UNC's Culture of Poor Discipline

[JimmyNaismith]

This football team has shown lapses in discipline and focus all season, none more costly than the final 2 minutes versus NCSU. This isn't a new problem, however. If we look back at the program's penalty history, we see a disturbing trend.

UNC's national percentile in Fewest Penalty Yards has been woeful for a long time.

• In the last 10 seasons, UNC has been in the bottom 25% of college football in penalties seven times.
• UNC has only been in the top half six times in the 21 seasons since Torbush was fired.

Here is a graph showing UNC's percentile since Mack arrived on campus in 1988. The colors represent each coach's tenure. High values reflect fewer penalties and vice versa.

 

[blazers]

Awesome chart. Thx!

 

[blazers]

So we're soft AND undisciplined?

 

[JimmyNaismith]

So we're soft AND undisciplined?

To me discipline = focus. I think that’s the core problem with this program.

 

[uncfanatic]

To me discipline = focus. I think that’s the core problem with this program.

Add in the world we live in - tweet this and tweet that. My grandfather - if he were still with us - would say talk is cheap, show me the money.

 

[riverswe]

all 130 teams live in the same world so it's something specific to us.

 

[Archer2]

Our program has been undisciplined for a long time. It makes me crazy.

 

[39 Feet Above Sea Level]

Add this suggestion to all the previous thoughts; referees expect us to make penalties,
scrutinize us more closely, don't give us the benefit of the doubt in crucial situations,
hence, perpetuating our propensity to get flagged more than other teams.

 

[MGareau]

It's coaching. Why are you afraid to call out the ELEPHANT in the room.

 

[riverswe]

agreed. there's no conspiracy to penalize us ore than other teams.

 

[strummingram]

It's a culture of losing more than anything.

Just look at the embarrassing record UNC has when playing night games, televised, and especially playing on the road. The program is programmed to lose games, or lose at least half of the time.

 

[blazers]

Same penalties home vs road though, I'd bet. Just slower starts and overall more inconsistent in all those road losses (100% of the) this yr.

 

[blazers]

Penalties aren't always correlated with w/l. Need a bad-timing-penalty stat.

To me this stuff 'starts at the top', but I wonder if a great DC and solid OL coach could help.

Fed was 6-7 2014, then hired Chizik who helped produced that awesome 11 win season in 2015 (with fewer penalties).

 

[riverswe]

build depth by playing 2 deep then put someone on the bench for making bad mistakes (penalties/blown assignments). make sure the guys understand that's the expectation and then live it. very little downside for screwing up for most of the starters.

a great DC or OL coach would definitely help. even a different one would likely help - something just is not meshing with the current coaches. a new start, different look, everyone fighting for their position again would likely yield better results no matter the new coaches.

 

[Archer2]

Yeah, major changes need to be made. I would start with the OC and allow him to make any changes(say OLC), that he wants. And Bateman would have one more year to show significant improvement or he’d be gone. Keep Mack and Dre for recruiting purposes. I’m not confident that Mack will be that aggressive though.

 

[strummingram]

Speaking to the poor discipline is their habit of celebrating after doing things that a winning team is supposed to do. Making a field goal is great. But, the game isn't over, and celebrating as if it is costs you 15 yards and is one of the cards that State needed to be dealt to flip the script. UNC has done stupid things like that ALL YEAR LONG.

 

[TarHeelMark]

I had a feeling all day Friday that we were gonna blow a lead and lose it at the end, but I figured it would be a walk-off FG. Reality was WAY WORSE!

 

[strummingram]

I had a feeling all day Friday that we were gonna blow a lead and lose it at the end, but I figured it would be a walk-off FG. Reality was WAY WORSE!

That was... possibly... the WORST football loss that I can remember in my life. Maybe because it was the most recent.

 

[sctarheel30]

How many realized we didn’t win a road game this year?

 

[riverswe]

How many realized we didn’t win a road game this year?

according to mack that's the next step and wasn't included in this phase of the rebuild.

 

[tcb22]

I still don't understand the negative feelings about the offense. We lost 4 stars and still stayed highly ranked in most categories. I know we had Sam but it still took some other players to develop and step up to achieve those rankings and stats.

 

[TarHeelMark]

I still don't understand the negative feelings about the offense. We lost 4 stars and still stayed highly ranked in most categories. I know we had Sam but it still took some other players to develop and step up to achieve those rankings and stats.

Offense was in top 10 - 15 range for yards, scoring, and rushing ypg, IIRC. Longo certainly has his faults (redzone!), but the defense should be top priority if 1 change is going to be made.

