Larry Fedora Signing Day Press Conference Transcript
Opening Statement
“First let me start off, I want to publicly acknowledge the players that we have playing in the Super Bowl this weekend. Tre Boston with the Panthers and Sylvester Williams with the Broncos. It’s a tremendous thing to see a young man’s dreams and goals reached. Both of those guys, like a lot of our players, dreamed of playing at the highest level in the NFL. But to also play in the greatest game there is, which is the Super Bowl… To those guys who’ve achieved that that dream. For Sly it’s been two of the last three years. For where he came from and his story, that’s pretty tremendous. I’m proud of both those guys and I wish them all the luck in the world.
“I’d also like to announce some changes on our staff. Just so everyone here knows, Chris Kapilovic is named as our new Offensive Coordinator and Offensive Line Coach. Coach Heck, Keith Heckendorf, will be our Quarterbacks Coach and Passing Game Coordinator. You all know that we added Chad Scott as our Tight Ends and Hybrids Coach. That’s where we are as a staff at this point and right now the staff is full and moving ahead.
“We had a great day today. It was an exciting day from getting up at 5 o’clock in the morning and setting my attitude and what kind of day it was going to be. It was a great day for me, my staff, our support staff, all the people here at Carolina, our players, the recruits, their families, their high school communities, everybody. It was an exciting day all across this country, but especially for us as this 2016 class comes to and end. This class was started, in some cases, more than 24 months ago when we started recruiting these kids. Some of them four, some eight, 16, some 12, but most of these guys have been recruited for more than a year by us. We have a very close relationship with them and their parents. It’s something that’s been a lot of fun to do. I’m glad that it’s over as I’m sure that they are glad that it’s over. There’s so many people that are involved. It’s not just me or me and the recruiting coach. There’s so many people like our support staff to faculty to professors to academic advisors to the people that make this university beautiful on a daily basis. There are so many that I should say thanks for this class, including the people that provide transportation for us so we can get what we need to get and do what we need to do. I know I’m leaving a lot of people out, but the main thing is that you know it’s not just me and our football staff that makes this class come together. There’s a lot of people involved. It’s a celebration for everybody today. We introduce 19 young men into our Tar Heel community and became a part of our Tar Heel family. With the other seven who enrolled in school in January, it makes this class a size of 26, which is the first full class we’ve signed since we’ve been here. This class is balance by the way I look at it. It doesn’t mean that there’s 10 on offense and 10 on defense. We’ve met the problems that we’ve had and met the issues and brought in guys at every single position on the field and leaned heavily toward linebackers and defensive backs because of roster management and what we need to do in that area in the future. We’re excited about this class. It should be a lot of fun. This class is a group of guys that understand the value of an education. They know that they’re coming to the University of North Carolina, they chose to come to the University of North Carolina because they can get a world-class education and play football at the highest level.”
On if winning a lot of games and playing in the ACC title game helped out in recruiting
“Winning helps in every aspect of the program, but definitely in recruiting. I think toward the end of the year you felt that bump and I think you’ll feel that bump on into the 2017 class and ’18 class. These 17 guys were juniors in high school and they were watching Carolina do something pretty special and they are thinking, ‘Ok, now we can see what Coach Fedora and his staff have been talking about and it is coming to fruition.’ Once they see physical evidence of it, it makes it a little bit easier in recruiting.”
On how winning late can help sign recruits who are undecided
“When you are still trying to close some guys, it’s better to have a good season than a bad season. There were some guys who we were still closing in those last couple of months, so every single one of those wins, every little bit of positive buzz that was going around the state or the week of the championship game and you turned on the TV – it was nothing but North Carolina, North Carolina, North Carolina… Every recruit sees that. They are all looking at what we were looking at on the TV, so that’s always very positive and it helps us for the ’17 class and ’18 class.”
