Coach Fedora Press Conference

August 23, 2013 | Football

By: UNC Athletic Communications

Press Conference - Aug. 23, 2013

Opening Statement

"We've had a very productive fall camp. I think we've got something like 23 or 24 practices under our belt right now. We are where we are. We are excited to get ready for this first one. We're less than a week away. Our guys are typically, at the end of camp, they're tired of hitting each other. They're ready to hit somebody else and really find out who the 2013 Tar Heels are."

On Bryn Renner's progression

"It's not even close to the end of camp last year. There's quite a big difference really. His decision-making process, the leadership he's providing, the knowledge of the offense, the ability to understand when he has to make the throws and when he doesn't, when it's okay to punt, how you have to try to move the chains, all the different things and just managing the football game. Big difference between now and last year this time."

On the defense

"There are a lot fewer mental mistakes and missed assignments. Our guys, I think they have a feel for what they're doing and because of that you see them running to the ball. You see their aggressiveness, you see that a whole lot more now because they're not thinking as much."

On pride in an out-of-state rivalry

"It does for our conference, it does for our fans, but it's not something...we don't talk about it. We don't really even get into conference games; we talk about the next opponent - that's all we focus on. It doesn't matter because these players have no control where the other team comes from or what conference they're in. that's not something we really talk about. It's more about this is the opponent and we're not going to play the entire conference, we're going to play that one team. So we haven't really talked that much about it at all."

On the players sensing the gravity of the South Carolina game

"I think they sense that. That's all that's out there in the media. It's the SEC. But we're not playing the SEC. We're playing South Carolina. It's one team in that league. A very good football team in that league, a team that's ranked No. 6 in the country.

But we haven't talked about league versus league, no."

On the South Carolina game overtaking the fan excitement of the NC State game

"A whole lot. The fans have been excited about this game since it's been on the schedule. They've talked a lot about it in the off-season. Everybody wants to talk about it. That's part of the excitement and the players sense that. They know that. Again, I've said it before it is extra motivation in the winter conditioning, spring ball, and summer workouts. That's just extra incentive to push a little bit harder."

On making it a series with South Carolina

"I think we're already starting the process by playing them in 2015 in Charlotte. I don't see why you wouldn't. I think it's a natural thing. I think it could eventually become a regional type of rivalry, a border war type of thing. I think it's a good thing."

On the new contact rules

"I'm all for doing anything that is going to enhance player safety. I think every coach out there is. How do I feel about it? I'm worried about it. I'm worried we're putting a lot on the officials in a very bang-bang type moment. When in doubt they're supposed to throw the flag. I'm concerned. I think every coach in the country is concerned. If they're not, they will be when they get a guy ejected. I heard about a play in the NFL the other day about a player going in and hitting a guy low and he is out for the season now with a knee injury. I think from a defensive standpoint, you're talking about lowering your target area. You don't want guys taking a chance of hitting them in the chest and the possibility going up. You're lowering your target range and when they do that you're going to have more injuries below the waist. Those are devastating injuries. Those are career-ending injuries. I hope that's not the case, I really do. You think about this, you have big strong fast guys running into each other full-speed. Things are going to happen. I don't think you can totally take all the injuries out of the game. I just don't think you can do it. I am for preventing concussions and everything we possibly can to keep these players safe. I just don't know how well this is going to work out because it's going to be a big judgment call by the officials."

On coaching the defense to the contact changes

"[It's changed] a lot. We've watched video, we've talked with officials, we've had officials talk with our guys, and we've coached tackling different. But there is a fine line when you take the aggressiveness out of a guy in that situation, then you enhance his chances of being injured. It will be interesting to see this year how it happens across the country in college football."

On the match-up of James Hurst versus Jadeveon Clowney

"I'm not looking forward to it. I'm going to say the guy is a great player and the more you watch film on him - I'm long beyond the one play on Michigan. But that guy makes plays all year and throughout every game. He is a major factor. I am glad that James Hurst is going to be over there, but I also am not naïve enough to think that is the only place he's going to line up. He's probably going to line up everywhere and they're going to put him in a position to have success and to cause problems for our offense."