 

[GoNtheDistance]

at this point, i think it's fair to get rid of the OL coach. that has been the most glaring weakness on offense and frankly it's amazing Sam stayed health with as many hits as he took this year in the pocket (not counting the ones he took on designed run plays). that OL was just trash this year and showed no signs of improvement consistently. OL coach should go. some of the defense lapses we've seen this year and last year warrant a change at D Coordinator as well. Our safeties were embarassingly bad. We couldn't even play basic cover 2 half the time. It was a shame.

 

[blazers]

I still don't understand the negative feelings about the offense. We lost 4 stars and still stayed highly ranked in most categories. I know we had Sam but it still took some other players to develop and step up to achieve those rankings and stats.

Great:
Yards per play - 11th
3rd down conversion - 18th

But
Points per play - 20th
Punts per play - 28th

The latter are really good too, but I think they back-up the perspective that we're better between the 20's than redzone. Again, not bad, but food for thought about redzone.

Bigger discrepancy:
Yards per game - 9th.
Plays per game - 31st
Plenty of plays, and obviously moving the ball,
But Red Zone Scoring Attempts per Game - 52nd
What explains this other than the phenomena of lacking near redzone.

Finally, I can't find RZ TDs %. I saw we had 14 FG on 47 RZ attempts... which looked a tad high compared to other teams with ~47 attempts.... meaning we've got a solid FG kicker but not great at punching it in.

 

[blazers]

Great:
Yards per play - 11th
3rd down conversion - 18th

But
Points per play - 20th
Punts per play - 28th

The latter are really good too, but I think they back-up the perspective that we're better between the 20's than redzone. Again, not bad, but food for thought about redzone.

Bigger discrepancy:
Yards per game - 9th.
Plays per game - 31st
Plenty of plays, and obviously moving the ball,
But Red Zone Scoring Attempts per Game - 52nd
What explains this other than the phenomena of lacking near redzone.

Finally, I can't find RZ TDs %. I saw we had 14 FG on 47 RZ attempts... which looked a tad high compared to other teams with ~47 attempts.... meaning we've got a solid FG kicker but not great at punching it in.

^ long way of saying we could do much worse than Longo. But given the ability of Howell between the 20';s shouldn't we be even better?

 

[tarheel0910]

^ long way of saying we could do much worse than Longo. But given the ability of Howell between the 20';s shouldn't we be even better?

Yes. It mostly comes down to his bad play calling and his lack of options in his playbook.

 

[riverswe]

i don't completely agree with our redzone issue being all bad play calls and lack of options. we didn't have the O line to punch the ball in and didn't really have a downhill runner (until the last game of the season). because of that you throw out several plays and the defense gets an advantage. add to that we didn't really have a possession type receiver (short yardage) and you can throw out some other plays - another advantage defense. not completely letting Longo off the hook though - got to recruit the weapons you need for the redzone, do something with the O line coach, and maybe roll Sam out some.

for a post above - offensive plays per game has a lot to do with our defense being on the field so much. would prefer to look at % of 3 and outs.

so our offense isn't perfect and we have to be better in the redzone and in short yardage situations but in the grand scheme of things it's why we've won the games we have over the last 3 seasons

 

[tarheel0910]

i don't completely agree with our redzone issue being all bad play calls and lack of options. we didn't have the O line to punch the ball in and didn't really have a downhill runner (until the last game of the season). because of that you throw out several plays and the defense gets an advantage. add to that we didn't really have a possession type receiver (short yardage) and you can throw out some other plays - another advantage defense. not completely letting Longo off the hook though - got to recruit the weapons you need for the redzone, do something with the O line coach, and maybe roll Sam out some.

for a post above - offensive plays per game has a lot to do with our defense being on the field so much. would prefer to look at % of 3 and outs.

so our offense isn't perfect and we have to be better in the redzone and in short yardage situations but in the grand scheme of things it's why we've won the games we have over the last 3 seasons

Redzone and playbook issues have been a problem for Longo going back to previous jobs. This isn't some new problem for him. That's always been an issue he's been known for.

