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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

September 19, 2018

Larry Fedora

Greensboro, North Carolina

THE MODERATOR: We are now joined by North Carolina head coach Larry Fedora. Coach, if you could please give us an opening statement, then we'll take questions.

LARRY FEDORA: First thing I'd like to do is let everybody know our thoughts and prayers go out to all of the people of the Carolinas that were affected by the hurricane. We hope and pray their recovery efforts will be good. We've tried to participate in as many of those efforts as we could. We will continue to do that going forward.

We look forward to getting back out into Kenan Stadium. It's going on over 300 days I believe since we played in the stadium. This is one of the latest times of the years to get back in our stadium. We're really looking forward to this game against Pitt.

Q. In the early part of the schedule, you just lost a game off of it because of the weather, how much are there things you want to learn about your team in that early portion? Are there benchmarks you're trying to see if they can hit to evaluate that?
LARRY FEDORA: Well, you're really getting to where after this game, the first quarter of your season basically is over, close to it. You want to have a pretty good feel for what your team is, the makeup of your team, how your team is going to react.

You're still going to learn and grow throughout the season as things go. The freshmen that are playing, I mean, you don't expect them, if they're playing, to make the same mistakes they were making early. So you expect your team to start coming together pretty close.

Q. For you specifically with this year's bunch, any surprises about identity that you thought you would be better at that you're struggling with, anything like that?
LARRY FEDORA: We have a ways to go on both sides of the ball. We've only had the opportunity to play two games. We're still learning a lot about this football team.

I do know that our leadership has done a really good job, they're a close-knit group. They continue to work hard, have great attitudes every day.

Q. At the ACC meetings in July, you said some comments that made a bit of a stir. Since then, have you encountered any people that agree with you, disagree with you, made some comments about what you said?
LARRY FEDORA: We've had many people that have expressed their opinions on the matter, both for and against. But the thing, I probably didn't a very good job of expressing myself at the Media Days. I think I've addressed it since then. I know that the health and safety of our players is of the utmost importance, always has been, always will be. We support all the research that's being done.

Q. You mentioned a minute ago about you guys helped in recovery efforts from the hurricane. Can you give details on what you did.
LARRY FEDORA: Our players wanted to do something, so we had 100% participation in them donating their per diem from this week's game to go to buying supplies, to be able to get the supplies over to the eastern part of the state. We have a former player who was a captain on our team in 2012, Kevin Redick, from that part of the state. He's coming over to pick up those supplies and take them. We also donated our equipment truck so that people in the community could donate water, Gatorade, canned goods, supplies. Our truck is being loaded up. On campus in front of the Dean Dome. Probably about two-thirds full right now. That truck will be taken to the eastern part of the state to try to help some of those people that have been devastated over there.

Q. When you knew that you were going to be missing some players this season, I'm sure you worked out a plan as to what kind of players you were going to fill in. How through two games have you seen some of those players step up in that opportunity? How has that gone compared to how you thought it would go?
LARRY FEDORA: We knew that those guys were going to be out for those games, so we made the adjustments that we felt like we needed to make. It doesn't necessarily always mean that you may have somebody in a position that has the same talent level. So you had to adjust some of the things you've done.

Those guys that have filled in in those roles are doing a good job.

Q. Is there anybody specifically that maybe has gotten an opportunity that otherwise wouldn't have that has stood out to you?
LARRY FEDORA: I think a young guy like Dyami Brown who has gotten more reps than he probably would have at this point has done a really good job. I think Trey Morrison is another kid in the secondary, because he was forced into playing time, has played well up through two games. He's going to continue to get better.

Q. You mentioned obviously the hurricane, its impact in the Carolinas. How many of your players and their families were directly affected?
LARRY FEDORA: I mean, first of all, we have all of our guys back on campus. We have that as of Monday. We had probably half of our team that left campus last Wednesday, got back here on Monday.

All families are accounted for. All players are accounted for. Some of their families have not been able to get back home yet because of the flooding that's still going on. But everybody is safe and everybody is okay.

Q. Pitt this week will give you a different look at quarterback than it did last year. What is your assessment of what Pickett brings there?
LARRY FEDORA: You can tell, he played late in the year last year, did a nice job. They're doing I think a great job with him. They've had a lot of success running the football, play-action pass. I think he's got really good control of the offense. He's a kid that can run and can throw.

Q. Speak on what you've done with this time period, I know the hurricane and the weather affects a lot of things, has done that in past seasons, what did you utilize it for? Did you feel like that extra time has helped the team bounce back a little bit from the early start that you had, the 0-2 start you had?
LARRY FEDORA: We decided when this unforeseen break came upon us that we were going to turn this into a positive one way or the other. Our guys left campus on Wednesday. They get out of here Wednesday afternoon. We had no contact with most of them probably Thursday, Friday, Saturday. Sunday guys started getting back on campus. By Monday morning, we had everybody back.

All we did was we switched our normal Sunday practice with them being off on Monday, we switched those two days. We practiced Monday, then obviously yesterday. We'll practice today and Thursday and Friday.

Q. How is it for you as a coach? You become a father figure, so do your fellow coaches, to these young men. In dealing with something like this, how do you make sure they can get in touch with their family? Coaches talked about trying to FaceTime with families. How do you handle that as a head coach when there's things going on bigger than the game of football?
LARRY FEDORA: I think when you have some type of tragedy like this, it kind of puts things in perspective. I think, one, we do a great job communicating with our kids and their parents. There were numerous parents really concerned, especially ones that weren't from the Carolinas, they were concerned about their kids, and rightly so. We were able to calm a lot of people down, make sure that our guys were safe.

Then when the players got back, they wanted to do something. The entire community. We're so blessed, we didn't get hit as hard here in Chapel Hill, people want to do something for the people that are struggling on the eastern side of the state.

Q. What does it mean playing football this Saturday for the state of North Carolina, getting back to some normalcy after a hurricane?
LARRY FEDORA: First of all, I'm going to commend our university and the chancellor for the decision they made last week. I think it was absolutely the right decision for our state, what we needed to do.

Now I think it is important for us to get back out there. I think it's important, hopefully there will be some people that will be able to take their mind off the pain and suffering they've been going through and enjoy coming out and watching a football game.

I think it's important for everybody to have some normalcy. There's a lot of people that want to get back home, can't get back home because of the flooding, really have nothing to do. We've had quite a few people come to practice that are out of school, those kind of things, just looking for something to do.

I think it will be good for us to get back out there for the state.

Q. Talk about their quarterback Pickett, what do you see his development with Pitt?
LARRY FEDORA: He played later in the year. You got to see how much more he's improved in these early games than he was at the end of the year last year. He's a kid that looks like he has very good command of the offense, they're running the ball successfully. He's doing a great job with the play-action passes off that.

One thing you know about him is he can beat you with his legs, and he can beat you with his arm.

Q. This week the ACC and the CFP are celebrating Extra Yard for Teachers. Can you give us an example or tell us what role teachers played in your life.
LARRY FEDORA: Really, you boil down to it, the coaches that were teachers at our school are the reason I'm in the profession in the first place because of the impact they had on my life.

But specifically thinking about one teacher, there was a teacher my senior year, our English teacher, Sandra Parker who was extremely demanding, very hard on us. I remember really not liking half the things that she made us do back then.

When I got to college, I was so thankful because I knew how to write essays, write papers. I had to do a lot of them in college. I was really thankful for the work and the time that she put in because even though she was really demanding, she really cared about seeing us be successful in the future. So I really appreciate that.

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