Obviously basketball has been taking all of our attention. In the meantime UNC's first spring of football under new coach Larry Fedora is cruising along.
Via Inside Carolina.
“We’ve made miles of progress, but we’ve got a long way to go,” Fedora said. “The three things that we still have to accomplish – we talked about it again today – when we come out of spring in about four more practices, everybody has to understand our base offense, defense and special teams. Everybody’s got to understand the base.
“We’ve got to learn how to practice, and we still haven’t learned how to practice. We’re a long way from practicing the way we’re going to practice, the way we have to practice to be able to win on a consistent level. And then we’ve got to figure out who all of the players are. We can’t figure out who the players are when they still don’t know what to do.”
During his message to the team following practice, Fedora stressed that he wants to see more energy and more enthusiasm from his players and that he expects them to play with a chip on their shoulder. Most importantly, he wants them practice the way they’re going to play in a game.
The past three weeks have been intense for the players, but Fedora has no concerns of his roster hitting a wall.
“We’re like babies out there learning how to crawl,” he said. “You’re not going to crawl into a wall yet. We’ve got a long way to go before we get even close to a wall. I can’t see a wall.”
Yes please.
It is important to remember that UNC is currently undergoing a process of revamping the football program in many ways. On one hand there is the product on the field and winning games. The other part of it is what kind of team UNC will be from an attitude/intensity perspective. The chief complaint during the Butch Davis era(setting aside the NCAA issues) was the team didn't live up to the hype and the team lacked intensity, especially in rivalry games. Davis was an under control guy, media savvy and tried to keep steady hand on the proverbial wheel. Fedora is, during spring practice, talking about the intensity level players bring to Navy Field. Forget about the notion of "getting up" for the games, Fedora wants his teams doing it for practice. In many ways there is a lot of similarity between Fedora and Roy Williams. Both want an up-tempo offense and both are big believers that what you do in practice carries over to making you better in games. The takeaway here is after five years of watching the Davis Era produce lackluster efforts, the Fedora Era should produce teams that play with a lot of energy. Yes, the recruiting needs to be there and you need solid execution on the football side of things. However I will take it is a good sign that Fedora is pushing the team in the intangibles which were questionable under Butch Davis.
Other notable items.
- UNC will scrimmage at Mallard Creek HS in Charlotte on Thursday. The scrimmage begins at 6:30 PM with tailgating beginning at 5 PM.
- Players are still adjusting to the tempo of the offense hence Fedora's constant reminders that they have a "long way to go"
- Kevin Reddick suffered a concussion and his availability for the Thursday scrimmage is in question. Seeing that it is spring I would think this is not a question at all and Reddick would not play but the early word on Fedora is he is extremely tight lipped on injury information.
- Under Fedora UNC is switching to a 4-2-5 scheme on defense. Fedora is happy with the adjustment to the new configuration so far.
- The spring game is scheduled for Saturday, April 14th at 3:00 PM