 

[blazers]

i don't completely agree with our redzone issue being all bad play calls and lack of options. we didn't have the O line to punch the ball in and didn't really have a downhill runner (until the last game of the season). because of that you throw out several plays and the defense gets an advantage. add to that we didn't really have a possession type receiver (short yardage) and you can throw out some other plays - another advantage defense. not completely letting Longo off the hook though - got to recruit the weapons you need for the redzone, do something with the O line coach, and maybe roll Sam out some.

for a post above - offensive plays per game has a lot to do with our defense being on the field so much. would prefer to look at % of 3 and outs.

so our offense isn't perfect and we have to be better in the redzone and in short yardage situations but in the grand scheme of things it's why we've won the games we have over the last 3 seasons

I guess one could argue he's putting up good stats in spite of a horrific OL...

But rather than say our O is the reason for most of our wind I'd say Sam is the reason. Put Nathan Elliot out there and we're barely beating the fcs cupcakes on our sched.

 

[riverswe]

sam is definitely responsible for very much of our success. we also had 4 other offensive weapons last season and i think ruder could have won some games too (not as many as sam though). and i agree we have to get TDs in the redzone more often but we are scoring a lot of points

 

[tarheel0910]

sam is definitely responsible for very much of our success. we also had 4 other offensive weapons last season and i think ruder could have won some games too (not as many as sam though). and i agree we have to get TDs in the redzone more often but we are scoring a lot of points

Leaving a lot of points on the board and we aren't scoring like we should against decent teams. It's more than just looking at the season average.

 

[riverswe]

we do need more TDs and less FGs in the redzone which would push our scoring average up. but look back at the schedule again - it's not like we put up huge numbers against the worst 3 teams we played and didn't score much at all against the others. it would be nice to score a TD on every drive but that doesn't really happen. i want to score more points too but we score enough to win more already. i'll give you the same opportunity ticket had - name a couple of OCs you would rather have than Longo and let's compare their numbers - and no one is leaving Bama, GA, OSU to come here

 

[tarheel0910]

we do need more TDs and less FGs in the redzone which would push our scoring average up. but look back at the schedule again - it's not like we put up huge numbers against the worst 3 teams we played and didn't score much at all against the others. it would be nice to score a TD on every drive but that doesn't really happen. i want to score more points too but we score enough to win more already. i'll give you the same opportunity ticket had - name a couple of OCs you would rather have than Longo and let's compare their numbers - and no one is leaving Bama, GA, OSU to come here

There's over 100 BCS teams. I don't have an intimate knowledge of every OC and it's a fallacy to say that since @ticket2ride04 or I can't name any, then Long must be good. It's obvious that you want to ignore issues that Longo has. Mack doesn't even think Long is great. Longo wasn't anywhere near the top of his list and you can clearly see Mack getting pissed at Longo on the sidelines. I could show you numbers showing you he isn't as good as you think, but why waste my time. You've clearly given him a pass.

 

[uncboy10]

Longo needs to add at least half a dozen plays to every set, and a ton of red zone plays. I agree that it would not be easy to find a better replacement but if he is going to stay then major adjustments need to be made.

The defense was ridiculously hot/cold all year. How many times did they have a rough first half paired with a lockdown second? Not really sure where the responsibility lies for the inconsistency but I think Mack could do better than both Bateman. And Longo too for that matter.

Mack is great at selling people, he needs to convince the boosters to break out their checkbooks, and sell some top level coordinators on coming to Chapel Hill and making bank.

 

[riverswe]

There's over 100 BCS teams. I don't have an intimate knowledge of every OC and it's a fallacy to say that since @ticket2ride04 or I can't name any, then Long must be good. It's obvious that you want to ignore issues that Longo has. Mack doesn't even think Long is great. Longo wasn't anywhere near the top of his list and you can clearly see Mack getting pissed at Longo on the sidelines. I could show you numbers showing you he isn't as good as you think, but why waste my time. You've clearly given him a pass.

don't just take your ball and run home @tarheel0910 - if you look through my posts then you'll see that i ding Longo for:
- O line issues (unless Mack won't let him deal with Searles)
- short yardage issues
- better % of TDs in the redzone
- recruiting a short yardage/redzone weapon
so clearly i haven't given him a pass. bottom line is we're a top 10 team in total offense and scoring offense so he's doing something right. and you and ticket wanting to make out like all he does is run it up on bad teams and crap the bed against good teams just isn't true. every team does better against their weakest competition. every team has a few areas where they can improve on offense. I looked through ticket's list of potential OCs and only Wake's and OSU's had better stats and we're not getting OSU's. So conceivably we could upgrade from Longo but there's a real possibility replacing him would result in worse stats. i'm going on the squeaky wheel theory on our coaches and that's Bateman. we're somewhere between 85 and 105 in most defensive stats and you're worried about moving from 10th to 3rd on offense.

