Chansky's Notebook: The Heartfelt Coach

Larry Fedora was perfect Monday at just the right time.

After his giant faux pas over head trauma at the ACC preseason media day, the Carolina football coach spent 90 percent of his weekly press conference talking about the hurricane and the havoc it wreaked on the North Carolina and South Carolina coastline.

He said his own players were okay, and almost all of them who left campus last week when school was called off had returned. They will go back to practice for a very good Pitt team Saturday in Kenan Stadium, but most of his words – along with his thoughts and prayers – were for those who suffered from big Flo’s impact.

Fedora said his program is helping by loading up its giant equipment truck with water, Gatorade and other supplies that will be taken to the coast this week. He said he heard from former player Kevin Reddick, who is from New Bern, and UNC is answering Reddick’s plea to send everything and anything it can down to New Bern, one of the hardest hit towns.

Sounding like a man who was putting football into perspective, he said he will use this unfortunate occurrence as a teaching moment for his players, reminding them that the Triangle was blessed by missing the brunt of the storm but to keep all those down east in their minds and hearts.

He praised the university for opening the Friday Center and perhaps other facilities as shelters for those displaced, and he sounded like someone who had been over there to meet and help raise their spirits despite the hardships that lie ahead for them.

Fedora said very little about Pitt, his 2-1 opponent Saturday at 12:20. Carolina has beaten the Panthers all five times his Tar Heels have played them, but this year like every year is different game against a different team. Pitt is emblematic of the ACC being mostly a middling Power 5 conference, with the exception of Clemson.

Pitt lost to Penn State 51-6 and then defeated Georgia Tech last Saturday 24-19. So maybe Fed’s boys can pull one out as football returns to focus.