UNC football general manager Michael Lombardi joined 97.9 The Hill’s Aaron Keck this morning for “The Monday Morning Huddle,” presented by Chapel Hill Tire.
The Tar Heels earned another easy victory Saturday against Richmond, beating the Spiders 41-6 at Kenan Stadium. This weekend, UNC will return to power-conference football when it visits UCF in Orlando. It’s the first meeting ever between the two schools.
Here are a few of Lombardi’s answers on various topics:
On the state of the team after three games: We need a lot of work. We’re a work in progress, and there’s really no time that you’re not gonna need work. I think ultimately, it’s good to win, but you have to analyze every win with a fine-tooth comb, just like you analyze a loss. The scoreboard is really irrelevant. And I think we’re getting a better understanding of who can contribute to the team, who we can count on moving forward in terms of players, and then what we have to fix in terms of coaching and schemes. Losing has a lot of people that attach to it. Winning has a lot of people that are attached to it. And I think improvement needs to occur on every single level. We’ve gotta do a better job scouting, we gotta do a better job coaching, playing, scheming, and all those areas. It’s great to win, but when you watch the tape, when we do things well, we can be very effective. When we don’t know what we’re doing, we’re not as good.
On what is standing out about the team: The players have really done a good job of buying in. We have a practice on Sunday, we call it “Sunday night football in the afternoon,” where the guys that didn’t play in the game are eager to go out and practice. And I think we have a team that wants to get better, wants to improve. And every time we take the practice field, we’re doing that. We handled the Richmond game with professionalism. We didn’t think of Richmond as a lower-level opponent. We didn’t think of Richmond as an easy win. We didn’t go out there and go through the motions. Did we play perfectly by far? No. But I thought our approach to Richmond was exactly what this program represents.
On the road trip to UCF this weekend: It’ll be great for our team. We didn’t meet the standard against TCU, a Big 12 opponent. We’re gonna have to try to do that there [in Orlando] in the heat of the Big 12, a nationally televised game, which is great for our program. And it’s also great for the university to see us out there and be able to be on Fox at 3:30 p.m. across the country. We’re gonna have to really improve, play better, handle the heat, handle the elements. And when we’re playing an opponent like Central Florida, they beat North Carolina A&T 68-7. That was a game that’s hard to evaluate. The opening game against Jacksonville State was a good game. They lost their starting quarterback to a concussion. He didn’t play in Week 2 and then they’ve had a bye week. So there’s a lot of unknowns still about Central Florida that we’re gonna have to move rather quickly to figure out.
On Demon June’s performance: The work he’s done all offseason and what he’s been able to accomplish, I think he’s done a great job. He’s a young kid who’s learning how to play. Every rep he’s gotten, from the Blue-White game that we had to where we are [today] has been really good. I think it’s really been a tribute to his work ethic. And he runs with such great intensity, and he runs with power, which I think is really important.
On his message to the fans: Look for that improvement in all areas. We’ve improved, over the last two weeks, our run defense. I think there’ll be a bigger challenge in terms of handling the passing game of Central Florida and then trying to find some consistency within what we’re trying to do offensively. There’s moments where we look like we can move the football effectively, but then there are moments where we look like we’re not quite ready to do much. I think consistency is gonna be the theme here. We’re gonna have to compete for 60 minutes against a team that is a good-caliber football team in the Big 12 and I think it’s gonna really challenge us to compete at the highest level.
Listen below for the full conversation with Michael Lombardi, and tune in to hear the segment live on Monday mornings each game week!
Featured image via Associated Press/Chris Seward
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