University of North Carolina Athletics
Wednesday Football Press Conference
February 27, 2002 | Football
Feb. 27, 2002
Dave Huxtable: "I'm excited about becoming defensive coordinator at the University of North Carolina. I'm extremely thankful to Coach Bunting for this awesome opportunity and his show of confidence in me with this promotion. This is a program with great football tradition and I'm thrilled to be a part of it. My family and I have enjoyed it very much here at North Carolina and living here in Chapel Hill and we're looking forward to hopefully being here for a long time."
Jim Flemming: "I'm thrilled. This is an outstanding opportunity for me professionally. When I came down to interview, when you walk up to this building itself it's representative of the commitment to excellence that North Carolina stands for. I've had an unbelievable career over the last 18 years. When I started off as a GA back in 1985 I felt that the ACC and specifically North Carolina would be a place that I would enjoy coaching. I truly appreciate the confidence Coach Bunting has in me. Obviously with losing nine starters there's a tremendous amount of work to be done, but I'm confident in my abilities as a coach to be able to bring the best defensive back play to this school. I really look forward to a long stay and a fruitful career here at North Carolina."
Hal Hunter: "I'm sure I'll grow to love this town and love this university. I feel strongly that a program and a working experience is defined by the guy you work for, and so I'm real excited about coming here to work for Coach Bunting. He gets me excited. I want to be here because I want to work for him. I'm also excited about working with Gary Tranquil. My father coached with him with the Cleveland Browns and has known him for a long time and has a tremendous amount of respect for him. I'm excited about the staff. The people make the place, and everyone that I've met has been tremendous. The coaching staff here is great. The players I've had a chance to meet with as a group and individually have been very positive and upbeat. I'm excited about North Carolina because I'm excited about the people here. That goes a long way."
Huxtable on losses on defense:
"We lost a lot of defensive players, but I'm certainly not going to throw up the white flag and start this position with an attitude of surrender. What I see in this program right now is tremendous enthusiasm and an excitement with our football players both offensively and defensively. You watch our kids in the weight room and they're working hard and they have a good look in their eye, particularly on the defensive side where I think our kids see the door of opportunity. I think they're extremely excited about the start of spring football and having an opportunity to show what they can do."
Bunting on the defensive coordinator hiring process:
"My first thoughts were to Dave Huxtable being either in charge or partially in charge. I have a great deal of confidence in Dave. I did interview three other people, and a couple of them were extremely interesting.
"I wanted somebody who has defensive coordinator experience - Dave has that. I wanted to get somebody with energy - Dave has that. I wanted to get somebody with passion - Dave has that. I wanted to get somebody that is a communicator - Dave is all of that. Therefore the interview process for me became relatively easy. It was Dave all the way."
Hunter on his offensive line philosophy:
"I think one of the biggest misconceptions about offensive line play is everybody thinks pass protection is harder. Run blocking is harder to coach and harder to develop than pass protection. I think we have a lot of young players without a lot of experience who were thrown into a situation - it takes a long time to develop an offensive lineman - a lot of those kids were thrown into a very competitive situation maybe a little bit younger than because of need than they needed to be. Experience is good, but it's just a matter trying to hone their technique and it takes a while to develop a player.
"In the running game, you need to have the offensive line, including the tight end and one or two backs to be on the same page because they work together as a group and all five - and six with a tight end - have to work in unison and always be on the same page. The first thing you have to do is get the five right individuals in the right position, and once we get them in the right position we have to coordinate them and get them playing as a group."
Flemming on recruiting:
"Recruiting is a function of organization, working hard and being able to build relationships with kids in a short period of time. I get close to kids, I have a way to communicate with them. I think that's something that attracted Coach Bunting, the way I presented myself. I do everything extremely hard.
"It's not a science. It's something you put a lot of work into. It's something that has to be done on a daily basis, and I'm fully aware the responsibilities you have to developing a football program when it start with recruiting. I work it hard and I'd like to think I'm a good recruiter, but time will tell. We'll see which guys I bring to the table and see which guys are playing on the field.
NOTES:
"We're going to get more aggressive," Bunting said. "Sometimes I didn't think we were as aggressive as I want to be last year. We'll get more aggressive. We'll blitz more."
"I think our safety play will be better this year, and I think that our cornerback play will be better," Bunting said. "I think the guys that are back there in that group will be a little bit more experienced in this system in the secondary. We lose everybody up front - that's a given. But we get everyone back for the most part in the secondary."
Says Flemming: "I'm dying to get into the film room. I haven't had a chance to evaluate any of the kids. People have indicated to me that I will be very pleased with the kids I'm going to be working with. I met Dexter Reid this morning. I liked the look in his eyes."
"Jonas is a young guy, as is Chase," Bunting said. "He's big, strong, agile, and we're going to give him an opportunity to play on offense. He was the nose tackle for us last year on defense. Those are two pretty big changes for us."
