Physicality the Theme at UNC Football Media Day

If everything goes according to plan this season, then all that chatter about the UNC football team playing too cute of a game should all be long gone. At the team’s Media Day on Wednesday, physicality was hailed as the potential savior of all things—from the top down.

As the football landscape, both in college and the professional ranks, gears itself more towards wide-open spread offenses—like UNC’s—hard-hitting smash-mouth defense has largely gone by the wayside.

New Tar Heel defensive coordinator Gene Chizik has come to Chapel Hill on a mission to change that.

“In this day and age, you can’t win games saying that ‘Well we play X amount of spread offenses, so we’re gonna finesse ’em and bring ’em down in space,”‘ Chizik said. “No, that’s part of being physical. That’s part of being in the right spots.

“Everything in this game is about physicality. I have never been around a good defense that’s not physical. Never.”

Many of last season’s woes have been attributed to defensive failures, as the team gave up 39 points per game—good enough to rank a whopping 119^th out of 128 eligible Division I schools. It would be wrong, though, to assume that the players aren’t fully aware of that fact heading into this year.

“Nobody liked the results of last year any less than they do,” Chizik said about the group he’s inherited. “Nobody. No coaches, no media, no fans, nobody. They did not like the results either.

“So [the players] care enough to work every day to change them. They gotta play through the good times and the bad–and it always has to be consistent as we move. I think that’s really the message with them.

“We’re not playing any Dr. Phil games,” he added.

For Larry Fedora, the team’s offensive-minded head coach, that same approach can be taken on both sides of the ball even while playing out of the spread. It just has to show itself in a different way.

“When we evaluated what our problems were and all those things, we knew we had to establish ourselves running the football,” Fedora told reporters. “And so that was a point of emphasis, again, going into the part with being physical.”

It was the quarterback, Marquise Williams, who ended up leading the team in rushing a year ago. But in order to keep Williams and his surgically repaired hip healthy, it’ll be important to get a breakout year from sophomore running back Elijah Hood, who had close to 200 rushing yards in Sunday’s team scrimmage.

 

However, Williams won’t be afraid to repeat last year’s performance, if necessary.

“I mean, there’s still pass progressions. I’m on my ‘1, 2, 3, and down to my checkdown [receivers],” he said. “But if there’s nobody there, I’m still gonna take off. But, with the running backs we have, and the offensive lineman–how confident those guys are this year–we’re gonna move the ball in the running game.”

Ironically enough, if there’s one player who may need to tone his physicality down a little, it’s Williams.

In order for the Tar Heels to be at their strongest from September all the way through December, their signal-caller can’t be taking too many hard hits when he runs the ball.

“There was times [last year] where I could have protected myself, but I just wanted to be that hero,” Williams said, pausing for just a second afterwards. “Sometimes I shouldn’t be that hero. Sometimes I need to lay down.”

He continued on, saying, “I gotta be more smart this year and protect myself, because it’s not about me. It’s about my team–and those guys gonna need me.”