University of North Carolina Athletics
UNC-Wake Forest Postgame Quotes
October 29, 2011 | Football
Oct. 29, 2011
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North Carolina Football • Game 9
UNC 49, Wake Forest 24
Oct. 29, 2011 • Kenan Stadium • Chapel Hill, N.C.
North Carolina Head Coach Everett Withers
“Really proud of this football team and the way they came and played today. Obviously, we won the turnover battle, 5-1, so that was a big emphasis this week in ball security and taking care of the ball. We won the explosive play battle, which was a big part of what we wanted to do. We were able to run the football today, again another emphasis this week. I think our kids really focused in on this week playing as good as they could play. We talked about commitment to each other and I think the guys committed to each other. We didn't play a totally clean ballgame today. I think we've got some things we can correct and get better on. I'm really proud of this football team.”
On Renner's play:
“He was efficient, he didn't turn it over, had his best passing game since he's been here. He's able to turn around and hand it off to some pretty good backs and not turn it over. That's a pretty efficient day for a quarterback.”
On forcing turnovers:
“I think our coaches on defense did a great job of studying their offense, their passing game especially. I felt like this week our secondary and linebackers the best week of practice in terms of knowing what was coming at them. I think our kids are really starting to mature and grow up.”
On momentum heading into next week:
“I came in Sunday last week and I told this football team I thought they were a good football team. All I wanted to do was to remind them to commit to each other, play the best they could for each other. Don't try to be Superman. We're not going to ask you to do anything you can't do. Just do the best you can do. I think that helped our team relax and go play today.”
On early turnovers:
“It's important always for you to get turnovers. You want to make plays early in the ballgame so you can gain some momentum. I think the turnovers were big momentum pushes for our team. I really felt like once we got the turnovers, we got into the flow of the game.
“It's a mindset about creating turnovers, about not turning the ball over and then when you get an opportunity to get a turnover, scoring off of those turnovers. We have 28 points off turnovers and that's huge. That shows to me a step and growth of this football team.”
On Giovani Bernard:
“He got drilled a lot of times today. Gio's a special, special player. He's a competitor, he's quiet, he just does his job. We never ask these guys to be Superman, but Gio's got a little something about him.”
On secondary play:
“Secondary play entails a lot of things – pass rush, contain the quarterback, pressure on the quarterback, lot of things. We don't just say the secondary has struggled this year. We say we haven't gotten enough sacks this year. We haven't gotten enough pressure on the quarterback. I look at the entire defense when you start talking about secondary play and I believe those guys continue to get better. We knew going into this year, this was going to be a challenging year with the number of guys we lost last year. The growth process continues every game – every day – with that group.”
On Zach Brown:
“He came in here with a lot of talent and athletic ability, but that doesn't get you everything you need to be a really good football player. I think he's really grown up in terms of being a student of the game, being a leader on defense. All those things show up, because with his talent and athletic ability, if he can align and be good on assignments, he can make a lot of plays.”
UNC Player Quotes
Dwight Jones
On starting fast:
“That's one of our goals to come out and start fast. We feel that if we come out and start fast we'll keep that going throughout the whole game. Today we put up a lot of points on the board and we just kept going.”
On offensive balance:
“Gio is a great running back…Erik Highsmith he had a great game today, and our offense was just very balanced today, and that's a big boost for us for the rest of the season.”
Bryn Renner
On the players only meeting this week:
“I felt like we just need to come together as a team. It really wasn't just me and Kevin (Reddick), I think a couple of the seniors said some things that really helped this team grow as a team, and that definitely paid off today. I think we're coming together as a team so that's good.”
On his performance:
“I think the offensive line protected. Gio ran the ball great. Ryan ran the ball great. AJ ran the ball great, and the receivers made great catches. Ultimately as the quarterback, you just have to get the ball out of your hands be the point guard. And I think that's what I tried to do today.”
Gio Bernard
On leaving the game with an ankle injury:
“I'm good. It happened in slow motion and that's kind of something that you don't really want to happen in a game. It was just the way I fell and it didn't feel right at first but I started jogging around and got the ankle taped. I'm fine and I'm ready to go. “
On rebounding from the last two weeks:
“The day after the game last week, on Sunday, we were hyped out here running and getting ready for this week and I think it showed how focused we were for this game.”
Wake Forest Coach Jim Grobe
“I was amazed that we played as poorly as we had. We were still in the game but it never changed, we kept turning the ball over and never really helped ourselves. I thought five turnovers … you just can't beat anybody doing that. You have to give them some credit, I thought their kids played hard and they are very talented. We needed to play really good football to have a chance today and we didn't do it.”
On penalties:
“It's having some energetic guys who wanted to be out there and kinda substituted themselves a little bit. We'll look at that but you know that's still our fault, still the coaches' fault. We've got to make sure that if someone ends up out there on the field, that we put them out there.”
“(At) 14-10 you're still in pretty good shape. I think that one of the real tough ones was letting them come off of the four, when we had them pinned down. And then I thought we had another situation when we had the ball down four in the second half with the chance to do something and we didn't.
“We just never could get in rhythm for some reason offensively. They are very talented on offense. It's tough to keep putting your defense out there.”
On Wake Forest's defense:
“Carolina had a lot of short fields because of turnovers which is really tough on the defense, especially against a very talented offense. That's the thing that I really have to keep bringing up. I knew coming in that our defense had a great challenge today. This is a very challenging offensive football team. So we put them in a lot of bad positions.”
On defending Dwight Jones:
“I think you play aggressively and you try to take things away but when you play aggressively sometimes you get out of position. I know how hard Merrill Noel plays and I think what we'll probably see is that there were some times where he just got beat by a really good player.”
On the lack of big plays:
“We've been a team that has had some big plays every game. You kinda live by the sword and die by the sword. If you're a big-play offense and you don't have big plays, it makes it tough. We were just a little bit off in everything we did today – our throws were a little off, we dropped some balls. At times we didn't protect real well and at times we had great protection and didn't deliver the ball. It just didn't click and I can't tell you why. Well I can tell you one of the reasons is that I think Carolina played good today so give them credit. We just played poorly today.”
