University of North Carolina Athletics
UNC Post-game Quotes
August 31, 2002 | Football
Aug. 31, 2002
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North Carolina Head Coach John Bunting:
"I've been around a lot of football in my lifetime as a player and a coach at different levels, with the exception of coaching high school. But I don't think I've ever seen anything quite like that. It's amazing the game was so close and we had a chance to win at the end. It's a tribute to the way our players think and our coaches coach and our training staff works. I hope I'm never around it again. It caught me way off guard.
"We're hopeful that our kids will respond. Certainly, our defense responded today way above my expectations. They did a magnificent job, and I'm proud of them for that fact. I'm proud of the way they hung in there.
"There's a lot of football left to be played for the season. A lot of young players played for us. We're going to do two things. We're going to watch the tape tomorrow and evaluate the young players and see if they can help us down the road in this long season. And we're also looking forward to getting ready to play Syracuse.
On the fumbles:
"I just don't think we stayed with it. It's unfortunate and it really hurts.
On Durant:
"We'll take a long look at Darian's performance. And he's certainly a guy we have high expectations of, just as we do with C.J. I'm sure he's very disappointed with some of the decisions he made, and that's his strength.
On Miami drive at 20-14:
"I think there were a couple of plays in that drive, third downs where we needed to come up with big plays. I think you can ask anyone on our defense and they would tell you the same. I think I heard Dexter Reid say the same thing. Dexter Reid's a tackling machine.
On goal line stand:
"I think it did a lot for everybody. It shows you what the mentality is on this football team. We're just not going to quit. Hopefully we can grow on that. I don't think you can ask the defense to do any more than they did today. It's one thing to talk about adversity, but it's another thing to go out and do something about it."
North Carolina Player Quotes
Will Chapman
"I wasn't real happy with the way our defense didn't stop the run. I mean that is our chance to get off the field and we didn't do a very good job doing that."
"You do get worn down by so many turnovers, but that is football. Sometimes teams have to fight through adversity like that. I think we did, but just didn't get the victory."
Dexter Reid
"At times we made plays as a defense, and at other times we were not able to make plays. There was an instance when our offense scored to make it 20-14, and we were not able to make a play on post route and they went onto score."
"It is only one game. Tomorrow we will look at the tape and find out what mistakes we made and correct them. You can't invest everything in just one game. You have to learn from your mistakes and move on."
Sam Aiken
"When a team has that many turnovers it is hard to win a game. What can you expect when you make that many mental mistakes."
"We can drive the ball, we just made too many mistakes. We made that many turnovers and still had a chance to win the game. It proves that we never give up and fight hard as a team for all four quarters."
Darian Durant
"We had too many miscommunications. Anytime you have that, you are going to make mistakes and have turnovers."
"I can't worry about my position after we played like that. All I can do is try and correct all the mistakes we made next week and get ready for Syracuse."
"We moved the ball up and down the field all day long. We just had some mishaps that cost us the game."
Bobby Blizzard
"Everybody has a second wind during a game. We had our burst in the fourth quarter and I thought we were going to win the game. It was exciting in that quarter."
"Coach told us that we had too many turnovers and we are not going to win any games with nine of them. That said, we have to learn from it and do a better job next week."
C.J. Stephens
"I just put the ball up in the end zone and hoped that one of us could find it to win the game. I didn't even see the result because I was hit as I threw it."
"It is difficult for anybody when you see the team do so well sometimes, and then make mistakes. We obviously didn't want to lose the first game, but that is what happened. The best thing we can do is correct them before the next game."
"Turnovers can be solved. That is the best thing about that problem. We aren't going to let this one game affect us from having a good season."
Michael Waddell
"We were in position to make a play. It comes down to whoever wants it the most, and I guess Miami wanted more than us today."
"I think the first game sets the tempo for the season. We went into the game expecting to win, and in the fourth quarter we had a chance to win and just didn't come down with it."