On Eric Ebron

"He'll handle it fine, I've been putting a lot of pressure on him since the day I got here. The expectation level form my part has always been high for him. It's going to continue to be and I'm going to continue to put as much pressure on him as possible because I think he responds better that way.

[Being serious] is not who he is. You're not going to take a guy that is a happy-go-lucky kind of guy and make him a serious guy. And we don't want cookie-cutter guys in this program. I want him to be who he is and I want him to perform at the highest level that he possibly can. He focuses differently than Bryn Renner focuses. But every kid is different. Every kid's personal plan is totally different than the others. The main thing is you don't want one kid's personal plan to affect another kid's personal plan. We've got to be careful of those things."

On the open field defense

"I have seen improvement and we have worked extensively on tackling in the open field because that's the way the game is now. The offenses are spread out and they get you in one-on-one situations out in the open field. If you don't make that tackle it becomes a big play. That's what spread offenses do. The whole premise is to create as much space on the field as possible and let's see if you make the tackle. If you don't, they have a chance for an explosive play. We've done a lot of one-on-one tackling in open field. The coaches have done a great job of teaching it. The other part of it is you've got to understand what you're doing - know your job and do your job. It's simple."

On confidence of the players

"The only way to gain confidence is to have success. You can talk about having it all you want but until you actually do it you never know. I do think our guys feel better about where they are than they were at the end of last year. There were a lot of factors that went into that, injuries and all, you get worn out at the end of the season. It's just the way it is. First of all when you have 85 scholarships, not that we do, but if you do that's still not enough. So you get guys beat up and they get worn down, they're not as productive as they were at the beginning of the season."

On Kendrick Singleton as a top receiver

"He's probably the leader in that room, first of all. He's an extremely hard working guy. He's the only guy on the football team that has started on all four special teams. He gives you tremendous effort all the time. He's what you look for in a player. He's dependable in everything that we do. Whether you're asking him to block, whether you're asking him to run a route at a certain depth, whether you're asking him to make a play - whatever it is, you know you can count on him. Dependability is the most important ability these guys have."

On the starting right tackle position

"Yes, thanks for asking. Jon Heck is going to start the game and we'll take it from there. Any time you have youth, you put them in as many situations as you can in practice so it's game-like and then you hope that carries over into the game. So we'll see, but Jon has kind of distanced himself in the last few days and I think [coach Chris Kapilovic] is ready to make a call."

On Ryan Switzer

"Ryan is unique because he's played in the backfield and now he's learned the slots. He's a guy you can do multiple things with. He can actually run the ball from the backfield or he can be out at a receiver spot running routes. That always puts a degree of difficulty on the defense as far as trying to match up personnel to cover him. It just enables us to do a little bit more and hopefully as he comes along and understands what we're trying to do a little more he'll be a bigger part of the offense as we go."

On the top defensive player he has ever faced

"I'm going to say [Jadeveon] Clowney. I've never played against a guy who is 272 lbs. and runs a 4.4. It's obvious on film, he plays at a different speed than other guys because he is faster than other guys. He plays hard. You see him, I'm trying to remember which game it was, but you see him hand the ball off to a back on the sweep and he broke and I think Clowney caught him 25 yards down the field. So he can run. When you have that kind of speed, it's always a difficult situation.

First of all, you understand that you're not going to shut him down. That's part of it - he's too good of a football player. And let me tell y'all something, you've got [Kelcy] Quarles on the inside, you've got [Chaz] Sutton on the other end, I mean they've got a dang good defensive line. Clowney gets all the talk and all the press, but they're good up front. They're very good upfront. They've got Sutton, Quarles, you've got Surratt at the other tackle, and those guys are good football players, really good football players. Then you throw him into the mix, so what you've got to do - you can't plan for everything against Jadeveon Clowney because you've got three other guys that will beat you up too. You have to do the best job you can with your scheme. You have to have ways to protect when you get into problems and you just go from there."

On younger players on the defense

"That's what usually happens is one guy [Kareem Martin] gets a lot of focus. But Norkeithus Otis, Darius Lipford, Tim Jackson, we've had quite a few guys make plays in camp and have stepped up to do some nice things."

