Last season under current UNC defensive coordinator Everett Withers Minnesota was 119th(dead last) in the NCAA in total defense giving up an average of 518 yards per game. This season without Withers Minnesota improved to 75th in total defense giving up 378.4 yards per game.
Last season, UNC with Chuck Pagano running the defense was 35th in total defense giving up 349 yards per game. This season with Withers at defensive coordinator was 62nd in total defense giving up 357 yards per game.
The explanation given for Minnesota’s defense being so bad was a lack of quality personnel. I think we can assume the personnel did not change all that much yet Minnesota’s defense vastly improved without Withers. UNC on the other hand ended up being eight yards worse per game despite returning most of the starters and generally having enough quality talent.
It is quite possible the numbers mean nothing but more than UNC’s increase in yards per game surrendered I find the improvement of Minnesota post-Withers to be somewhat shocking. The question is whether it is telling or not.
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Certainly, the number of yards we give up has bugged me all year and one has to wonder what Butch sees in Whithers to hire him when his “D” finishes dead last in the NCAA. And to add to the fire, depending on what State does today, the Heels will finish last in total D in the ACC.
I’d like to chalk some of this up to those games (like Saturday) where the offense did leave the defense on the field way too long.
Puzzling to me is that we have more speed/size, and what appears to be better tackling than the Bunting years.
This is certainly a work in progress.
I believe the problem with our defense this year was clearly the scheme. Now, whether Carolina chose to run a cover-2 quasi-prevent defense because of personnel decisions, such as corners aren’t superb at man-to-man coverage or the lack of pass rush from the front four, only the coaching staff knows for sure.
What I would have liked to see this year was a much more aggressive defense. I didn’t think that we were ever in attack mode on the defensive side of the ball for any considerable stretch of time during any game this year.
Given the athletes we have, i fully expect an overhaul of our defensive scheme during the offseason. Hopefully, next year we will see a much better performance on that side of the ball.
it needs fixing for sure. one need look no further than Charlotte for their NFL counter-part. that was quite the 2nd half near collapse yesterday.
We should be able, with the defensive personell that we have, to win that game having scored 30 points. We lost the Virginia game playing an idiotic “prevent” defense in the final minutes, and then came microscopically close to losing to Notre Dame using the same 3 lineman “prevent” scheme.
I do hope we are a more attacking type defense in the coming years. I do think we are vulnerable at the corners although Kendrick Burney is a good hitter. Hemby gets burned way too much.
On a slightly different topic BD is taking on a lot of criticism, some deserved some not. However, it’s funny that TOB is being crowned king, when in fact without Wilson and Irving his “program” is pretty sad. (see S Florida game)
Such is the double standard. UNC loses Tate and Yates for a significant period, had Foster and Elzy coming off injuries and UNC’s swoon is because of poor coaching. NCSU sucks during the first part of the season but then rolls down the stretch once the personnel all gets healthy and TOB is a genius.
Without Russell Wilson (and I think he is fantastic) NC State is terrible.
I honestly care much more about our soccer, lacrosse and baseball teams than I do about this exhibition loss to West Virginia.
UNC won the women’s soccer title this year, defeating undefeated Notre Dame for our 18th title. Our men defied odds and beat number one Wake Forest before settling for runners-up to Maryland in soccer.
UNC is primarily famous for two sports, basketball and women’s soccer. Let’s let the football team go gently into the night for another season.
Here’s something to think about… UConn just got worked-over… and G’town wasn’t altogether impressive.
Hey William, there’s no problem about caring about the football team just because you don’t. If you don’t like football that’s fine, but the majority disagree and would like to discuss solutions to the possible problems. UNC can be famous for football as well as whatever you like. I would suggest that you just go silently into the night. Not many people really care about what you “honestly” think with respect to the football team.
I actually find that people here at THF DO care about what the various posters in the community think. Many of us change each other’s minds about topics where one or another of us might have a certain insight that we like to share.
I do like football, but I also find that many of Carolina’s sports in which they are superior get overlooked. The facts are that Carolina has had a very poor football tradition the last 25 years, barring about four years towards the middle of that period.
This current team had injuries but also did little or nothing to distinguish itself, losing many winnable games against so-so competition. This season was arguably worse overall than the 2004 team under John Bunting, which actually managed to beat Duke, Wake and NC State in the same season, as well as Miami and Georgia Tech.
There will come a time when it could be more fruitful to discuss UNC football prospects but I find that the season has basically managed to be both a huge disappointment and “same as it ever was” at the same time.
Perhaps, it shouldn’t be a disappointment because I don’t think Carolina has ever been much of a football school and arguably, big-time football is incompatible with big-time academics, which matter much more to me, than seeing Carolina become like Florida, Alabama, OSU or LSU. Schools which excel in academics like Stanford, UCLA, UNC, and Duke tend to be better able to compete in basketball than in football. Is this an iron law? No, but there are real barriers for schools with high academic requirements.
