University of North Carolina Athletics
Postgame Quotes
October 4, 2008 | Football
Oct. 4, 2008
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North Carolina Head Coach Butch Davis
Opening Statement
We are thrilled to win the game. Certainly a big story in the ballgame was
Bruce Carter's performance. It was outstanding. He was terrific as a
linebacker. Certainly the blocks set up some great field position that led
to one score. Our defense continuing to create turnovers - Mark Paschal's
interceptions, Trimane Goddard's interception, Marvin Austin's interception.
I told Marvin in the locker room that they are going to start timing guys
with hour glasses after watching that run. That was the longest 7-yard run
(sic) I've ever seen in my life. It was great pressure by EJ (Wilson)
getting the ball tipped up and Marvin being the right pace at the right
time. We are happy to have won. We are very pleased with the way in which we
were able to run her football tonight. We had a great deal of respect for
Connecticut. They are a good football team. They are very well coached, very
athletic. It was a challenge. We were concerned with their kickoff and punt
return guys and we thought we made some strides and improvements in our
special teams today. We covered kicks much better than we did a week ago
against Miami. I think that certainly helped us and the ability to run the
ball. Shaun Draughn had an outstanding game, popped some big runs. Ryan
Houston had some runs and as I have had said, we need all three of these
guys. They each bring a dimension.
I thought Cameron did an outstanding job of just managing the game. There were lots of emotional ups and downs. It was kind of hard offensively to get into a rhythm, because you would score in a couple of plays or the defense would get an interception or block a punt and it was kind of a bizarre game. I thought he managed the game well. He made some good throws. Certainly Hakeem (Nicks) made a phenomenal catch on the sidelines on a third and 20. There's not many guys that can make that catch.
I think the most healthy thing this team is willing to do is to learn to look at themselves in the mirror after each ballgame and say `okay guys, where are we going to get better each week?' I think they've learned a lot of lessons over the last year and a half. If you don't fix things that go wrong the week before, you have a tendency to get exposed the following week.
On the punt blocks
UConn had a brand new personal protector...We felt like if we could kind of
confuse him a bit with some of the alignments we could get some pressure off
the edge. And it just worked. There wasn't anything spectacular by scheme
other than guys giving great effort and being at the right edges and getting
off the ball. Certainly Bruce made some great plays.
One of the things we try and impress upon guys is if you are on the punt pressure unit, you never know when the other team might make a mental mistake. Unless you go hard you just never know. Some of the games we have won in the last two years have resulted because of a play on special teams.
On the running game
I thought our offensive line is getting better. They are playing better as a
team. Can't discount what the tight ends did.
On Connecticut's Donald Brown:
We were really concerned about Donald Brown. This is a great running back.
He can score from anywhere on the field. We were really concerned about
making sure we didn't give up big runs because every game you'd see he'd
either hit a home run for a touchdown or have a lot of big runs that would
flip the field position. The nature of their offense is they are a big time
possession offense. They run the ball so much and so effectively, the
passing game with all the shallow bubbles is almost an extended handoff.
North Carolina Player Quotes
Shaun Draughn
On over 100 yards
"It felt good. I wanted to get the team a spark like I always do. When I go in the game I'm going to make something happen. Over 100 yards is a milestone for the team. Big love to the O-line. We practiced a lot, but the O-line just got better this week."
On the offensive line
"Yeah, they made some movements this week. Some people have been hurt, some people are just doing better than others. As a whole, you just gotta do what you gotta do. As far as the team, it doesn't matter who's in there; you just gotta play ball."
Marvin Austin
On the defense
"You definitely try to go out there and have a big-hit, big-play and make plays on defense to take pressure off our offense. The special teams did a great job giving us field position and we just went out there on defense and tried to stop the run."
On his interception and touchdown play
"Basically, I've been dreaming about it for years, scooping it up and taking it. It came, I bent down, and caught it. I almost fell down twice, actually, but got to the end zone. It was all E.J.'s fault, he went out there and got that pressure. You go out and play hard like they tell us and things will come to you."
Bruce Carter
On getting to the ball with 3 blocked punts
"I'm able to get a good jump on the ball. With all the guys on the line going hard, you never know who's going to open up."
Cameron Sexton
On the offensive line
"It was our mission to run the football and that's what we wanted to do. When you give those guys room to run, they're going to look good doing it. I think up front we were really, really physical and were able to run the ball."
Connecticut Head Coach Randy Edsall Quotes
Opening Statement
"Disappointing loss, to say the least. I just give North Carolina credit.
They're a very talented football team, a very athletic football team, but
again, we didn't get the job done. It's pure and simple. We didn't play to
our capabilities, and they had something to do with that. We can't turn the
ball over and give the short field and give points away on turnovers, which
we did on a blocked punt returned for a touchdown, an interception returned
for a touchdown, and an interception to put the ball on the plus-15 yard
line. We're not going to beat teams like North Carolina if we do that. As
coaches, we accept responsibility; as players, they accept responsibility,
and we'll work really hard to correct the mistakes. Again, that was just
way too many penalties, way too many turnovers, way too many mistakes for a
UConn football team tonight, and again, I'm responsible and I'll make sure
we get it corrected."
On the blocked punts
"Basically, we just didn't execute the technique that we had. If we just
would have taken the steps that we worked on and do what we were supposed
to, then I think we would have been fine. We just had some mistakes there
and obviously we have to do a better job of getting our point across and we
have to do a better job of executing the fundamentals and the technique of
the punt game. It was surprising because we haven't had any problems with
it."
Did UNC throw anything different at you to block those punts?
"We always try to give our guys every look that we possibly can. Some
people might come and do things, but with our protection, if we just execute
our technique and if everybody does what we're supposed to do, nobody should
be able to come free up the middle or do anything. Obviously we didn't do a
good enough job of expressing that to them again this week. People have to
just execute the technique and if we do, we shouldn't have any problems at
all with how we work our punt game."
Players Mentioned
