CHARLOTTE - UNC football coach Larry Fedora met with the media following the Tar Heels' 17-13 loss to South Carolina on Thursday night. The coach didn't enter the press room until nearly 40 minutes after the game ended.
Here is what the coach had to say:
COACH FEDORA Opening Remarks
Missed an opportunity to win a football game tonight. First you gotta give South Carolina credit for what they did. They forced 4 turnovers on the offense. All of them in the Red Zone, I believe. I thought defensively we did some good things. I wouldn’t say we’ve arrived, but we did enough things to win a football game tonight. And special teams, we really didn’t create any kind of game changing plays. We were just solid. So, it wasn’t good enough to win a football game tonight; we’ve gotta get much better
On What Areas Can Hood get better
I think he’s proven to us that he’s our starter. He’s a guy that has showed that all camp. He’s healthy and he feels good. You know he can always get better. Tonight he played pretty well.
On why you didn’t run Hood more in the Red Zone.
We got behind the chains. The last drive, we got behind the chains and didn’t get it done.
On what went wrong with Marquise on the 3 Int’s
You throw it to the guys in the blue, not the red and that’s all I can tell ya. I don’t have an answer for it, you know if I had an answer for it, I would gotten it changed. I keep thinking he was gonna get it going and early on we did some good things. It just wasn’t consistent enough.
On did their scheme force you to play as much nickel as you did.
It did. Defensively, they created some problems with so many different people at QB. The defensive staff did a fairly good job of handling that, because you really didn’t know what we were gonna get with the new QB. How many QB’s did they play tonight? #11 and #33 was back there a couple of times. #10 and #6, so it was 4 or 5 guys. They did a good job and they found ways to run the football.
On going back to the Red Zone and Being Behind the chains, Is that an indication you see Hood as more of a short yardage back
No, not at all. I’ll have to go back and look at the calls with what we were doing down there. We got into some situations where I think every one of those were 3rd and longs that we were throwing, when we threw the picks. The other ones, we converted the Field Goals. We did not get it done offensively that’s for sure.
On would you like to see Hood get more Red Zone Carries.
With the way he ran the ball tonight, I’d like to see him get more carries totally, wherever they are. If we felt like tonight, we could have just stuck it in his hand and let him go and he would have scored, I sure that what they would have called.
On did you game plan for 4 QB’s tonight.
They prepared for the Wildcat with #11. Prepared for Conner; didn’t know if the other guys; was it Orth and he played also. When they put the running backs in at QB, I don’t know if they prepared for that.
On did it disrupt any kind of defensive game plan
Oh sure. Adjustments has to be made on the fly and I think they did a pretty good job adjusting on it.
On Big Picture wise, what a Win would have done for this program, how disappointing is this.
I went into this game saying it wouldn’t define who we were anyway, it was just gonna tell us where we’re at right now as the 2015 team. So qwe know what we gotta work on now, where we’ve gotta get better. It is very disappointing cause you had opportunities to win the football game. It would be different if we walked in here and just got our butt beat; you didn’t have a chance to win. Maybe it’s more disappointing that you had the opportunities to win and you didn’t get it done. We wanted to win the football game, no doubt about it, we needed to win the football game to be where we want to be and we didn’t get it done.
On what you take away on the defensive side of the football.
We gotta do a better job of stopping the run. I think some of that was missed tackles. It looked like we had guys in position most of the time. I think there was only a couple of runs when we might have been out of position. We played the pass pretty dang good. We gave up a couple of things there, one time down in the Red Zone, we had a bust and they scored on. I thought there was a lot to build on defensively, really a lot. I’m not gonna say they walked out there feeling good about themselves because we didn’t win the football game, because they want to win a football game. Their job was to hold them to 12 tonight and they didn’t get that done. Offensively, our job was to score 18 tonight and they didn’t get that done. I think there’s a lot of good things to take from it.
On field goal kicking being a concern for the past 2 year and your feelings after tonight.
Nick had that entire camp like that. Whether it was 2 minutes at the end of practice and we had to drive down and kick a field goal; he kicked a 54 yarder one day, in that scenario to win the game. We had a lot of scenario’s we put him into. I think he felt really confident going into the game; and then he hit em tonight. That’s a good sign for us.
On did you speak to Marquise after the game more than normal
No, not yet. I won’t until I really break down the film. I’ll talk to him on the bus and those kind of things. I got a lot of em to talk to actually.
On the things you need to build on after this game with Marquise
We gotta look an see what cause the mistakes first. Off the top of my head, I couldn’t tell ya what the problem was. We had some miscommunication with him and the center, with part of the 6 illegal procedure penalties that we had, we had a tackle line up in the backfield on a big 3rd down play or he wasn’t on the line of scrimmage, so, we had some miscommunications between the QB and the Offensive Line when we were doing some of our tempo stuff, that can’t happen, not with a veteran group.
On you having 450 yards on offense and only 13 points, what was the problem
You’ve gotta give them credit. Their the ones that made the stops in the Red Zone, so you gotta give them credit. We didn’t execute. I thought we did a poor job of executing, especially in the Red Zone.
On Marquise saying he was trying to be the hero
That’s something we have to address all the time. As a QB, your job is to take care of the football, that’s the number one thing. That’s the most important thing you do. And then after that, you have to distribute the ball where it’s supposed to go, according to what the defense gives you. If you do that, we’re gonna move the chains and be successful. If you don’t, then we’re not going to be. Tonight, we didn’t take care of the ball number 1 and so the rest of it really didn’t matter.