On how winning late can help sign recruits who are verbally committed
“Just because they are committed doesn’t mean that they are signed, as we’re all aware of. They have a bullseye on their back for everyone else now. You got to continue to recruit those guys on a daily basis. When a kid commits to you, it doesn’t mean it’s over and you stop recruiting him. You recruit him all the way up until today at 7 a.m. when they sign the papers.”
On the possibility of defensive backs switching positions
“There’s some length with all these guys. We haven’t projected any of them to move. I don’t see that right now. Who knows two years from now what their bodies are going to do. I’ve had kids in the past who have grown out of safety and grown into linebacker, linebackers grow into D-ends, D-ends grow into D-tackles. That just depends on their development.
If you go back and look at our season and look at the percentage of nickel and dime that we were in all year compared to an actual 4-3, I mean, 4-3 is actually a small percentage. The offenses we face, we’re much more a nickel and dime, so a greater need for DBs.”
On Chad Scott
“I’ve had my eye on Chad for awhile. The very first story I heard of Chad Scott, he was at Troy and recruiting in South Florida and because of recruiting budget he would pull into hotel parking lots and sleep in his car. He was still getting done and he found a way to make it happen. I’ve always heard this guy is a bulldog on the road in recruiting. If you go on the road with him in his area, he’s going to know every kid and every kid is going to know him and he’s got a great relationship with them. I’ve always heard that he’s a great coach and done a great job coaching, but the stories that outweigh all of it are the ones of him on the road recruiting.
On having Gene Chizik for a full recruiting cycle
“When Gene first got here we started putting profiles together on our defensive players. We have profiles written up on every player. J.P (John Papuchis) had a profile for what he was looking for in a linebacker. Charleton Warren same thing for the safeties and corners. Same thing with Trey (Scott). Every coach, when they go out in their areas, they know how to identify one of those kids. There are some kids who don’t fit the profile, but they’re still great players. That’s where we have to project and make a decision of whether they can help us win. If they can do it on tape and they are doing it, they can help us win. Whether they are tall enough or fast enough for what we were looking for. There’s a lot of factors.”
On if having Gene Chizik on staff still excites players
“No doubt. You have the biggest turnaround in college football on defense. Gene delivered all the promises everyone was making when he came in. All the kids out there see that and see the improvement. Let’s make the same improvement next year and keep getting better and better.”
On walk-ons filling in and having success
“In my eight years as a head coach and 22 years as an assistant, I’ve seen it every year where I’ve been. There have been guys out there that aren’t recruited or for whatever reason aren’t recruited and want to come to that university and they come in and pay their way and they prove that they are good enough to help the football team win. They get better and better and continue to develop. Some mature later and there are all kinds of reasons why a young man may not be recruited out of high school, but then he goes in and does unbelievable things from (Jeff) Schoettmer to (Nick) Weiler to Mack Hollins. You can go on and on. I anticipate those same things happening in the future.”
On how the process of deciding an offensive coordinator went
“First of all you guys know I didn’t move very fast because one: the offense wasn’t going to change. It wasn’t going to hurt us recruiting wise because we were going to continue the same offense and do what we do, and we’re pretty successful with it. So I wasn’t worried about that. There was not a single recruit out there that said, ‘What are you going to do with the offense?’ Everybody knows this is what we do here at Carolina. That was not a problem it was more about we have tremendous chemistry among our staff and making sure that we have the right guy that’s going to fit what we do. Instead of brining in someone like Seth (Littrell) who had to learn what we did, I decided Kap (Coach Kapilovic) can run this room, Kap can put together a gameplan and the way we do it. So there’s no reason to go anywhere else. Now let’s bring in Chad because Chad fits who we are and he’s going to add to that chemistry and we’ll pick up where we left off.”
On who will be calling the plays
“We haven’t decided all that yet. I will tell you that I’m going to be more involved in the play calling than I have been since I’ve been here. But we just haven’t gotten that far yet of how we’re going to do that.”
On if the “cloud” of NCAA penalties and infractions has gone away
“Definitely. I really believe that cloud that’s been hanging over our head the previous four years has dissipated. It’s not there, it’s not like it was. Even though I think people still try to use it out there, I think people are just tired of hearing about it and they know that there’s been a lot of crying wolf about what’s going to happen. None of those things have happened and they feel pretty comfortable with what we’re saying and we’re moving forward.”
