Larry Fedora, North Carolina head coach Opening Statement:
“After reviewing the film and breaking it down, there were some really good things in the game. We improved in some areas, corrected a lot of mistakes, but we still made some mistakes and have plenty to improve on. I thought one thing offensively that we did was we took care of the football. That was really good to see. Defensively, once the adjustments were made to what Illinois was trying to do against us, I thought our defense played really well from that point on – both in the run game and the passing game. Special teams wise we put the ball on the ground and created a turnover, which is unacceptable. We’ve got to get those things corrected.”
On defensive adjustments
“The adjustments were really… Part of the adjustments were recognizing when they had six offensive linemen on the line of scrimmage and what we needed to do in those situations. Early in the game that was something that we weren’t prepared for at all and it created issues for us in some of our checks and adjustments. We got some linebackers out of place. Third play of the game, but after that we got it corrected.”
On the balance between the run game and pass game
“I like balance. Balance to me is not the same thing as balance to y’all. Balance is to y’all is 40-40. I don’t look at carries and throws. I don’t look at that. If we rush for 100 yards one game and throw for 300, and then the next game turnaround and rush for 300 and run for 100 – that’s balance to me. Because at the end of the year I look where we’re at and not how many carries or how many runs. It’s, were we productive with both styles of offense – throwing and running.”
On if Mitch Trubisky had fewer mistakes against Illinois
“He did. He had a lot fewer mistakes actually. Mental mistakes I mean. He was much more relaxed and much more doing what he does in practice.”
On what corrections Mitch Trubisky made
“His eyes were really good. He had his eyes in the right place. Throughout the game, as you looked at him, there was one ball where I think he didn’t do a nice job with his eyes. That was where he threw the deep ball to Mack (Hollins) over on the side and the safety almost got to it. He didn’t control the safety there, so he has to do that. Other than that I thought he did a really nice job with his feet and his eyes during the game.”
On playing against two FCS opponents again this year
“One is enough for me. You know how far in advance schedules go. It goes all the way back to the are we going to play eight conference games, nine conference games. Eight, yes. Then Notre Dame’s coming in. When are you playing them? It just created some holes in our schedule. We weren’t able to fill it. We’re in this situation and there’s nothing we can do about it. I will say this, you guys know this. If you look at the last two weeks, there’s been an FCS teams beat Division I teams each week the last two weeks of this season. No matter what you want to think about it, this is a team that we have to prepare for and that we have to do a good job against. They will come in here and their plan will be to beat us.”
On if there’s a difference between a lower-level Division I team and a top-tier FCS team
“I would say the FCS team is better in some cases. You could pick out four or five FCS schools and match them up against Division I schools and you know that the FCS team will win. There are some really good ones out there.”
On his success against FCS opponents
“We take everyone seriously. It’s the next game. It’s the most important game. If you don’t do it, and you fall and don’t win, then it becomes a really important game. I know the fans and everyone outside thinks it’s not a big game. Well it’s a big game to me. It’s a big game to our football team.”
On James Madison’s offense
“They run the football. They’ve rushed for 800 and something yards in two games. That’s hard to get done in practice against air. That’s a lot of yardage, so they’ve had success running the football in the first two weeks. They are serious about it. When you score 136 points in the first two games, you’re hitting on a lot of cylinders early in the season.”
On determining sharing the workload between running backs Elijah Hood and T.J. Logan
“We go with the hot hand. We know that both are going to play, they both know it. We’ve been doing it that way since they’ve got here and that’s not going to change. It’s still about production. If you’re producing, you get the ball. If not, the next guy up gets his shot to produce.”
On having two running backs who are productive.
“It’s really nice. It’s nice to know that if something happens, you still have a very high-quality running back to put in there.”
On T.J. Logan’s early success this season
“I just think that all the hard work that T.J. has put in is paying off. You really see it on the field. He looks like he’s at a different speed than the players on the field. You go back and look at his GPS number from day one at fall camp to now, he’s going to be the highest if not the second highest guy on the team every single day. All that’s paying off for him. He’s got such a great attitude. Any way he can help his football team he’s excited to do it.
