us all you got and you play with high effort and you have a skill that we can use. We will put you in the game and use it.'"
What pleased you the most about adjustments made?
“I think only I think our communication. Once we got a feel for how they were attacking us. This is the way this thing goes, two years ago we played them, we played them here and beat them two years ago. We started the game off with three 3 and outs, and we were up 21 nothing.
" I thought they adjusted really well to how we were playing them. Then we didn't handle it very well. I think Friday night early on, they had a good plan to attack how we were going to play them. We had to get our kids straight and get them figured out. Then I think our kids really played well from that point. I think the biggest thing was communication. They were amped up, and they just kind of got into the right mindset to go play and execute, and I think once we did that, we played at a pretty high level."
Factors into why they were amped up."
"So, I do think it was a good atmosphere. They haven't played in an atmosphere like that in a long time. I think all that factored in. Our kids were excited to play. They were ready to compete. They knew that we had a great opponent on the road, and they were looking forward to the challenge.
"Some kids who maybe haven't been in that (atmosphere) like Myles Murphy and Des Evans and JQ (Ja'Qurious Conley) they haven't played in those environments. It's very different. I think once we got them settled down, they communicated. And we (said) 'all right this is how this is how they are aligned,' and those kinds of things I thought we handled it pretty good."
What surprised you good, or bad after watching tape?:
"I was pleased with them. I thought our effort was really good. I thought we played really hard. I guess what surprised me early on was more what Virginia Tech did. I think once we kind of got settled down with how they were. How they were kind of coming out of the huddle and some of the things they were doing.
"It was pretty obvious to us early. After the first drive, they were going to try to slow it down, and get in the huddle, and snap the ball late. I think we had to get kids ready for that. I don't think anything really surprised me. I think once we settled down we played pretty good."
On the 2008-09 App State influence in Georgia State because of head coach Shawn Elliott
"I see a lot. It's funny we were actually watching something they do earlier, and Tommy (Thigpen) said, 'I've never seen this before.' He said, 'Jay have you seen this before?' I said, 'yes, I coached in the southern conference, so yeah.'
" I think it's interesting you look at who's defended them well, and its App State and Georgia Southern. Guys that go back that they have seen some of this stuff before, so hopefully, some of my experience with it will help, but they do a really good job. I've always had a lot of respect for Sean (Elliot)."
On blown coverage not taken advantage of by Va. Tech:
"I saw the whole thing happen, and I was very nervous. I was glad that the pressure kind of got him off the spot. We didn't handle the motion empty very well.
"And again, that's football. I gotta coach it better. That's ultimately what matters. But you know what? Sometimes you get lucky, sometimes they don't find that guy, sometimes they do. I saw it, and I didn't think very highly of it, I'll put it to you that way. "
- Brandon Peay