On QB Logan Byrd
“Logan, who’s already here on campus, is about 6-3, 230 lbs. We’ll probably trim him down some and get him in good shape. He’s really a strong-arm guy. If you look out there, people are going to say he’s a pro-style quarterback, but that’s not really what he is. He rushed for right at 1,000 yards this year as a quarterback. I think he’s rushed for right at 1,000 the last two years. He can run a lot better than people think he can run. He’s actually pretty fast because he was at camp, so he can do both. I feel very comfortable. He’s very intelligent and has a presence about him. I’m excited about seeing where he’s at in the spring.”
On QB Chazz Surratt
“Chazz Surratt, the kid who we signed from within the state who was the Gatorade Player of the Year in N.C. and also the offensive player of the year in the state of North Carolina is a kid that we’re also excited about. We’ve said it from the beginning that you’ve got to keep the great players within the state at home for us to have great success. We’re thrilled to have him. As a starter he’s won 30 games and won the state championship last year. He’s done tremendous things. He’s another guy that can run and throw. We’re not going to recruit guys that can do one or the other. We’re always going to search out the guys who can do both because I believe it’s much harder to defend somebody that can beat you anyway.”
On if J.B. Copeland joining as a JUCO will provide leadership/experience to linebackers
“We hope so. The way it materialized knowing that Jeff Schoettmer and Shak (Shakeel Rashad) were leaving and we lost Joe Jackson to a career-ending injury, all of a sudden it become a priority. We kept looking at the younger guys we were recruiting and thinking are we going to be OK or do we need to bring some type of age into that room. After searching the junior college we found J.B. and felt like he was a good fit for us and thought he could be successful. That’s why we chose to bring him in.”
On two-sport athletes
“If you ask me will I rather have a one-sport athlete or a two-sport athlete, I’ll take the two-sport athlete every time. You don’t see this in the summer. The teams do these games every Wednesday from beach volleyball to homerun hitting contests on the softball field to three-point shooting contest to ultimate frisbee to paintball… you name it. What is amazing is to see some of them and see how bad they are at these other things. It makes me wonder, ‘You’re an athlete, a highly-trained college athlete, and you strike out on three pitches in slow-pitch softball.’ (They say), ‘I’ve never hit a softball.’ That’s a shame because the only time in your life that you get to do those kind of things is when you’re young. It’s not like you’re going to play beach volleyball the rest of your life. I think young kids, especially high school and below, they need to do everything they possibly can do. If you’re an athlete, you’re an athlete, you ought to be able to do multiple things. In bowling y’all ought to be able to not throw a gutter ball once every three times. I’ll take multi-sport athletes all the time. I think they are better athletes.”
On recruiting players that come from a winning culture
“If you can have a team full of winners, you’re gonna win. If you want to be successful, you surround yourself with successful people. The more guys that come from successful programs, the more guys that have been coached hard, the more guys that have dedicated themselves to the team’s goals instead of their own. The better we will be as a football team.”
On if hosting camps influence recruiting
“Those camps are critical. You better believe it. You’re talking freshman that are coming to those camps so you can see guys when they are really young when they standout. Maybe it’s a kid from South Florida where you haven’t been down there to see him and he is in the area and he comes to one of those camps so you get a chance to work with him for three hours and more importantly, he gets to work with that position coach for three hours. If he’s a running back he gets to know Larry Porter and that is really, really important. I think the camps are critical to our success.”
On what he’s most excited about in this class
“I would say that we filled needs. That would probably be the thing I’m most excited about. I don’t feel like we walked away from this year and said, ‘Gollee we needed some linebackers and only signed one. We’re going to need some DBs next year because we only signed two.’ We really met our needs and that’s probably the thing that’s best about this class is the way it all came together and I attribute that to our staff and the job they’ve done.”