 

[heelfan1961]

My issue is that we don't coach with and then because of that play with a sense of urgency which I think is why we have such slow starts. We are just out there not seemingly caring how long it takes to get going. Our development of young guys playing early is awful. Does anyone really believe Downs had no ****ing clue how to run a route until the bowl game. It seems Longo and Bateman are full of themselves and want to make things seem difficult instead of just putting players in nice simple system to make plays. Bet that Jones and Nesbit next year will be pretty productive. RaRa and Power will suddenly be able to make tackles next year and sack a quarterback. This isn't rocket science but Bateman amd Longo seem to want to make it be that way.

 

[tarheel0910]

don't just take your ball and run home @tarheel0910 - if you look through my posts then you'll see that i ding Longo for:
- O line issues (unless Mack won't let him deal with Searles)
- short yardage issues
- better % of TDs in the redzone
- recruiting a short yardage/redzone weapon
so clearly i haven't given him a pass. bottom line is we're a top 10 team in total offense and scoring offense so he's doing something right. and you and ticket wanting to make out like all he does is run it up on bad teams and crap the bed against good teams just isn't true. every team does better against their weakest competition. every team has a few areas where they can improve on offense. I looked through ticket's list of potential OCs and only Wake's and OSU's had better stats and we're not getting OSU's. So conceivably we could upgrade from Longo but there's a real possibility replacing him would result in worse stats. i'm going on the squeaky wheel theory on our coaches and that's Bateman. we're somewhere between 85 and 105 in most defensive stats and you're worried about moving from 10th to 3rd on offense.

Thanks for proving my point

 

[ticket2ride04]

There's over 100 BCS teams. I don't have an intimate knowledge of every OC and it's a fallacy to say that since @ticket2ride04 or I can't name any, then Long must be good. It's obvious that you want to ignore issues that Longo has. Mack doesn't even think Long is great. Longo wasn't anywhere near the top of his list and you can clearly see Mack getting pissed at Longo on the sidelines. I could show you numbers showing you he isn't as good as you think, but why waste my time. You've clearly given him a pass.

Here’s a stat that jumped out at me. We average 48 points in our wins and 24 points in our losses. The offense is Jekyll and Hyde. It frequently disappears for long stretches or at crunch time. Going back to the last series against Pitt, we have had the ball goal to go inside the 5 yard line and scored 9 points. We got stuffed by Wofford and settled for FGs against Pitt and State.

Offense was completely off against VT

Offense shit the bed against GT including 3 turn overs giving them short fields.

Longo is an above average OC but he needs elite talent to be good. Without it, he’s incredibly average. Between Ole Miss and UNC, he’s had the opportunity to coach 9 NFL skill players in 7 years. Some OCs don’t see that in their career.

 

[riverswe]

i didn't prove your point @tarheel0910 - you want to act like Longo is a poor OC and we all know that's simply not the case. is he elite, probably not, but he's very good and there's only been a couple/few OCs outperform him over the last 3 seasons. and getting elite talent is part of the OCs job so i don't really understand why you want to hold that against him. that's really the basis of your/ticket's pro-Bateman stance (no talent). you can take you ball and go home now.

and ticket, you even state here that Long is above average. sure there's things he needs to improve and everyone on here agrees with that. and when looking at wins and losses you have to look at the opponent's score too. don't forget VT held the ball for over 22 minutes on their first 3 drives. got to look at number of possessions in addition to score in all games. the offense and defense impact the other side every game (positively or negatively). against Pitt we blew it in the redzone at the end, if Brooks had gotten more burn before that game i think it might have turned out differently. we simply lack a downhill runner and sam takes it on himself sometimes blowing up a play. biggest problem i have with longo is the O line which i don't think has been good for many years but i'm not sure if mack is giving longo the leeway to address it. the GT turnovers we mostly on sam (again trying to do too much) but we can't take the upside of sam without taking the small downside.

 

[tarheel0910]

i didn't prove your point @tarheel0910 - you want to act like Longo is a poor OC

I said he's not good enough to get us where we want to be. I gave reasons for that. He's not terrible, but he's not the great mind you make him out to be. Plenty of experts and people close to the program have said the same.

that's really the basis of your/ticket's pro-Bateman stance (no talent). you can take you ball and go home now.

I have a pro Bateman stance? I've never once said I was pro Bateman. All I've said is I would give him one more year to produce. If he can't produce, then get rid of him. Nice try trying to say I said something I didn't. Now you can definitely go home since I just proved you don't even read posts before commenting.