Carolina has won national titles in men’s and women’s basketball, lacrosse, men and women’s soccer, and come exceedingly close twice in baseball.
Carolina football has never, I repeat for you, Chris, never had anything more than a fringe top ten season during the last 50 years and that happened in approximately three or four seasons, in the last three of which, Carolina did not even manage to win the ACC football title.
UNC has never been a serious national contender in football since the days of Choo Choo Justice. UNC has not won an ACC title in 30 years.
UNC has never, Chris, I repeat, never, played in a major bowl game during the last fifty years. The best the program has managed are bowls of the caliber of the Gator and Liberty Bowls.
Since 1960, Maryland, Duke, Clemson, Georgia Tech, Virginia, Virginia Tech, Florida State, Miami, Wake Forest and Boston College have all played in one one of the traditional major bowls (including the Fiesta).
Notice that with the exception of Maryland, who ebbs and flows between football and basketball, and Duke, which has mostly abandoned big time football pretensions, none of the above schools are known for their basketball programs, although they do have occasional excellent years, which their programs cannot sustain.
Although there have been a handful of occasions where universities managed to have top-notch seasons in both basketball and football, nowhere has this been sustainable. Nowhere. Not at UCLA, not at Kentucky, where Bear Bryant once coached, not at Michigan and currently, not at Florida, where the Gators are returning to their so-so basketball tradition.
The issue here at UNC is not one of restoration, as at Notre Dame or the University of Washington. The issue here is one of neverwas. Since Frank McGuire and the Miracle Heels of 1957, Carolina has moved inexorably, along with Duke, towards being a basketball school.
If the guys here would prefer to discuss football out of season while UNC has perhaps the best college basketball team of the last thirty years, I find that inexplicable.
William, I respect your well thought out treatise, however, I suspect you are one of the people who tells me to sit down at both basketball and football events, leaves 5 minutes early, if indeed you do actually attend games.
I think it’s great we are discussing football as well as basketball.
I am pretty short, which makes it hard for me to see when all of you big guys stand up in the bleachers, but I was a huge football fan during the days of Amos Lawrence and Lawrence Taylor. UNC had a chance to be a football power at that point, but history seems to show, in fact, that the basketball program opposed athletic directors who seemed to favor football.
When Coach Bill Dooley was opposed for the position, he left to go to Virginia Tech and the two schools ended up switching places in football’s hierarchy. Then later, former QB Matt Kupec was also opposed by Dean Smith for athletic director. Perhaps not surprisingly, there seems to have been a similar pattern of contention, if not war, between the football and basketball programs at Kansas during Roy Williams turbulent final years there.
I was at UNC from 1983 to 1987 as the final life went out of the football program as we went from a top five ranking in the fall of 1983 to basically off the map by 1987. It was a sudden, abrupt fall and I don’t remember many people on campus complaining all that much. Football Saturdays were more about the parties and the parties were still good.
But look at the new competition football suddenly had. Carolina basketball had always been good, but it really went up a notch between 1981 and 1987. We had Michael Jordan, James Worthy, Sam Perkins, Kenny Smith and Brad Daughtery on our teams during those years, a quintet that could even outdo even the height of football prowess from a couple of years before that gave us L.T., Famous Amos and Kelvin Bryant.
By the time UNC football had anyone of the caliber again, Mr. Peppers was also a member of the basketball team.
You’ve missed the entire point. Nobody is arguing that UNC football has been wonderful in the past. The point is that just because you don’t particularly like football we don’t necessarily need to stop talking about it. If it’s so painful for you, just don’t read the football blogs. Or let’s talk about that wonderful final 4 loss last year where our wonderful team looked like middle schoolers. Anyone who has to spend as much time as you do identifying with UNC basketball needs to find a life.
I know I’m jumping into the conversation way too late since it’s already moved to the subject of football vs. basketball (I really think they can both dominate as demonstrated by Texas, Ohio State and, in the past, Syracuse) but I just wanted to get my two cents in on Withers: he’s terrible.
With the playmakers we have, there’s no reason we shouldn’t be able to stay in the top 40 in overall defense, and with the d-linemen and linebackers we have, we should be dominating in sacks too. But nooooo, because he refuses to utilize the blitz, allowing the o-line to double-block on Marvin Austin. Case example, look at the WVU game. We blitzed once and got a sack on it. Why not blitz more?
And then there’s the secondary. We have two talented safeties and some pretty good corners? So what do we do? Play in zone coverage. The Maryland game showed exactly why that was terrible when the Terps slowly but efficiently picked us apart underneath while Withers refused to adjust and play bump-and-run. And don’t even get me started on the ‘prevent defense.’
Hell, I think there’s room on here to talk about football, basketball, soccer (men and women), and baseball. We were pretty decent in all of those this year (and lots of other sports as well), and I think that’s the important part. Not many schools can say that.
Ya’ll talk about what you want, I only have time for football and basketball with a little baseball on the side.