With the effects of Hurricane Florence still being felt across the state of North Carolina, head coach Larry Fedora and the UNC football team are doing everything they can this week to help with relief efforts while also preparing for their home opener against Pittsburgh this Saturday.
Following an 0-2 start to the 2018 season—one in which the Tar Heels’ have struggled mightily in road losses at Cal and East Carolina—the hurricane threw a wrench into the team’s routine last week.
Not only did Florence force the cancellation of what was supposed to be UNC’s home opener against No. 16 Central Florida, but it also took the team away from practice for nearly a week.
This is obviously less than ideal for any squad still looking to carve out an identity during the early portion of the season.
Head coach Larry Fedora and the Tar Heel football team helped send supplies to victims of Hurricane Florence this week. (Photo via @TarHeelFootball)
The Tar Heels need to fix a wide variety of issues on both offense and defense, which could make the impact of missing valuable time to do so that much greater.
On the other hand, the coaching staff is doing what they can to turn the time off into a positive—with defensive coordinator John Papuchis telling reporters Tuesday after practice that the unplanned break could end up working as a mental reset that the team can use to get back on track.
“They had four or five days off during the season, which doesn’t happen very often,” Papuchis said. “And I think, with them sitting around and watching other people play on Saturday, there was a good energy and a good attitude coming back.
“I think they’re excited to start getting ready to try to get their world back to a little bit of normalcy,” he added. “Even though we know that there are so many people struggling with more important things than football.”
Junior quarterback Nathan Elliott is perhaps UNC’s most glaring example of a player who could use time to regroup.
After earning the starting job thanks to strong play at the end of last season—and a four-game suspension to sophomore Chazz Surratt—Elliott has yet to find success through the Tar Heels’ first two games of 2018. With a completion percentage just over 50 percent and less than five yards per pass attempt, the Texas native has had major difficulties stringing together positive drives.
Although Elliott has demonstrated good instincts as a runner at times, head coach Larry Fedora said his quarterback is guilty of getting “happy feet” in the pocket—which typically ends up in turnovers, incompletions or sacks.
For the offense to get things going this weekend, it’s crucial that Elliott finds his groove and corrects those mistakes.
The Tar Heels will need to perform much better on both sides of the ball on Saturday in order to recover from their Week Two loss at East Carolina (Photo via Karl B DeBlaker/ Associated Press)
To his credit, he has followed the lead of the coaching staff—using the time off to reflect on what’s went wrong through the season’s first two games, while also getting a head start on this week’s preparations.
“Obviously, it didn’t start out the way we wanted it to,” Elliott said of UNC’s season so far. “But this little bye week that came out of nowhere, I think, has kind of helped us because we were able to prepare a couple days in advance for Pitt and work on ourselves too.
“Bye weeks, you get more time to work on yourself,” the quarterback continued. “And I think we took advantage of that.”
Also working in Elliott’s advantage this week is the fact that he’s already had success against Pittsburgh in the past. Last year saw the Tar Heels pull out their only conference victory when Elliott led them past the Panthers in a Thursday night primetime game on the road.
Pitt has started this year with a 2-1 record, but has a defense currently ranked 12th in the ACC.
In addition, the Tar Heels are 5-0 against the Panthers since they joined the league prior to the 2013 campaign. Still, though, all five of those games have been decided by a touchdown or less. This fact is something Fedora and his staff have made the team well aware of heading into Saturday.
“Every game we’ve played against Pitt in the past has always been close, every single one of them.” Fedora said. “I think [Pitt coach Pat Narduzzi] is going to have his team prepared to play. We’ve got to have our team prepared to play, and we’re going to have to do the best job we can.”
Cover photo via Karl B. DeBlaker (Associated Press)
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