North Carolina 62, Elon 0 Quotes
September 1, 2012 | Football
Carolina Football • Sept. 1, 2012
UNC 62, Elon 0 at Kenan Stadium (Chapel Hill, N.C.)
Postgame Quotes
UNC Coach Larry Fedora
Opening statement:
“Good first game and great to get it under our belt. You go into the game as a new head coach and your first game you want to make minimal mistakes and you want communication good on the sidelines. You don't want to have mistakes in substitution, you want to take care of the football — those little things. Other than turning the ball over twice, I thought our guys responded very well from the beginning of the game and all the way through. I was proud of the way they played today.”
On establishing UNC's identity:
“I think we're starting to. I don't know if one game will establish the identity because there wasn't much adversity for us in that game. Until we have to face some adversity it's hard to find out who you really are, but we started to. I told the defense, 'it's hard to get a shutout against air these days.' You've got to give them a lot of credit for what they were able to accomplish today. Other than a couple of missteps offensively, I thought we played pretty good.”
On Giovani Bernard:
“That was exciting for me because that's the first time I've seen him play in a game. You guys have had that opportunity before. I've seen it in practice, but until you get to see it in a game, until you get to see him really light it up, you get to see the burst he has, the explosiveness … that was a lot of fun to see — a lot of fun for me and I'm sure a lot of fun for Tar Heel nation.”
On Bryn Renner and the offense:
“I think Bryn really did a nice job of managing. I think you're going to see some improvement for him from this game to the next game though. I mean there were some tempo situations where he wasn't moving quick enough. I thought the offense was lined up ready to go and he wasn't moving quick enough. We'll get those things straightened out. And again, that was his first one. He really did a nice job of managing the game. He took care of the ball. The one pick was actually a bust on a route, so we'll get that corrected and keep moving forward.”
UNC Players
Sr. DT Sylvester Williams
On working hard over the summer:
“As a whole unit, we put in a lot of work over the summer. Coach always told us, 'You put money in the bank, then on September 1st you take it out.' I feel like as a team we went out there and we played with poise. We were humble. The defense came out there with fire. Offense came out there the same way. Obviously, as a team we still have things we need to fix, but for the first game I think that we did an unbelievable job.”
On the new defense:
“I'm excited about the new defensive scheme. We went out there and showed the world what it was about. We gave up zero points. They didn't score on us at all … You look at defenses [UNC] had in the past, and there hasn't been a defensive shutout in a long time. For us to be able to do that, it meant a lot to me.”
Sr. WR Erik Highsmith
On punt returns:
“This fall camp, we didn't have any punt returners. So me, Gio [Bernard], and Roy Smith went and tried out. We were the only three who got the job. Gio started out. He's a great punt returner. He's great with the ball in his hand. I didn't think I was going to get the opportunity today, but Coach wanted to see how I would react to it. I think I did pretty good.”
Fr. WR Quinshad Davis
On his first UNC game:
“I was nervous. I was nervous, excited, and ready to play at the same time. I was out a couple weeks at the start of camp, so I was looking at the playbook the whole time. So when I got out there, I picked it up fairly easy. It just felt good to finally get out there and get to play against some other opponents.”
Jr. LB Kevin Reddick
On leaping into the stands:
“That's just something Coach wanted us to do, getting more involved with the fans. He's big on getting the fans here, so wanted us to do that and interact with the fans.”
On the new defense:
“I think we did great. Not the best, but it was OK. We still have a lot of work to do. We held them to a shutout, so that was good, and we're still going to continue to try to have more shutouts throughout the year.”
Elon Coach Jason Swepson
Opening statement:
"We were overmatched playing this opponent, give credit to North Carolina. That's a good football team. It's a bowl team from a year ago, looks like it's going to be a bowl team this year. But I'm proud of my kids. They kept fighting, played the game hard. We had some mistakes out there and obviously when you play a team with this caliber and you make those kind of mistakes, it just enhances everything. Other than that I thought we had, in the first ... I think it was still the first quarter we moved the ball on them, got inside the tight red zone and we had a bad ball in and the breaks didn't go our way. Overall, I think we have a good football team. I'm looking forward to getting in the meeting room, watching the game film, and moving forward towards [N.C.] Central."
On the worst part of the day for him:
"Really that we don't have depth. The offensive line, I think we had a six-man rotation. The five starters played all the way deep into the fourth quarter. We just weren't ready to throw in some of those freshman offensive linemen at this game, but weeks to come we have to create some depth at that position, same thing at the linebacker and secondary position. We just didn't have depth to sub. Really after the first half we were gassed and second half was going to be a challenge for us to ask these guys to play in this heat against bigger, stronger, faster guys than us - tall order. I think these guys had a great learning experience, had a chance to see big-time football and a great atmosphere. We're gonna move forward."
On the return game:
"Good thing is that Kent (Beal) punted the ball well. Couple times he out-punted the coverage which was ... with that kind of talent on the other team, you can't do that. Couple of times we asked him to punt the ball out of bounds and he just didn't execute it. But I think we're gonna be OK on our special teams."
