UNC Football Positional Grades vs. East Carolina

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Sep 20, 2014; Greenville, NC, USA; North Carolina Tar Heels head coach Larry Fedora looks on against the East Carolina Pirates at Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium. The East Carolina Pirates defeated the North Carolina Tar Heels 70-41. Mandatory Credit: James Guillory-USA TODAY Sports

Coaching: D-

Okay, back to the important grades.

Larry Fedora and the rest of the Tar Heel staff was out-coached by ECU. It looked like a lot of the North Carolina players were giving up in the second half, and losing motivation, which is inexcusable. Yeah, you’re getting destroyed, but that doesn’t mean that you should just give up. This is mostly on the players, but the coaches also have to take responsibility for this lack of effort. What’s really disturbing is that this has been a common theme throughout the season. The Heels have had long stretches where they looked indifferent. Fedora needs to find a way to motivate his players, and quickly.

“We just got out-efforted on both sides of the ball.” –T.J. Thorpe, who said that some of his teammates gave up in the second half on Saturday

The Tar Heels also managed to pick up four personal foul penalties. These penalties, especially late hits and roughing the passer, are preventable and a good team really shouldn’t have more than one a game. Overall, UNC ended up committing eight penalties for 85 yards. As if the Pirates needed any extra help.

I also didn’t like the way that Fedora used Marquise Williams and Mitch Trubisky. With the Heels switching quarterbacks every few drives, the offense was never able to get going. Every time that one of the quarterbacks started to get in a groove, Fedora had them back on the sideline. Why would he do this? Honestly, your guess is as good as mine. Fedora has already stated that Marquise Williams won the job, so I don’t understand why the two quarterbacks are still splitting snaps. The current arrangement is not good for either player, and certainly not good for the team.

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Last week, I said that the Heels had to do three things to win the game: play better defense, finish drives and stay motivated. North Carolina did not do any of these things.

Quite frankly, UNC has not looked good this year. And with the schedule getting harder, the Heels need to pick it up. If they play the rest of the season like they played on Saturday, they won’t win a single game the rest of the season. Hopefully, they learn from the loss, and learn from it. Otherwise, it will be a long, long season.

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