University of North Carolina Athletics
Postgame Quotes - Virginia
October 25, 2015 | Football
UNC HEAD COACH LARRY FEDORA
Opening Statement
“Great effort by our team tonight. It was a sloppy game in a lot of different ways, especially with penalties and offensively shooting ourselves in the foot. But we did what we needed to do to win a Coastal Division game, and that was important for us. We don't have a whole lot of time to think about it because we've got to move on and get ready for Pitt.”
On the defense's recent second-half performances:
“I think one thing is, I think our coaches do a great job at halftime. And it's not about all the adjustments, and speeches and all that. It's really just staying calm, and being patient with the guys, and talking them through what's really happening and then letting them adjust to it. Our guys have played really well in the second half.”
On the team overcoming penalties, turnovers and other adversity:
“I can tell you, those guys, they never panic. They really don't. They're a pretty tight group. They feel good about themselves as far as when they say, 'I've got your back,' they mean it. It doesn't matter what you do; it's not conditionally. They mean it. They feel like they're going to take care of each other.”
On winning convincingly, despite mistakes:
“I think we have a very good football team. I really do. I've said it before. I think that the chemistry, the leadership, the locker room, I think that's what's driving this football team. They're a lot of fun to coach. They really are. Even with the mistakes, and all of those things, they'll get it corrected. We'll get it corrected because all of those things are correctable. It would be really bad if we couldn't correct them. So they're correctable, and the problem is this week you don't have much time to do it. You can't sit there and really teach and learn from the things you did this week, you've got to move on.”
On whether a sloppy game is a good thing for the team:
“I'm going to make it good no matter what. I mean it's a win, so we're gonna make it good. We'll point out the problems that we had, but how we overcame them is very important. And those are the lessons. We can overcome problems because there's going to be more problems coming in the future – there's no doubt about it. Some of them we will create ourselves, some of them the other team we play will create it for us, and we'll have to find a way to overcome them.”
On Elijah Hood getting 21 carries in the game:
“I think it was what the game dictated. We came in at halftime trying to figure out what we needed to do in the second half, and it was like, well, there's nothing in the first half that isn't working. So let's just keep doing it, and hopefully we'll quit getting penalties and we'll quit shooting ourselves in the foot. And we did enough. On defense, 13 points in the first half and didn't give up anything in the second half and got four turnovers. You're gonna make it go.”
On Elijah's play:
“I thought he did a great job. He ran hard. He ran really hard, got the ball in the end zone when we needed to. I don't want that ball popping out. I don't want him to have to look at it, but he assured me that it was in, so he was right.”
On the play of Shakeel Rashad and Jeff Schoettmer:
“I'll say Shak and Schoettmer tonight, I mean they were all over the field, both of them. Both of those guys were in charge of getting us in the right situations according to all of their personnel, and all of their movement and adjustments. So there was a lot on those linebackers tonight, and those guys came to play and make plays.”
NORTH CAROLINA PLAYER QUOTES
On win overall:
“A win is a win. We've found ways to win football games, and that's all that matters. You know, it was really ugly, but, hey, I'll take it. It moves us to 6-1.”
On comparing win to last season:
“We look back last year, and we might have crumbled in situations like today. We pulled it together, pulled tight as a team, you know, offense, defense, special teams, we all came together. It was like, 'You know, let's finish it. Doesn't matter what the score is, let's just finish this game so we can go out with a W.'”
On losing 135 yards in penalties:
“It's probably the first game we really had a lot of penalties. It came in a time when things were ugly today, so the penalties were ugly. We can just put it behind us and move on by watching film and getting better at the things we were doing wrong.”
TB Elijah Hood
On his 21 carries:
“Honestly, I didn't know I had that many carries. I don't know if that was in the game plan. I think that's just how the game flows, whichever way it goes is how it goes.”
On team's mentality entering the rest of the season:
“We just have to stay focused. We've got to keep getting better. We've got to keep challenging ourselves. Today's game, I think we could have done a lot better than we did. Still happy we got the win, but we still have a lot to clean up. We're just trying to get better every week.”
On changing defensive strategy after half:
“Whatever we didn't do right in the first half, we changed in the second half. We just kept playing disciplined football.”
VIRGINIA COACH MIKE LONDON
On the effect of turnovers throughout the game:
“There's a whole host of other things that are always important in a football game. We didn't do a good job defensively getting turnovers early. Obviously, we gave the ball up and shortened the field for them and gave them opportunities. That's a good football team, but at the same time we didn't finish the game like we showed we could last week. It was disappointing to finish the way we did. We've got to improve in a lot of areas. We've got to continue to do that. I believe they did a nice job on third-down possessions. Very few third-down possessions. We tried to limit as much as we could the quarterback, but he's a good player and he did a nice job. He made some runs. He made some throws. He's very efficient. We knew that going into the game. They did a great job of executing and we didn't do as well of what we needed to do. Particularly, offensively to move the ball and get points. Defensively, they had a couple of big plays there.”
On Taquan Mizzell:
“Obviously he's one of our best players, if not the best player that we have in terms of production and being able to catch and run the ball. We're going to have to also find others. They did a good job of spying on him in some of the screens. He's a dynamic player for us. We need to continue to find ways to not let teams gang up on him, but also be productive in some other areas with some other players.”
On the defense:
“There's no small victories. It's all about the wins. They're number one in scoring, number one in this and that. Defensively at times we did do a good job. We had to make the crucial stops. Particularly the long run, the long pass that was thrown, and their explosive plays. I don't know how many they had this game. Perhaps not as many as they had in the past, but none the less they had them so we have to limit those opportunities like that. Again, they scored more points than we did and they ended up winning the game.”
On the offensive downfalls in the second half:
“We didn't do well on third down perspective. You have that many turnovers and then you shorten the field like that. That makes it tough as well. They did a nice job defensively in a lot of areas. We had close to 200 yards rushing. That's something we haven't had in a while. There's some things that are working for us, but we have to get everything working in the right direction for us.”
