CHAPEL HILL – North Carolina offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Phil Longo met with the media Monday at the Kenan Football Center for his weekly press conference to discuss how his unit played in the win over Florida A&M while looking ahead some to Saturday’s game at Appalachian State.
Much of what Longo was asked about focused on the play of redshirt freshman quarterback Drake Maye, who set a school record with five touchdown passes in his first start. Maye was 29-37 with 294 yards, those five TDs, and no interceptions. He also ran the ball four times for 55 yards, including a called quarterback draw that gained 42 yards and set up UNC’s first touchdown.
Above is the video of Longo’s presser, and below are some notes and pulled quotes from what he had to say:
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*Maye is exceptionally competitive to the point where he was more interested in discussing the passes he didn’t complete Saturday night than he was that he set a record and was highly efficient. So how was the meeting with him going over film Sunday, and was Maye uber focused on the missed plays?
“I would say that Drake’s personality and Jacolby’s kind of the same way,” Longo said, also noting backup quarterback Jacolby Criswell. “Those two are really, really humble. With regards to Drake, I would say Drake is almost now, I don’t know this now that we have talked about it, but just the way he handles it. Drake almost like a superstition, or it’s a bad omen to talk about the good stuff you know. He always wants to okay the touchdowns are fine and good passes are fine, but he immediately, upon getting a compliment, is like, ‘Yeah, but you know what I know what I got to work on.’
“I have said on to him a number of occasions, ‘Look, appreciate when you do something well’ because he does execute a lot of things well. But he is a perfectionist, which is a good trait to have for a quarterback. And he is forever looking at what he’s not doing well, he is forever asking about what he’s not getting done the right way. That’s what you need to do if you’re trying to get better every day.
“So, I think he enjoyed playing well during the times of the game he played well. And I think he was very receptive, because Sunday meetings tend to be with coaches. They tend to be, ‘Hey, you look at all the positives stuff in a blink, like that’s good, and what we’re supposed to do.’ And we really making a snap tape most of the time and you’re looking at all the negative stuff or looking at the stuff you do better.
“And that’s what he really wants to see. We kind of move on from the positive after a few comments and look at a few things and we hit the stuff that we got to get better at that we need do better next week. Some of the mistakes we made on Saturday, if we make them again at App State, they are going to be bigger mistakes. So, what we need to make sure what we do is take the field having all that stuff rectified and so the perfectionist approach that he has is really good, especially with a young quarterback that needs to develop from week to week.”
*UNC Coach Mack Brown said he was surprised Maye played so well Saturday night, was Longo surprised about his performance in any way?
“I think Drake, like Jacolby, have a different advantage maybe than Sam Howell did,” Longo said. “They’ve been out on this field before. Our blue team, our white team, they get the same amount of reps every single day at practice. So, Jacolby and Drake and even Conner (Harrell) in the spring shared everything. So they got reps. Drake and Jacolby got equal reps all the way through August camp.
“So, these guys have been here for multiple years and they have seen corner blitz, they’ve seen double-backer pressure, they’ve seen safety pressure, they've seen all the different looks from coverage and pressure standpoint. It was nice to see Drake put the whole product together. He’s got a good number of plays. I’d say we played 78 snaps, I think Jacolby got 8 and Drake got like 70 or 71 snaps. Fifty-five of them that we really liked, and there might have been dozen or 15 plays out there we’d like to have back and handled differently.
“There were some things where we had deep shot open and he took the check down, so there was a positive on the play, but it could have been an explosive. The biggest thing is to settle his feet in the pocket. He was way too active with his feet, and he knows that. And so we need to stay at the top of the drop unless we have to get out of there. And that will be an emphasis for he and I this week.”
*Maye is a different kind of player from Sam Howell, so how has Longo changed the offense some, if he has, to more fit what Maye does well?
“I have alluded to this a number of times, but I’ve always felt, even going back to watching him live in playoff games in high school, that he never gets the credit for the mobility he has,” Longo said. “And I heard Coach Brown talking about him in summer workouts beating some of the other skill players in a lot of our COD stuff and speed stuff and explosion stuff.
“So, he’s quick, and you saw that when he took the burst down the sidelines off the draw. I think he’s a much bigger running threat that people give him credit for, and you saw that on Saturday. I also think his mobility helps him extend plays, so we move him a little more, and if you have noticed that already. We will roll him out and use him on the edge. We will use him in the run game when we feel like that’s an effective attack.
“But we want him to do what he did Saturday. We want him to distribute the ball to the talent that we have and use his legs as an add-on. At the end of a play that doesn’t work the way it’s suppose to schematically to use his legs. And when we want to call his number, as a ball carrier on a draw or off a zone read or something, then we can because the ability to do it. And one of the other things that both of these guys do really well, I’ve always felt like Drake and Jacolby do a fantastic job throwing off platform - on the run and off of different scenarios where their bodies aren’t set, their feet aren’t set and can’t throw.
