University of North Carolina Athletics
North Carolina Quotes
September 18, 2004 | Football
Sept. 18, 2004
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Head Coach John Bunting
What a difference a week makes, sometimes. I know this I am very excited for our players and excited for our coaching staff. I am really excited for our fans. They were into this ballgame and kept staying in the ballgame the whole time. People can say what they want, but they were out there cheering for us the whole time and I really appreciate that. It¹s nice to win a second game at home for them but I am really excited for our football team because they had some adversity in the first half and our defense was able to stand up a little bit and that was encouraging. I¹m hopeful that we don¹t keep turning the ball over like that because that hurts us. For them to do that and play hard and play pretty sound football in the first half was very exciting. Of course I am always excited when we run the football like that. Jacque Lewis had a terrific night and I¹m proud of him. He was named game captain for the game and he really showed up. And so did Jacoby Watkins. We got two big plays from him - the jump ball with Calvin Johnson was huge. That guy has been making play after play after play on jump balls. And Jacoby was able to come up with it. It¹s also good for our kickoff team not to have to even cover. That¹s exciting - just keep putting it in the end zone. That¹s terrific. That¹s the best kickoff coverage you can ever have.
We are pleased with getting a win, we are pleased with the way we won in that three years in a row we played GT fairly tough in the fourth quarter and came up empty three years in a row. This year we were finally able to pull one out against them and that is a tribute to the players and the staff. Hopefully we can build on this and continue to learn how to play this game at a high level and make plays when we get the opportunity and continue to build the defense.
(holding GT to field goals on first two drives)
It¹s big, it¹s really big. You guys have been around here long enough that
that hasn¹t happened a whole lot so that was pleasing.
(comparing to 2001 win over FSU)
In a couple of ways in fact I talked to the football team about that this
afternoon. In 2001 we had three straight tough losses and there were a few
guys who stepped their level of play up. A couple of guys became closer to
being a man. I mentioned that to them right before we departed. That¹s when
I talked about Jacque Lewis, a guy who is going to be a great man someday.
If you look back, Kory Bailey, Sam Aiken, some others on that team, stepped
up their play against Florida State in a tough game at home after three
straight losses and everybody said we had no chance.
I think some guys grew up a little bit today and now we can see if we can do it again next week.
UNC Player Quotes
Darian Durant
General impression of the game:
"This game was a tribute to out coaching staff and the players. We didn't get down after the Virginia game. We knew what we are capable of doing and we came out and we executed. It was not pretty at the start. We feel like the offense is our strong point and we feel like we did not do enough early on, but the defense kept playing in the second half and showed flashes of what we can do as an offense."
"It is great when the defense can hold Georgia Tech to one touchdown and that is a good feeling. We feel that it is hard for teams to stop us. With the defense playing the way they did it was just great for us."
"We knew that we could run the ball and we knew that they did not have the same defense they had last year and they had one of their best defensive lineman out for the game so we knew that going into the second half we could get them tired and be able to run the ball against them."
What does it mean to pass a legend?
"It feels great, especially after a win. Usually I break records after a loss, so it a great feeling doing it after a win."
Jacque Lewis
"We know the kind of talent we need to win. We went into the game knowing we had to win. We had a bad game last week, offensively and defensively. We came out and practiced hard this week and we played hard this week."
"We always knew our defense could pick it up. We had a couple of bad things going on against Virginia. The defense came out and played hard and played the way they were coached to play and every thing came out alright."
Jason Brown
"It is the first time we have beat Georgia Tech in a very long time. This truly phenomenal and especially since it was a home win it feels twice as good. It was wonderful to see the response from out fans, and the encore at the truly shows how all the hard work has paid off and we owe to our fans because we have some die hard fans and they are truly loyal.
We wanted to play hard and give back to our fans."
"In the second half we came out of the locker room and reorganize our game plan. Georgia Tech does not play strait up football and we went over with Coach Tranquill want we wanted to do and we came out and executed."
