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Bill Belichick’s tank is refilled and ready to go.
After the disappointing loss at Cal, where the Tar Heels played well enough to win, the head coach looked like he wanted to fly home and get right back to work. His answers were short and full of frustration that the effort being put in by him, his staff and players are still not paying dividends on the field.
“Every week is its own week,” he said Tuesday at his presser. “I don’t think there’s a whole lot of carryover to be honest with you. You spend all week in preparation. You spend all week filling up your tank, you go out on the field and you empty it.”
The results were better than in the first three Power 4 games that Carolina lost by the combined score of 120-33. There were two fumbles, one that killed the opening drive and the other that prevented the 2-4 Tar Heels from taking the lead with about six minutes left in the game. The defense, which had been good for most of the night, could not get the ball back as the Bears basically ran out the clock.
It clearly frustrated Belichick, and it showed after the game. Not only were those two turnovers key, but the Heels defense could not force the Bears into big mistakes. And for a coach whose success has been built on defense, it was especially disappointing.
“Whether you’re a player or a coach, you put everything you have into that game,” he said. “Whatever the results are, they are. You come back, you look at what happened, good and bad, talk about the corrections, talk about the things you did well, how to do some things better, how to keep doing the things you did well more frequently. Then you turn the page and go to the next chapter and start to fill the tank back up again.
“We address it every day we’re on the field, do ball security drills in every practice. We know they’re gonna punch at the ball. We know they’re gonna try to knock it from us. The first rule of football is take care of the ball. And if we can’t take care of it, then it’s gonna be hard to keep giving it to that person.”
The two fumbles were by Shanard Clower and Nathan Leacock, emerging players on a team with little quality depth. So Belichick has no choice but to give them more chances. And Saturday comes 6-1 Virginia, which is bowl eligible and tied for first in the ACC at 3-0, a veteran team on both sides of the ball.
The Cavs quarterback is Chandler Morris, who is having an All-ACC season and supposedly was interested in transferring to UNC rather than UVa. “I don’t know where those reports came from,” said The Hoodie. “We talked to his agent, who didn’t know anything about it.”
Featured image via Associated Press/Chris Seward
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