“The touchdown throw to Gavin Blackwell is a perfect example. He probably stepped up into the pocket and moved around too much there, and we could have just sat there. I think he had a return route to Josh Downs that was open. We could have hung right there in the pocket and fired that and scored. He didn’t see it.
“We’re kind of moving around a bit but he dances out and we scramble left. That same concept opened up as a scramble route to Gavin and he threw off platform there. It was a nice throw and it was a score for us. So, that’s a perfect example of a play resulted in a touchdown that we probably could have made a little bit easier. And then it also demonstrated his athletic ability. So, that’s going to be an asset all year.”
*True freshman Omarion Hampton became the first UNC running back to go for more than 100 yards in a debut since legendary Charlie “Choo Choo” Justice in 1946. Hampton had 14 carries for 101 yards and two touchdowns versus the Rattlers.
Hampton just arrived this summer, he didn’t take part in spring practice. So how much of the regular package did the staff give him versus FAMU, or did he achieve his numbers operating in a limited part of the plan?
“I’m smiling because between Coach Brown, (running backs) Coach (Larry) Porter, and myself, have had numerous conversations about Omarion Hampton having a package last week in the game because he is a freshman,” Longo said. “He didn’t start the game, we got him in as the game got started into a rhythm a little bit. But this package soon became, ‘We’re playing Omarion all the time, right?’
“I was going to be protect him and see how he does. Let’s get him the ball and get him some protection. Let’s get him a look at a throw just to see how he responds to stuff. Once he started playing, once he started executing, once he started producing, which is probably the key word there that, it kind of went out the window for me in my mind. I ran the offense with him and he did a good job of mentally of being in position and executing what he needed to execute. I thought he ran the ball well.
“I only think that guy is going to get better as time goes on. He reminded me of year one Javonte Williams for us when Javonte used to break out into the open field and didn’t have the moves, didn’t do as good at the point of attack against the second and third level defender. And then Javonte comes back a year later and he has the most missed tackles in the country in college. I think he led the NFL in that last year, so I’m hoping that Omarion will develop that same thing.
“That is something I know Coach Porter is talking to him about right now. Having a little but of understanding and repertoire once we beat the line of scrimmage about managing the next guy that addresses him in the run game.”
*Now, as a true freshman, it’s understandable that Hampton’s running with the ball is ahead of the other stuff a back must handle, but Longo says he’s making progress in all areas.
“Better. What’s the easiest for a running back, to know how to take a handoff and run the football,” Longo said. “It’s what comes naturally. But he catches the ball very well truthfully. We have the upmost confidence throwing the football to him, as we do most of the backs. Protection is probably the longest learning curve for any running back in most offenses and that’s true here.
“But we are a point now that isn’t a concern for Omarion, we wanted to try to make sure we got him enough reps in practice so we felt this confident about him in pass protection as we do throwing him the football and handing him the ball off in the run game.”
*With a somewhat new offensive line, which included four different starters than a year ago, plus a transfer from Miami at center and at right tackle from Harvard, communication will take time. But Longo was pleased for the most part. In addition, Spencer Rolland’s process over the last month was one of the more interesting topics of fall camp, so how did he do coming over the from the Ivy League?
“On the first play, the communication wasn’t great, we let an inside zone go through right through our gap. And after that, he kind of settled down and did good job,” Longo said. “He is a competent, dependable, trustworthy mainstay, and he’s really physical, and he plays the entire play. He is a high effort guy and he is really bright obviously.
“So we have a lot of confidence in him. I thought he had a good game and did a good job. Coach Bicknell was impressed with the game he put in. We were wondering how he would be from a rep-count standpoint. We get into an eight-play, 10, 12-play drive, can he sustain that, because he didn’t play in a tempo system at Harvard. He’s got a full August camp of the way we do things but you never know how that will transition on game day. And that really was not an issue.
“I think after the opening play mistake where he was a little behind on his assignment, everything else played out. Spencer is good, we trust him.
“I think our line played with great continuity. Communication was really good. I don’t know if we had any play at all in the game where we had four guys doing one thing and one doing another, which is a nice change and was a plus for us. And we didn’t have the pre-snap penalties. We had one where they said Corey moved the football you know what I mean. We had a questionable holding call on Ed Montilus on the draw in the two-minute drill that I definitely didn’t think it was a holding penalty. It is what it is. That stuff tends to even out in during the course of the game.
“Overall, for an opening day for our younger line, for a young o-line, I’m very happy with our communication.”
