David Hale, with some relevant stats:
* North Carolina’s defense blitzed on one-third of its dropbacks against Georgia, a big change from the aggressiveness the Tar Heels showed last season when they blitzed less than 20 percent of the time.
* UNC averaged 4.7 yards before contact per rush, seventh-best in the Power 5. Makes you wonder why the Tar Heels didn’t run it a bit more often.
* A brutal stat for UNC: Mitch Trubisky was 0-of-8 on throws of 15-plus yards. The deep ball was North Carolina’s bread-and-butter last season, completing 44 percent of such throws with 15 touchdowns and just four picks.
That first stat may explain a little about why Georgia looked out of sorts in allowing four sacks by the Heels’ defense (for comparison’s sake, remember that the Dawgs averaged a little over a sack allowed per game in 2015). It’s a trend Pittman and Chaney should expect will continue.
As for the latter two, North Carolina’s offensive game plan, as I mentioned yesterday, left something to be desired. Trubisky’s inconsistency throwing the deep ball didn’t help, but it was weird to see Fedora make some excellent adjustments at the half by going to his strengths on offense that resulted in Carolina’s best drive of the day, only to turn around and abandon them for the rest of the game.
Get The Picture 
In other words Jacob Eason will be good if he stays in one piece?
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I have to wonder if a coach like Fedora can ever make a dent in the CFB landscape. The guy gets a 10-point lead against a team that has to run the ball and he doesn’t know that running it himself is what will win the game for him, particularly considering he has a horse of a back in Hood and that it’s been successful all game. Seems like that kind of coach just has to show off his shiny playbook and stick to his very innovative philosophy, even when winning’s at stake.
Obviously, I’m not impressed.
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I agree with you about Fedora (the coach, not the hat). I even wondered if Hood had gotten dinged or something.
It seems to me that, sometimes, coaches get beyond their capability, get a buncha good players, then can’t “play” as well as some of their players.
I have never seen a coach get a 15-yard penalty for barking at the officials that looked smart.
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My sense was that Fedora felt tremendous pressure to win, thought he could win and the pressure clouded his thoughts. He was carrying the ACC banner, had the (slightly) more experienced team and had a 10 point lead. What could go wrong?
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This is what Fedora does. He’s had multiple games where Hood’s usage rate was a fan focus afterwards.
Last year against SC, he had Marquise Williams throwing picks in the end zone rather than using that QB abd Good to stomp it into the end zone.
Anyone who has ever watched Marquise play knows that short pass accuracy and decision making are his Achilles heel.
Watching Fedora coach sometimes feels like that scene from Tin Cup where Roy keeps trying to drive over the water hazard
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QB and Hood
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I couldn’t believe UNC didn’t run the ball more. They were really giving us trouble but decided to go to their own ineffective pass game instead. I thought he adopted a game plan that went completely against what was actually going to work. He did us a huge favor, otherwise we might be talking about how porous our defense was in a big opening day loss.
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Didn’t some of you at least think we were stopping the run more in the second half if you ignore the opening second half drive? Saw a lot of tackling at the black computrized line on the field showing no gain and putting UNC in a hole on 3rd down. Didn’t anyone see plays that would cause a coach to go to another approach? I did and my judgement is tempered of his “no running” decisions that occurred soon after runs failed. Are we such great football coaches that we can’t see that we are Monday Morning QBing in a nit-picking style of journalists who are trying to grab our attention by trolling shit by our noses?
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One of UNC problems was that we actually had a defensive back field that could cover. Sure there were times that his guys dropped some passes but the were a lot of times our guys helped them drop the passes. Larry’s one of those coaches that let his “scheme” get in the way of game day decisions, thank Dawg. They run he wins but he rather go bombs away just like the SC game last year.
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Lemme get this straight. Our collective expertise is that with a 10 point lead early in the 2nd half and a good running game, Fedora should have taken the air out of the ball rather than “keep his foot on the gas”. Isn’t that the exact complaint we had about somebody last year who won 10 games with that strategy?
LOL.
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NC was averaging almost five yards per rush better than yards per pass attempt. How would continuing to run the ball under those circumstances constitute taking one’s foot off the gas?
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How would continuing to run the ball under those circumstances constitute taking one’s foot off the gas?
Exactly…we averaged 5.14 YPC last season and won 10 games but folks around here howled about how CMR would “take his foot off the gas”. So maybe Fedora was worried his fan base would not be content if he just barely beat Georgia (/sarcasm)?
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That’s not my point. When a typical running play is outgaining a pass attempt by roughly half the amount needed for a first down, it’s not conservative to run.
Now, if the stats were reversed and Fedora chose to run anyway, foot off the gas would make more sense.
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