Here is what the coach had to say:
COACH FEDORA Opening Remarks
Missed an opportunity to win a football game tonight. First you gotta give South Carolina credit for what they did. They forced 4 turnovers on the offense. All of them in the Red Zone, I believe. I thought defensively we did some good things. I wouldn’t say we’ve arrived, but we did enough things to win a football game tonight. And special teams, we really didn’t create any kind of game changing plays. We were just solid. So, it wasn’t good enough to win a football game tonight; we’ve gotta get much better
On What Areas Can Hood get better
I think he’s proven to us that he’s our starter. He’s a guy that has showed that all camp. He’s healthy and he feels good. You know he can always get better. Tonight he played pretty well.
On why you didn’t run Hood more in the Red Zone.
We got behind the chains. The last drive, we got behind the chains and didn’t get it done.
On what went wrong with Marquise on the 3 Int’s
You throw it to the guys in the blue, not the red and that’s all I can tell ya. I don’t have an answer for it, you know if I had an answer for it, I would gotten it changed. I keep thinking he was gonna get it going and early on we did some good things. It just wasn’t consistent enough.
On did their scheme force you to play as much nickel as you did.
It did. Defensively, they created some problems with so many different people at QB. The defensive staff did a fairly good job of handling that, because you really didn’t know what we were gonna get with the new QB. How many QB’s did they play tonight? #11 and #33 was back there a couple of times. #10 and #6, so it was 4 or 5 guys. They did a good job and they found ways to run the football.
On going back to the Red Zone and Being Behind the chains, Is that an indication you see Hood as more of a short yardage back
No, not at all. I’ll have to go back and look at the calls with what we were doing down there. We got into some situations where I think every one of those were 3rd and longs that we were throwing, when we threw the picks. The other ones, we converted the Field Goals. We did not get it done offensively that’s for sure.
On would you like to see Hood get more Red Zone Carries.
With the way he ran the ball tonight, I’d like to see him get more carries totally, wherever they are. If we felt like tonight, we could have just stuck it in his hand and let him go and he would have scored, I sure that what they would have called.
On did you game plan for 4 QB’s tonight.
They prepared for the Wildcat with #11. Prepared for Conner; didn’t know if the other guys; was it Orth and he played also. When they put the running backs in at QB, I don’t know if they prepared for that.
On did it disrupt any kind of defensive game plan
Oh sure. Adjustments has to be made on the fly and I think they did a pretty good job adjusting on it.
On Big Picture wise, what a Win would have done for this program, how disappointing is this.
I went into this game saying it wouldn’t define who we were anyway, it was just gonna tell us where we’re at right now as the 2015 team. So qwe know what we gotta work on now, where we’ve gotta get better. It is very disappointing cause you had opportunities to win the football game. It would be different if we walked in here and just got our butt beat; you didn’t have a chance to win. Maybe it’s more disappointing that you had the opportunities to win and you didn’t get it done. We wanted to win the football game, no doubt about it, we needed to win the football game to be where we want to be and we didn’t get it done.
On what you take away on the defensive side of the football.
We gotta do a better job of stopping the run. I think some of that was missed tackles. It looked like we had guys in position most of the time. I think there was only a couple of runs when we might have been out of position. We played the pass pretty dang good. We gave up a couple of things there, one time down in the Red Zone, we had a bust and they scored on. I thought there was a lot to build on defensively, really a lot. I’m not gonna say they walked out there feeling good about themselves because we didn’t win the football game, because they want to win a football game. Their job was to hold them to 12 tonight and they didn’t get that done. Offensively, our job was to score 18 tonight and they didn’t get that done. I think there’s a lot of good things to take from it.
On field goal kicking being a concern for the past 2 year and your feelings after tonight.
Nick had that entire camp like that. Whether it was 2 minutes at the end of practice and we had to drive down and kick a field goal; he kicked a 54 yarder one day, in that scenario to win the game. We had a lot of scenario’s we put him into. I think he felt really confident going into the game; and then he hit em tonight. That’s a good sign for us.
On did you speak to Marquise after the game more than normal
No, not yet. I won’t until I really break down the film. I’ll talk to him on the bus and those kind of things. I got a lot of em to talk to actually.
On the things you need to build on after this game with Marquise
We gotta look an see what cause the mistakes first. Off the top of my head, I couldn’t tell ya what the problem was. We had some miscommunication with him and the center, with part of the 6 illegal procedure penalties that we had, we had a tackle line up in the backfield on a big 3rd down play or he wasn’t on the line of scrimmage, so, we had some miscommunications between the QB and the Offensive Line when we were doing some of our tempo stuff, that can’t happen, not with a veteran group.
On you having 450 yards on offense and only 13 points, what was the problem
You’ve gotta give them credit. Their the ones that made the stops in the Red Zone, so you gotta give them credit. We didn’t execute. I thought we did a poor job of executing, especially in the Red Zone.
On Marquise saying he was trying to be the hero
That’s something we have to address all the time. As a QB, your job is to take care of the football, that’s the number one thing. That’s the most important thing you do. And then after that, you have to distribute the ball where it’s supposed to go, according to what the defense gives you. If you do that, we’re gonna move the chains and be successful. If you don’t, then we’re not going to be. Tonight, we didn’t take care of the ball number 1 and so the rest of it really didn’t matter.
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