The UNC football program has secured its first conference victory of the Bill Belichick era.
It feels really good to be able to say that, given how close the program has been to securing that first conference win over the last few weeks. Progress is certainly being made in Chapel Hill, as evident by the team's recent performances.
On Halloween night, the final score finally favored the guys in Carolina Blue.
After the game, head coach Bill Belichick spoke to the media about his team's victory. You can hear what Belichick had to say below, and can also view a transcript of the press conference underneath the video.
Opening Statement
Good team win tonight. Really have a lot of respect for the way these guys have fought all year long, but especially, you know, top losses, you know, come up here. And you know, things didn’t go great at the beginning of the game, but then they just kept battling. And you know, had a really good second half defensively. You know, we played well, gave up three points, good team effort all the way around offensively, as I said, got up to the slow start, but second half was good. I thought our conditioning helped us. We ran the ball, and when everybody knew we were going to run it, that was good. Our offensive line did a nice job. Backs were really outstanding. Made a lot of errors involved in their hands after they caught it or have the first guy in the tackle. So that was really good. Just happy for the team success. These guys have worked hard. They earned it and emptied out the tank tonight and go back to fill it up this week and get ready for Stanford.”
On Demon June's performance
“It’s great. When we see guys do what he did down the sideline, his stiff arm on another 34 yards and touchdown run did a really good job of him finishing the touchdown on the toss play, getting his pads down through the goal line, all that. It’s just seeing guys make plays with the ball in their hands and are hard to tackle, and it gets everybody fired up. But I thought all our backs did it, and they ran hard, and good pad level, and once again, the backs ran a good ball security.”
How the Tar Heels navigated Syracuse's QB situation
“I’d say we basically stuck to it. But you have to be aware of who that player is or was, and that definitely caught us a little bit by surprise. But I know from experience, it’s a short week, you can’t change your whole offense in a week. And so you do what you can do for the quarterback, but the other 10 guys, to try to stay consistent with them. And I know they were going through some changes on the offensive line, with Washington at guard and Cruz at center, says that some moving parts there, a new center with a new quarterback. So that’s tough for me. I know for Coach Brown, that was something he had to deal with this week, and it was a challenge. But I think once the game got going, we just tried to play our coverages and try not to let the quarterback beat us with his legs. He got out a couple there, a couple times. But you know, overall, we did a decent job.”
Post game feelings following first ACC victory
“Feels good. It feels great. Yeah, it’s good. We had a couple of opportunities the last couple of weeks that we weren’t able to capitalize. It feels good to get this one. Look forward to all the rest of the games.”
Assessing the offensive line
"Yeah, Jordan (Hall) in particular, has done a really good job for us. He’s continuing to improve in practice, and we gave him some playing time early in the game. And then, unfortunately, when Chad went out, Austin went to center, which he’s been practicing as our backup center, so we were kind of ready for that move. Obviously didn’t want it to happen. But when Chad wasn’t able to go back in then Austin (Blaske) went in for him, and O’Steen stayed at guard, so then Miles (McVay) has been getting some snaps on the right side. So, we’re fortunate that we had that kind of depth, and guys were able to step in there and play well. But Blaske’s a natural center, so I don’t think that was a big as big an adjustment for him as it might be for somebody else.”
What else (other than June) clicked for the offense?
“It was really just better execution. It wasn’t like we had a whole bunch of new plays or anything. We just executed a little bit better. And again, our backs made some good runs. We got a few holes open, and then the backs made yards on the run, and they ran hard. Three yards became seven, and those things added pretty quickly. We skipped a lot of third downs. We were able to get some first downs on first and second down. So we weren’t in a lot of third-down situations like the first half, and that was helpful, too.”
Does Belichick have a player comparison for Demon June?
"He’s had some good games, and he’s a good back. But let's not get carried away now. We’re not talking about (Syracuse greats) Jim Brown or Ernie Davis. He’s not quite in that league yet. Too early to get the bust ready for the Hall of Fame. But he works hard. He does a good job. He’s getting better. We’ll see where it goes. I’m glad we have him. He’s certainly taken advantage of his playtime reps both in the run game and the passing game. He needs to improve his blitz pickup. He needs to refine some other skills. But he’s certainly getting there, and he’s been a big plus. So glad we have him. Love JuJu.”