On redshirt players

"We understood that we were probably going to be young this year so last year we did everything we possibly could in that redshirt year to get those guys ready for the future. We were two days a week with all those redshirt guys last year that we were actually scrimmaging them live every week. Knowing that we were not going to have bowl practices, the plan was to put those guys in a situation throughout the season last year two days a week where they got a lot of reps and the coaches were focused on them in that time during the season."

On T.J. Thorpe

"He's still hobbling right now and I don't know if he will make this trip of not."

On the deep secondary

"When did it get deep? Obviously with Tre [Boston], Darien Rankin, Tim Scott, [Brandon] Ellerbe and Jabari [Price], all of those guys have multiple reps for us. So that's been good. There is some experience back there. I don't know if we have a lot of depth back there right now but I do know we have some guys who have played for us and have some experience. So that makes you feel a little bit better going into the game because you know how they're going to perform. They're not going to be big-eyed and overwhelmed I think. They're going to go out there and be calm and play ball. But I don't know that we have a lot of depth back there in that situation right now. Dominique Green has come in a done a nice job for us and will definitely give us some snaps back there. There is a possibility that Malik Simmons will definitely get some snaps for us back there at the ram position. We've got some other guys, T.J. Jiles will help us out, Brian Walker is going to help us out, and I'm probably leaving a few guys out but at least in our one-deep we have some guys who have some experience."

On South Carolina's offense

"One you've got Connor Shaw, I think this is his third year as a starter, and you've got Dylan Thompson. Both of them are very good quarterbacks and they've won with either one of them playing. I think Thompson started the Clemson game last year, played the whole game, threw 300 - that's obviously a big game for him. I don't think they're afraid to play either one of them. Both of them can throw the football and both of them can run. They're dual-threat guys, they can beat you with the arm or the legs. That's always a concern. I think Connor Shaw is probably the returning leading rusher because most of their backs are out or gone. But I promise you they've got some good running backs back there. We know that. Offensive line is going to be, going to be physical. Their tight end's going to be a big physical guy. So they're a lot different than they were then Steve Spurrier as been in the past. He has changed and evolved over time. Still some of the same routes, but they're going to run the football and they don't mind running the quarterback."

On opening the season with a top-10 team

"I think the advantages are one, it promotes a sense of urgency in the off-season for you and in the summer. The kids understand that you don't have a game to warm-up; you've got to be ready right now. So I think that helps in creating a sense of urgency. It also gives you a better idea of where you're at. After that first one you're going to have a much better feel of what kind of team we're going to be and where improvement needs to be made. Sometimes when you go the other way, you don't always know that. You come out of a game and you play a lot of people and you may not know where the problems are.

I think it's tremendous for exposure and what we're looking for for our program and creating a sense of excitement about the Tar Heels, not only statewide but in our recruiting footprint and really the nation."

On the true freshmen's sense of readiness

"You never know. We never know how those true freshmen are going to perform. As a coach, and you talk about dependability, you go through camp and you try to identify the guys who have been dependable through camp. Because you don't want to put a guy out there just to see if he's going to do it, we would like to know that we know he's going to do it and he's done it in camp and he's done it multiple times and he's prepared to go. But some of them are 17 and they 18 years old, it's a big game, there will be nerves involved and some of them won't play like normally play right off the bat until they settle down and realize that it's just a football game. They've been playing football since they were five, six, seven years old and it really hasn't changed - it's blocking and tackling, running and catching, it's just on a bigger stage."

On avoiding sluggish first halves like 2012

"The same way we do for every game, that hasn't changed. We don't ever go into it and say, 'It's okay to be sluggish this week we'll get going in the second half.' We want our guys to start fast from the beginning. We put a lot of time into how we start a game. Our scripts for what's going to be called at the beginning of a game on offense, defense, and special teams so our guys know it inside and out. Then you hope if they know it and they're focused then they're going to play fast, play hard and we'll be smart, fast, and physical."

On South Carolina's successful offense in 2012 against Clemson

"That scares the heck out of me. They did a good job stopping a run; that was one thing they did. They stopped the run and put them in passing situations and I think they took Clemson out of their comfort level. When you're trying to do things that you don't normally do, it makes it tough."