The UNC football program battled throughout but ultimately fell short against the No. 1-ranked team in the country on Saturday night in Chapel Hill.
While there are no moral victories, it shows the Tar Heels are showing signs of progress. Unfortunately, UNC would have preferred to be on the right side of the scoreboard, but their ability to give Miami fits is a testament to what the program is trying to build.
After the loss, head coach Bill Belichick spoke to the media regarding his team's effort. See and hear what the head coach of the Tar Heels had to say below:
Opening statement
“Unfortunately, came up a little bit short. Disappointing.
Miami is really good, really good on offense. They’ve got two great players and a lot of other good players. We obviously had a hard time handling them, although I thought we actually defended them pretty well. But, I mean, they made a couple of great plays that you don’t see too many other people make.
They’re very good. Very good on offense. It was a one-score, back-and-forth game, and then they got the turnover and it became a two-score game. We couldn’t get the onside kicks, so that’s pretty much the story of it.
A lot of effort, a lot of toughness, a lot of mental toughness, a lot of competitiveness. Just disappointing to come up short here two weeks in a row.”
Billy Edwards Jr.'s performance
“He’s been doing a solid job for us.”
Miami's success on third and fourth down
“What I noticed, which is what I just said, they’re really good. They’ve got a lot of really good players. They’ve got two great players, and they made some great plays.”
What UNC's performance showed
“I mean, we were a big part of the game. Then we were down two scores after we turned the ball over. So, if we don’t turn the ball over, maybe we’re not down by two scores. I don’t know.”
Miami's late pass rush
“They didn’t mix it up. They did what they did the whole game. They ran what they ran the whole game, which is honestly what they’ve been running the whole year.”
UNC's execution in pass protection
“Yeah, I mean, it wasn’t perfect on our part. We could have done a better job executing the play. The protection was good, but we just ended up holding the ball too long.”
Overcoming long yardage situations
“Yeah, it’s an emphasis every week. It’s an emphasis every week.
Give the credit to the players. They executed well and were able to overcome some long-yardage situations to get to third-and-reasonable from, like, second-and-20 and first-and-20, and a couple of those first-and-second-and-19, or whatever it was.
But, yeah, overall, again, it’s team offense. It’s not one player. We threw the ball to a lot of different guys. The offensive line, the backs were involved a lot, blitz pickup situations. Everybody contributed. It’s not just one guy.”
On time of possession
“No. The goal is to score points. We don’t get anything for time of possession.”
Belichick's message to the team
“Yeah, I already talked to them. So, yeah, we’ll move on.”
How Belichick evaluates a loss
“It’s the same every game. Look at the game. Things we did well, we try to keep doing well. Things we didn’t do well, we try to improve on.
Get ready for a new game, a new opponent next week, which will be totally different than Miami. Every game’s different. None of them are the same. Each team has different players, different coordinators, different plays, different matchups.
Each game’s its own entity, but you learn from the games you play, good and bad. So we do that every week, no matter what the outcome. It’s about the process.”
Billy Edwards Jr. spreading the ball around
“Stay in rhythm and throw the ball to the guy that’s open.
We don’t throw the ball to one receiver. Sometimes on a screen pass we do, but we don’t just go back and say, ‘Oh, we’re going to throw it to this guy. We’re going to throw it to that guy.’
We run the pattern based on the coverage. We throw the ball to the guy that has the most opportunity to catch it based on the coverage and the read that he gets. There are different reads on different plays.
So that’s what he’s supposed to do. That’s what he did do. That’s what he should do.
We don’t call a pass pattern and say, ‘Oh, we’re going to throw the ball to this guy on this play.’ What if he’s covered? We want to throw an interception? No.
So we read the coverage and we throw the ball to the guy that is open. Sometimes nobody’s open, and the quarterback has to make a decision on what to do in those situations.”
On Billy Edwards Jr.'s chemistry with Jelani Thurman
“It’s been good all year. It was good in the spring. It was good in TCU. It was good tonight. They’ve been productive all year in practice.
We had trouble covering them in practice. It’s a problem, too. So, it’s been like that all year.”
On Jelani Thurman's development
“Well, I mean, the first touchdown was off a hard run fake and just nobody back there. He was wide open in the end zone. So, it’s a well-designed play that was well executed on the fake, and everybody sucked up there and he was open behind them.
But, yeah, it’s what I just said. He’s been productive all year. He’s had good production with all our quarterbacks, so I think they all like to throw to him.
He’s big. He’s fast. He’s a big target. It’s hard to overthrow him. He’s got a great radius, and he’s good after the catch.”
On trying to pressure Darian Mensah
“I thought we flushed him out of the pocket a number of times, and he ended up scrambling. He’s not a big runner, but he was able to run productively a couple times tonight.
Like I said, they’ve got a lot of good players on offense. It’s hard to get all of them. I thought we did a pretty good job. They’re honestly just pretty good. Give them credit.
They’re pretty good. We had them covered a lot of times, and a couple times they made great catches. There were several times he had to pull the ball down.
He’s had a lot better days than he had tonight. He had a good night tonight, too. Don’t get me wrong. He’s a really good quarterback.
Toney, too. I’ve seen Toney put up more in a half than he did in this game. I thought JP did a great job on him. He didn’t catch many on him, but he still got his plays. I mean, they’re good. They’re good.”
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