University of North Carolina Athletics
Head Coach John Bunting Press Conference Quotes
June 8, 2005 | Football
June 8, 2005
We had a great spring. Our players are doing a terrific job academically. We've had a good spring eligibility-wise, and we expect that to continue as we get into summer school. Matt Baker and Chase Page and other players on both the offensive and defensive sides have really taken a major step forward in terms of leadership. This will be the largest number of seniors I've ever had on scholarship - 17. We had 14 my first year, 10 the following year, and then 13 the next two. We have 17 seniors on scholarship now and I'm real excited about their leadership.
On preparing for a season without Darian Durant:
I had him in my office last week and spent about an hour with him. I talked to him about his career, his growth. I had a picture of him and Scott Brumett hugging after the touchdown pass against Miami. That's about as good a picture as I have ever seen. So I got a copy for Darian and a copy for Scott that I signed, and I got them to sign one for me. The words that Darian put on that picture to me about helping him in his life and his career are very special. That is a picture I will keep in my home for the rest of my life. I can't tell you how much I will miss him. I already miss him, I missed him the moment that game was over in Charlotte. It was hard saying goodbye to him. All of our team is hoping for the best for him in Baltimore.
We don't have Darian anymore, we have Matt Baker. I'm not ever going to get into comparisons, because it's not fair. Matt Baker is a one-year starter for us and I think he can have a tremendous year. Gary Tranquill has had tremendous success with one-year starters before. Scott Secules at Virginia went on to play about six years in the NFL. Matt Blundin was a one-year starter at Virginia and was drafted by the Kansas City Chiefs. So (Coach Tranquill) has had success. I have confidence and Matt has confidence. Matt has great leadership skills. We get the right people around him, we protect him, we get the running game going, and Matt Baker will be just fine.
On the health of Skip Seagraves:
He is back full-go. He is doing everything that the other players are doing. He is without pain and has been turned loose by the training staff as of last week.
I have never seen anything like what I saw last fall in terms of a player participating on the scout team. Everyday he was upbeat. Everyday was his game day, and that's the way that he took it. On Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays it was game day for him against our defense, and, frankly, at times he torched us.
I used to tell him that he only had one year to wait. He said, "No, coach, I've only got three months." Because he looked forward, when that season was over, to getting into the spring. And this spring he did just that. He was very impressive.
On the defense:
In order for us to have a good season, our defense has to get away from being ranked in the 100s. What we saw in the last four games after Utah was a defense that started to know what to do. They played together, they were much more organized and disciplined. And you saw that for a half in the bowl game against BC. Two things happened in that second half. We started making a lot of mental mistakes, and then we got worn down. We got beat up. They were big, strong and they started making plays on us. We made more mental mistakes in that game than we had the previous four weeks. And that's the stress point for Marvin (Sanders) and the rest of the defensive staff. If you want to be good on defense, you must not make mental errors. The other teams are good enough that they will make plays on their own. But we must be on top of our game to start the season against Georgia Tech and Wisconsin to play the best defense we have since the first year (2001) to give our team a chance. If we want to be a Top 25 team, if we want to have a successful season with our schedule, our defense has to take it to another level.
