University of North Carolina Athletics
Head Coach John Bunting Quotes
November 22, 2003 | Football
Nov. 22, 2003
NORTH CAROLINA HEAD COACH John Bunting
DUKE, NOVEMBER 22, 2003
Give me all the credit for not having the team ready to play in the first half. I'm very disappointed. Fortunately, we played a little better in the second half. But you can't win many games with only one first down in the first half. It was a disappointing end to a disappointing season.
I do want to thank all the Carolina fans that came out today. They were evident in the stands and at the Old Well Walk. I'm disappointed that we let them down. For me the 2004 season starts tomorrow.
On the first half: Not many teams can overcome that type of lead. I have no explanation for why we played like that. We just didn't execute in the first half. We just didn't seem totally focused. Our offense is a unit that has done a lot of good things this year, but today we just came out extremely flat. We've got to stay focused. We've got to stay alert. We didn't do that. The first half has to be one of the most disastrous halves that I've ever been associated with.
On Duke's QB rotation: That was no real surprise. They hit us with a couple of bootlegs that hurt us. On the perimeter we just don't play with enough speed. We have to make plays more plays in the secondary. We end the season with just two interceptions by Mahlon Carey in the same game. We've got to do better.
On needing to make a defensive stop: We just didn't need to be on the field that long. We are not strong enough to go toe-to-toe with anyone like that. We had to get off the field and we couldn't.
On the team's second half improvement: It was just a matter of focus and concentration. There were a couple of things (that we changed), but we were basically executing our game plan, which we didn't do in the first half.
