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CHAPEL HILL – Gene Chizik, North Carolina’s new assistant head coach of defense, met with the media Thursday for the first time in this new role, which is his second stint at UNC.
Chizik discussed his conversations over the years with UNC Coach Mack Brown, why he decided to accept his offer to return, his five years with ESPN and the SEC Network and how he continued to study defenses and offenses while not in coaching, why he didn’t coach, his philosophies about communication, simplification, and minimizing catastrophic plays.
Chizik fielded questions for more 33 minutes, so he hit on some other things, as well.
In his career, Chizik won a national championship as the head coach at auburn in 2010, was Brown’s defensive coordinator when Texas won the national title in 2005, he has won the Broyles Award as the top assistant coach in the nation, and in his first of two seasons as Larry Fedora’s defensive coordinator at UNC in 2015-16, he rebuilt a defense that helped the Tar Heels win the ACC’s Coastal Division. That Carolina club won a school-record 11 consecutive games in the same season, and the defense improved its points-per-game allowed from the previous season by 15 points, which was best in the nation.
Above is the full video of Chizik’s presser and below are some notes and pulled quotes from what he had to say:
Note: THI will have more coverage of what Chizik had to say in addition to this item.
*Chizik coached at UNC for the 2015 and 2016 seasons, but left so he could spend more time with his family. His son, Cally, was playing high school football, and later at Furman, and Chizik didn’t want to miss those important years.
He wasn’t sure if he was going to get back into coaching again, but when Brown called, he jumped at the chance.
“When Coach Brown called, this was always one of the jobs I said that if I was going to get back into coaching, it had to be the perfect fit with the right people,” Chizik said. “When I got this call from Coach Brown, he hit it on the head. He asked me if I’d be interested, and there was no hesitation.
“Number one, because of my fond memories of being here at the University of North Carolina, but two, being with Coach Brown. We go back a long ways, and I truly consider him one of my great mentors. And you talk about a guy that’s done it right his entire career, it’s been amazing.
“I always believe great things happen in threes. We were together at the University of Texas, had great success there, learned a lot from coach in my two years with him there before I went to Iowa State as the head coach. Then we worked together at ESPN, which was time number two… where we were able to stay connected and do some different things together in TV. And now this is time number three. And I’m excited about it.”
*Chizik has watched some film of the Tar Heels’ defense from this past season, but only a few games so far. He will get into more of the season as the gets more settled. He did see some things he liked, though.
“I’ve seen just enough, and this is one of the priorities moving forward in the next couple of days is to really evaluate the players that you’ve got,” Chizik said. “So, I’ve seen them play a couple of games that I put on film and had a chance to watch. I think it’s a very talented group on defense. It’s been really good to meet some of them in the last 24 hours.
“But any time that you have a talented group on defense, you’ve got a chance. And, I feel like probably the biggest thing I’ve seen in the little bit of tape that I watch is the inconsistencies that creep up now and then. I think that’s been the Achilles heel.
“In anything, defensively or offensively, everything is about being consistent. So, I’d say that’s probably what I’ve seen, and that’s probably a 10,000-foot view, without yet being able to dive into what I think can be changed. But I see a lot of talented guys, and I see a lot of guys that want to be great at their trade.
“And in this day and age, you’ve got to want to be great. Football’s a tough sport, you gotta love ball. And I think we’ve got a bunch of guys that definitely love the game, I think we’ve got a bunch of guys that are very talented, I think Coach Brown and his staff have done a really good job of recruiting players defensively, (and) I think the long and short of it for us is to make sure that we’re more consistent.”
*When Chizik was at UNC the first time, he often referenced the importance of limiting catastrophic plays, meaning to minimize the number of big plays by opposing offenses. He said the current team will hear about it often as well.
“They’ll be hearing a lot about the catastrophic plays,” Chizik said. “That’s what I’ve always built the foundation on defensively, and it goes back to the consistency message, right: Not giving up catastrophic plays, catastrophic passes, catastrophic runs.
“What does that mean for people who don’t know, it means simply when you’re giving up plays of 50 and 60 yards, there’s an issue somewhere. And typically, that happens because you’ve got guys with eyes in the wrong place, or there was miscommunication – I thought I should have been here, I needed to be here. Those are catastrophic plays.
“And again, if you can look at inconsistencies of defense, and when those types of things are happening, it usually boils down to a communication gap, or it usually boils down to a player or several players having their eyes in the wrong spots. Football offensively this day and age is very tricky, there’s a lot of moving parts to it, especially with the tempo offenses now.”
*Chizik hasn’t coached since he left UNC following the 2016 season, but he has remained in football. He spent the last five seasons working for ESPN and the SEC Network, so he has been on top of the changes in the game. Plus, each offseason he spent time with offensive and defensive coaches dissecting elements of the game, especially things like RPOs that have become far more common since he last coached.
“It’s been really interesting, the last five years, even though I wasn’t in coaching… during the season, I was so busy with TV that was every week, but I was able to in the offseason, every offseason, clinic with different people both offensively and defensively.
“So, what I would do, is I would actually bring people in and literally sit down with them for two or three days: Offensive guys talking about the RPO game, the tempo game, everything that’s changed. What are they looking at, what do they like, what do they dislike?
