University of North Carolina Athletics
Post Game Quotes
September 15, 2007 | Football
Sept. 15, 2007
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Butch Davis quotes vs. Virginia, Sept. 15, 2007:
It's never easy to lose. Every single one of these football games, and I told the team this before the season, that there would be an awful lot of games that would come down to a very, very small margin of whether or not you had a chance to win or whether or not you were going to lose the football game. More often than not it's not the number of great plays you make, it's the number of poor plays you make. Certainly we cannot win football games (making so many poor plays). Unfortunately, we are not talented enough at this stage to win games when you lose the turnover margin. You can't have three turnovers and not create any turnovers because it puts such an enormous burden on your offense to try and score with a limited number of possessions and it puts a tremendous burden on your defense to have to go out and play maybe more plays than you did.
For the first time this season we got off to a slow start offensively. We struggled. In part, you have Virginia a lot of credit. They are a good football team, especially defensively. They have some really physical guys that make it difficult to run the football. When they are fresh and rested, Chris Long is as good a pas rusher as probably is playing in college football today.
Our offense continue to improve in our protections, continues to find ways to get the guys we have who are play-makers involved in the game, to make plays for us. Hakeem Nicks's one individual catch was probably the best, single individual play of great effort that maybe I've seen in 30, 33 years in the game. I would have bet a lot of money that ball was overthrown. I was shocked he caught it. Then I was even more amazed that the great individual run after the catch to get it into the end zone (on the 53-yard score).
Every single week the kids do the things our coaches are asking them to do. They are trying to play hard, trying to hustle, trying to get to the ball, trying to make plays, trying to have faith, trying to put themselves at the end of ballgames in a position to give ourselves a chance to win. Two of the turnovers unfortunately were inside the 50-yard line when we are moving the ball, making a little bit of progress. I thought it was an enormous shot of confidence for our football team to score at the end of the second quarter. Going in 16-7 was dramatically a shot in the arm instead of going in 16-0.
We did some good stuff trying to keep them out of the end zone after the first initial touchdown, forcing five field goals. But we've got to flip the time of possession, part of that is the turnovers. But two weeks in a row I think it's double (the time of possession). That's too much pressure on a football team that is trying to find different ways to try and win games.
On the field goal that was reversed
It's my understanding that every single play is potentially reviewable...I guess the field goal falls into the category of all plays are potentially challengeable and reviewable...I guess they looked at it and said it was good. It's pretty much out of your hands once another team challenges it.
I love (this football team) and I'm proud of them. They're young and they are going to make some mistakes. If they make mistakes and they're giving the best effort they can, then we are going to have to live with it until they either grow up from more experience...
On Virginia's #37 Peerman
He's pretty good. He's big and he's strong. He moves the pile. They have a good scheme that allows him to do that because they spread you out all over the field. They are getting multiple wide receivers and spread you out from sideline to sideline to create some natural running lanes. They've got a big, physical offensive line. That's Virginia's MO for several years.
If you don't tackle well - and I didn't think we particularly tackled well again today. It was moderately better than at times a week ago.
UNC Player Quotes
Sophomore Wide Receiver Hakeem Nicks
On the improvements the team needs to make this week in practice:
"We really feel like we beat ourselves. Virginia played very hard, but we had some mental mistakes that we need to fix in practice this week - protecting the ball, the quarterback going through his reads - mental stuff like that."
On Virginia's intensity and overall play:
"We expected them to come out there and play hard the way they did. We just lacked in a couple of areas that we need to fix up. We really should have won this one; we just beat ourselves. Virginia came out and played a great game. They had great effort. We just didn't perform well in certain areas of the game."
Freshman quarterback T.J. Yates:
On the use of the hurry-up offense:
"I thought we executed our two minute drill very well this game. We kept the defense on their heels a little bit and we were able to capitalize on that."
On the team's quick strike offense:
"We like to come out there and hit them quick, not give them a chance to catch a breath. We like to keep coming at them and coming at them. I think it worked really well this game."
On the two-point conversion late in the fourth quarter:
"I don't think there was any problem with the pass I think whoever made that play just made a really good play. He just jumped up there and got it."
On the difficulties with the clock:
"I think it showed a lot about our team. Not even knowing what the time was we did things pretty well. It was pretty frustrating not knowing how much time there was and especially not having the big clock the entire game."
On Chris Long's second quarter interception:
"He didn't really rush that much on that play. He just jumped up out of nowhere. That was a heck of a play. That guy is really good."
On the mistakes that plagued the offense in the first half:
"We had a lot of drives where we shot ourselves in the foot - a couple fumbles , an interception. We need to work on just being efficient and not making those kind of mistakes. We can't have those kind of starts. If we try to come out in the second half and then turn it on, we're not going to win. You're playing catch up. If we could have come out the first couple drives and scored, it would have been a whole different ballgame."
Junior wide receiver Brooks Foster
On how the offense got things turned around in the second half:
"We really didn't make too many adjustments. We just started executing. That is pretty much all we needed to get it going."
On the offense's first half struggles:
"Virginia's defense gave us a lot of pressure. That's really all that it was. You have to give the credit to their defense. They're real good. We just had to get the jitters out, I guess. Once we got our jitters out, we started rolling."
Senior defensive end Hilee Taylor
On the positive takeaways from the game:
"On the defensive side, I thought we came back in the second half and turned things around. But we have to execute better. I thought our halftime adjustments were great. They went well. We just have to play better as a defense and stop all the way from the first quarter to the fourth. "