“After reviewing the film and breaking it down, there were some really good things in the game. We improved in some areas, corrected a lot of mistakes, but we still made some mistakes and have plenty to improve on. I thought one thing offensively that we did was we took care of the football. That was really good to see. Defensively, once the adjustments were made to what Illinois was trying to do against us, I thought our defense played really well from that point on – both in the run game and the passing game. Special teams wise we put the ball on the ground and created a turnover, which is unacceptable. We’ve got to get those things corrected.”
On defensive adjustments
“The adjustments were really… Part of the adjustments were recognizing when they had six offensive linemen on the line of scrimmage and what we needed to do in those situations. Early in the game that was something that we weren’t prepared for at all and it created issues for us in some of our checks and adjustments. We got some linebackers out of place. Third play of the game, but after that we got it corrected.”
On the balance between the run game and pass game
“I like balance. Balance to me is not the same thing as balance to y’all. Balance is to y’all is 40-40. I don’t look at carries and throws. I don’t look at that. If we rush for 100 yards one game and throw for 300, and then the next game turnaround and rush for 300 and run for 100 – that’s balance to me. Because at the end of the year I look where we’re at and not how many carries or how many runs. It’s, were we productive with both styles of offense – throwing and running.”
On if Mitch Trubisky had fewer mistakes against Illinois
“He did. He had a lot fewer mistakes actually. Mental mistakes I mean. He was much more relaxed and much more doing what he does in practice.”
On what corrections Mitch Trubisky made
“His eyes were really good. He had his eyes in the right place. Throughout the game, as you looked at him, there was one ball where I think he didn’t do a nice job with his eyes. That was where he threw the deep ball to Mack (Hollins) over on the side and the safety almost got to it. He didn’t control the safety there, so he has to do that. Other than that I thought he did a really nice job with his feet and his eyes during the game.”
On playing against two FCS opponents again this year
“One is enough for me. You know how far in advance schedules go. It goes all the way back to the are we going to play eight conference games, nine conference games. Eight, yes. Then Notre Dame’s coming in. When are you playing them? It just created some holes in our schedule. We weren’t able to fill it. We’re in this situation and there’s nothing we can do about it. I will say this, you guys know this. If you look at the last two weeks, there’s been an FCS teams beat Division I teams each week the last two weeks of this season. No matter what you want to think about it, this is a team that we have to prepare for and that we have to do a good job against. They will come in here and their plan will be to beat us.”
On if there’s a difference between a lower-level Division I team and a top-tier FCS team
“I would say the FCS team is better in some cases. You could pick out four or five FCS schools and match them up against Division I schools and you know that the FCS team will win. There are some really good ones out there.”
On his success against FCS opponents
“We take everyone seriously. It’s the next game. It’s the most important game. If you don’t do it, and you fall and don’t win, then it becomes a really important game. I know the fans and everyone outside thinks it’s not a big game. Well it’s a big game to me. It’s a big game to our football team.”
On James Madison’s offense
“They run the football. They’ve rushed for 800 and something yards in two games. That’s hard to get done in practice against air. That’s a lot of yardage, so they’ve had success running the football in the first two weeks. They are serious about it. When you score 136 points in the first two games, you’re hitting on a lot of cylinders early in the season.”
On determining sharing the workload between running backs Elijah Hood and T.J. Logan
“We go with the hot hand. We know that both are going to play, they both know it. We’ve been doing it that way since they’ve got here and that’s not going to change. It’s still about production. If you’re producing, you get the ball. If not, the next guy up gets his shot to produce.”
On having two running backs who are productive.
“It’s really nice. It’s nice to know that if something happens, you still have a very high-quality running back to put in there.”
On T.J. Logan’s early success this season
“I just think that all the hard work that T.J. has put in is paying off. You really see it on the field. He looks like he’s at a different speed than the players on the field. You go back and look at his GPS number from day one at fall camp to now, he’s going to be the highest if not the second highest guy on the team every single day. All that’s paying off for him. He’s got such a great attitude. Any way he can help his football team he’s excited to do it.
