University of North Carolina Athletics
How I Spent My Bye Week
September 16, 2014 | Football
By Michael Melvin
After a 2-0 start, the Tar Heel football team had Saturday off. Here's how they spent last week as they prepare to face East Carolina this weekend.
“We are getting guys back like Norkeithus Otis. The bye week gives them time to recover and hopefully we'll have them back for ECU. It also helps us to prepare for ECU more and work on fundamental things both offensively and defensively.” – Quarterback Marquise Williams
“I think it is at a good time for us. We're a young team so it has enabled us to go back to basics and fundamentals, things that when you are going through a season is hard to be able to spend the time on. I think it came at a good time for us because of how young we are.” – Head Coach Larry Fedora
“It's been a pretty big amount of time since I've played. I just need to get back into the flow of things, and I think that happening at the bye week is going to be helpful for me.” – Wide Receiver T.J. Thorpe
“The bye week is another week to get better and to study East Carolina and be more comfortable with what they are doing, and more importantly to work on ourselves right now and figure out who we are. It has come at a great time, we got two games on film and established ourselves a little bit and figured out who we were from those films. Now we can sit here, look at them, analyze them, and realize what we need to get better at.” – Offensive Tackle John Ferranto
“The bye week allows you to grow. It is a lot easier once you see things on film. Sometimes you talk about it and go through practices and prepare for certain things, but until you see things on tape it doesn't register. We are definitely getting into ECU stuff and we have looked at tape and their scheme. We still got to get better at our fundamentals and continue to grow in what we are doing.” – Associate head coach for offense Seth Littrell
“Coach Vic and our staff really pushed us in practice last week about tackling and doing what we are supposed to be doing. Saturday I basically watched the game, watched film, watched college football. We knew ECU's game was at 12 and most of the guys got together to sit down and watch the game.” – Defensive Tackle Ethan Farmer
“San Diego State we had 34 missed tackles, so Coach Vic and the whole defensive staff made sure we were wrapping the guys up and in our Indy drills we did a lot of tackling. I watched the ECU game and some film on them this weekend. I watched some other games, but I know this week is a big week for us and we have to show up and play.” – Safety Tim Scott
Players Mentioned