“And then on the defensive side, I was able to bring in a lot of different guys speak with them, corral them for a couple of days, and talk defense. Talk changes they would make, what they like, how they’ve evolved.
“So believe it or not, not coaching actually gave me more time to do that, and I feel really good about keeping up with the game.
“It’s really interesting, after 2016, there was some of the next evolution of what I was going to do at the University of North Carolina defensively anyway. I liked what we were doing. I felt like there was a lot of things we could do better and improve. I felt like we had the culture set where we needed to go, and then I got out.
“So, what I’m going to do is what my plan in, everybody’s got a voice in the room, and I want to hear everybody’s opinion… I want to be able talk to guys and put together a package that’s going to have the nuts and bolts of what I’m comfortable with in what I’ve always done, but I’m smart enough to realize that being a good listener and learning from other people, we can put together the best of the best in terms of what we feel like scratches every itch that you need to have defensively.
“There’s nuts and bolts of things that will never change. This game is about tackling, this game is about attacking, this game is about execution, limiting the catastrophic and big plays. So that’s going to be the nuts and bolts of everything that we talk about.
“The day we set our feet on the practice field, it’s going to be about attacking, it’s going to be about fundamentals, it’s going to be about tackling. Because no matter what happens on the field, those things never change.”
*Chizik has a saying, “The star of the defense is the defense.” So, what does that mean to him?
“There is a saying that I always say, ‘The star of the defense is the defense.’ The star of the defense is the defense, and so it’s a team game. Those things (noted above) will never change. But I’m certainly going to tweak, add to, and change the things that I think need to be done to give us the best chance to win on a weekly basis.”
*There were some issues within the defense as this past season went on that fractured its culture some, multiple sources have confirmed to THI. One might say there was an erosion in the culture on that side of the ball. So, one of the things Chizik must first do is begin the process of rebuilding the culture of the defense. Trust, communication, and simplifying the scheme and approach will go a long way with this, he says.
“I’m not sure what the culture was, and things of that nature, this past year, I know when I came the previous time that was one of the challenges that we faced,” Chizik said. “I feel really good about being able to tackle those type of issues.
“This is not rocket science, it’s like anything. I don’t care if you’re talking about a family, business, a team, a church, you can name it, everything is about communication. Everything is about respect. And if you build culture, and you ask me, ‘what is the most important part of building a culture,’ it’s trust and communication. It’s that simple.
“You don’t need to tell a player he’s this, if when indeed you think he’s this. It’s listening to people, as a leader it’s making decisions for that side of the ball or this team, and it’s not complicated to me.
“It does require a great amount of communication, it does require a great amount of listening, and I feel like one of my good traits is listening because I want to hear, I want to know. I want knowledge, and I want to make decisions based on that knowledge.
“We’re going to do that with the players, we’re going to do that with our assistant coaches. We’re going to build a culture of trust. It takes time, that doesn’t happen overnight because they have the word “coach” in front of your name. And I don’t expect it to. I want to earn trust, I don’t want to be given trust. I want to earn respect, I don’t want to be given respect because of a title.
“I’ve seen a lot of dudes with titles that you can’t trust or you don’t respect them because they have a title. So we earn that – that’s what we earn – and I feel very confident we’ll be able to do that over time.”
*Mack Brown will be 71 when the Tar Heels open next season Aug. 27 versus Florida A&M, so a natural question for Chizik was if he might be part of the succession plan once Brown decides to retire. Chizik just turned 60 and has been a head coach twice: two seasons at Iowa State in 2007-08, and four seasons at Auburn, from 2009-2012.
So, has there been any discussion with Brown about him possibly replacing the Hall of Famer when he steps down?
“Zero discussion about that,” Chizik said. “I’ve got this one mindset, and this mindset is, I want to come back to the University of North Carolina, I want to enjoy myself, I want to have a blast, I want to put a great defense on the field for the University of North Carolina and Mack Brown, and that’s all I care about.
“That’s all I focus on. There’s been zero discussion about that. We will have zero discussions about. I’m just blessed to be back here, and I’ve got a singularly focused mind right now, and it is on that and that only.”
*Many former UNC players who were a part of the program took to social media when the Chizik news circulated last Saturday, tweeting about how excited they were he was returning. Has Chizik heard from of those players, and who else has he heard from since the news came out?
“Yes. I’ve really been humbled by kind of an overwhelming response from a lot of the former players,” Chizik said. “It’s been really cool. A lot of them reached out. I’ve texted them. Haven’t talked to them directly, but we indirectly have communicated.
“Mitch Trubisky was one of the first guys to reach out, which was really cool. Switz (Ryan Switzer), talked with Jeff Shoettmer. It’s been really humbling and I appreciate it. I had a great two-year stint here and I felt really connected with those guys, with everybody on the team.
“It wasn’t just defensive players, because my goal in coaching is never to be one sided, right? I always want to get to know and have relationships with everybody on our football team; every kicker, every punter, specialist, offense, defense, walk-on, scholarship, it doesn’t matter to me because I think it’s really important because I think this is a relationship game.
“So, it was really col for me to be able to receive some of those texts from guys. I was very humbled and very appreciative of them reaching out. And I told them I can’t wait for them to come back so that I can get together with them personally.”
