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September 18, 2023
Pat Narduzzi North Carolina Preview Press Conference Transcript
PAT NARDUZZI: All right, ladies and gentlemen. Again, tough Saturday night again. We played two good football teams the last two weekends. Didn't come out with a victory. Didn't play as good as we need to. Didn't play as clean as we need to.
Again, I guess we'll look at the positive side of the ball first. Let's just talk the positives. I thought special teams played at a high level, and just watching it with the team last night, again, we let -- the whole room was full, and it's everybody. Even if you didn't play one snap, we're watching special teams.
There's always going to be one play -- you're not going to be perfect at anything. There's always going to be one play, a week ago missing a field goal, this week putting a ball in the end zone on a punt.
But when you look at just the whole picture of playing quality football on special teams, we've done that.
Defensively I thought we cleaned up a lot of things from the opener the week before. You've got a team that rushed I believe 50-some times and did a solid job.
Again, as I sit in that defensive staff room watching the tape, there's things we can still do better that disappoints you as a coach. Again, we're never going to be happy as coaches, period.
But there were some good things in that game. There were some good performances, some really, really winning performances on the defensive side of the ball.
I think anytime you hold an offense that's averaging probably 475, 500 a game and you cut it down to 211, that's a good day. Again, talented football team.
Again offensively, which I'm sure you've got a lot of questions about, it wasn't good enough. As I watch, watch it with the offensive staff, and I told you I'll probably have more answers when you come back here on a Monday, as you watch it, it's everybody. I know you guys don't want to hear that, but as I watch it, if I could sit there and say, it's this guy, and if we get rid of this guy, it's a problem, and it's not that.
You go back and watch the tape like a coach and watch missed blocks, missed -- not only miss a block but go the wrong way on (the) offensive line again or a tight end or a tackle or whatever it may be. But those opportunities -- again, there's spots we're getting five yards a carry, and we started off running the ball down the field. Why did we keep running the ball down the field? Because it was there, and we felt good, and it was like, okay, let's go. Nobody goes into a game saying let's run the ball 12 times or 13 times and we're not going to throw it one time. That's not the plan. The plan is you're having success, let's go. You just keep going with the flow. You don't have a plan to do that.
But it's receiver blocking, it's O-line blocking, it's tight end blocking, it's catching the ball. Like you have to catch the ball. We have opportunities where we can catch the ball, and we don't catch the ball.
There's opportunities to complete the pass and throw a better pass, and we don't complete passes. It's everything.
We've obviously got to do a better job of making sure our quarterbacks are throwing under duress more in practice, which we've discussed, whether it's just turning people loose -- we try to stay away from the quarterback, but we've got to give our quarterbacks opportunities to throw under pressure.
Then we're better off punting on 2nd down if we're going to turn the ball over. Again, when you go back and look at the turnovers, which I couldn't see on the field what happened, why did he throw it there, and you don't see it until you really see the tape. First one is a hitch and a seven route behind it on a sprint-out pass, and they roll up the corner so the hitch is taken care of, and they've got a guy in the deep third on the seven route. It's like, couldn't have been a worse coverage to have versus that pass concept. Sometimes they guess right.
We've got to make better decisions. It's trying to force it in, trying to feel like you've got to make a play, and sometimes quarterbacks get to that point. It's the same thing I said last week with receivers rushing the route. You try to make something happen and you making nothing happen. You make bad things happen.
We threw two interceptions which cost you the game, and again, not just those two. There's all those other things I just got done talking about that'll hurt you.
Without blabbering on and on, we've got an incredible team coming in here this weekend, and it ain't getting any easier, I can tell you that, with North Carolina.
Well-coached Mack Brown football team, talented. Anybody who knows their quarterback Maye is, we all know him, he'll be a first- or second-round pick next year, period, or first pick I should say, second pick, and they've got talent all around him.
Chip Lindsey is the new offensive coordinator, so it's a different guy than last year. I think the O-line coach and the quarterback coach went to Wisconsin, so Chip Lindsey is a new guy. Came from UCF, worked with Gus Malzahn for a long time, very creative, does some great stuff, and again, has got one of the best if not the best quarterback, NFL-pro-style quarterback in the country.
Then Gene Chizik is the defensive coordinator. Again, we're going back to a four-down, which -- our guys are obviously a little bit used to that, but we're getting used to the three-down here the last couple weeks, so we've got to switch now, go back to four-down protection schemes and all the rest of the things that go with the four-down, and talented.
They've got No. 8 up front, D-tackle, Murphy, that is all over the place. He's physical. He's twitchy. He's fast. He can be a game wrecker inside.
There's another kid, the Rucker kid, No. 25, their left end, as we look at it from the offensive standpoint, that's really good.
Again, it starts up front. I think they've got eight starters on offense returning, nine on defense, so we've got a veteran group coming in here that's played a lot of snaps.
Questions?
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