University of North Carolina Athletics
Tuesday Butch Davis Quotes
August 18, 2009 | Football
Aug. 18, 2009
"It's clearly the dog days of August today. We're basically half-way through training camp, and we've pushed this football team pretty hard, both from a physical standpoint and also from a mental standpoint....We've probably worked on the execution of more things this training than any of the ones in previous years. There's two reasons for it: one, we've got to get a lot of young guys an awful lot of experience and practice early and the second part is that we've got enough experienced, veterans guys and they know more that they can go out and execute more things, they've got a greater base of knowledge of offense, defense, and special teams. We're still in the process of identifying players that are gonna have significant roles on this team but for the most part, practice has gone pretty well. We've had great weather the last couple of days, but today it popped out again, it was good and hot and I think that that's good. It forces your team to have to play hard. The first month, in September, all of our games are gonna be hot. Playing home games or on the road, with two games at 12 o'clock kickoffs, that's why we've chosen to go (on the days we go one practice), we go 1:30 in the afternoon, being smart...but we've gotta get used to the mental aspects of playing in the heat."
On compensating for the thinness of the offensive line: "We're gonna have to develop some depth, there's no two ways about it. One thing is a move we made back in the spring, when we moved Greg Elleby from the defensive line to the offensive line. Greg's a good athlete and any time you have a former defensive lineman going to the offensive line, you bring a tough mentality. You may be somewhat faster than some of the other linemen, so he's very athletic and that certainly helps him there. He's really made strides because of the opportunity to go through spring practice. The other aspect of it is that we're playing some true freshmen in the offensive line, in the second or third group. We're giving them maybe some a few more reps than we normally would give the players...in a typical period drill, where they're usually getting six, now they're sometimes getting seven, even eight."
On starters: "We have nine starters on defense, but we're also replacing seven starters on offense. On defense, we've got some guys that are challenging each other for playing time and we've got a pretty good battle going on for the middle linebacker position between Zach Brown and Kevin Reddick, that's pretty hotly contested..those are two really good players...we're still looking at the possibility of whose going to replace Trimane Goddard at the secondary, Da'Norris Searcy has been getting a lot of reps, he's getting challenged, and doing a good job, as well as Matt Merletti and Josh Stewart. And we want depth, we wanna try to be able to have good, solid backups in those positions as well."
On progress at receiver positions: "I think it's baby steps, they're getting better every day, I think one of the things we want...a real telltale signs is consistency. They may have one good practice, they may struggle a little bit in the beginning, they may struggle a little bit in the fundamental formations, but we'll bounce back. When they can start screening 2, 3, 4, 5 practices where they're starting to really make plays on a regular basis that we'll have confidence that they're starting to arrive. Those first 3 or 4 games is going to give them something that we can't give them, it doesn't matter how much we challenge them, it won't be the same as the speed, the adrenaline rush, all the excitement playing in front of 65,000 people: that's when we'll find out if they're really truly ready to play....we haven't given any of them a chance to separate themselves, we're running them all in the plays. Receivers, by nature, in the training camp, they run their legs off. We can almost not have enough receivers in training camp because of the nature, how much they actually run in the course of practice. It's literally measurable in miles...it's 30, 40 yards every single play...they are always running. It's two guys in almost every single play."
On reducing turnovers: "In a ten-year study of the National Football league, 77% of games were won by the team who had committed the fewest turnovers. That's the truth of it, if you want to win games, you've got to do a good job of protecting the ball and forcing turnovers."
On the first three games being sold out: "Well first of all it makes me very proud of the fans that they stepped up and bought those tickets. I think people have a great passion for the program, and they're excited about football and the direction we're headed and I think that football and sports a lot of times, and we saw this happening in 9/11, that sports can sometimes serve as an unbelievable emotional lift for people when they're going through a difficult, challenging time. 9/11 was a horrific time for our country and we're now going through a tough economic time. This is an easy way for families, fairly inexpensively, to have a great Saturday experience. Bring your kids, come, tailgate, go to the football game, it's about as healthy and as wholesome a thing that you can do as a family and I'm glad that they're coming out."
On new Kenan lights: "One of the things we need to do, as a football team, since we're gonna have some night games early on in the season is we need to get out and practice underneath those lights. It really is something if you've never been catching punts and kickoffs, the ball goes into those lights and sometimes you may not be able to track it and see it but you've got to see it fall out of the lights and that's something we've got to do, probably sometime next week."
Offensive line double duties in addition to Elleby and Jolly: "Jonathan Cooper has been doing some of that, Alan Pelc is playing a different position than he played last year so he is already been challenged with the versatility of learning more than one position. This is somewhat like what you're faced with in the National Football League. They only allow you to have a 53 man roster, you may carry 8 offensive linemen all year long. So you have your starting 5, and one of those 5 might have to show some versatility that he can immediately go from one position to another and get played as the 6th guy or the 7th guy and before we can get some experience, that may the position that our football team is in."
