|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE MEDIA CONFERENCEApril 25, 2013Larry FedoraTHE MODERATOR: We now welcome North Carolina head coach Larry Fedora. We'll bring on coach, ask for a brief spring update, then go to questions. COACH FEDORA: We had a good, solid spring. We had quite a few guys that weren't able to participate in spring because of post‑season surgeries, things like that. But we were able to develop some depth. That's going to be good for us and pay off for us down the road. But I thought we came out of spring fairly solid. We didn't lose anybody. We got a long way to go, though. THE MODERATOR: Questions for Coach Fedora. Q. I'm going to ask you about the schedule a couple years now. The ACC, Notre Dame, announced the rotation about a week ago. What does it mean to have them playing ACC teams and for the program there at North Carolina? COACH FEDORA: I think all it does is strengthen our conference. To have Notre Dame playing five games a year, obviously Notre Dame has a lot of respect around the entire country. That's always going to strengthen everything about your league. For us, we look forward to it. It's another game on the schedule. That one happens to be on the road. We'll go out there and we'll give it our best shot. Q. How does the runningback position look to you coming out of the spring? COACH FEDORA: I thought those guys did a nice job. I don't know if we had to start out tomorrow, we would go with A.J. Blue right now. A.J. Blue has emerged as a team leader, not just on the offensive side of the ball, but the entire team. A.J. is about 215, 220 pounds, a guy that is going to finish off all his runs, he's going to be the bruiser type of runner, do a nice job of being physical, does a great job in pass protection and can catch the ball well. A.J. is a guy that's really come on for us. The guy that probably had the best spring was Romar Morris. He's a guy that can take you from goal line to goal line. He's got special speed and skills. He's much more effective as he slowed down to be able to see the zone run and all the seams that are created that way. I'm excited about what he's going to bring to the table this year. Then we had Khris Francis on campus, got in here, graduated earlier. Did a nice job at 110 yards in the spring game. I was pleasantly surprised how quickly he picked everything up. Q. As far as the team, is there an area you feel pretty good about coming out of spring and areas you still have concerns about? COACH FEDORA: There are no areas that I feel really good about and I have concerns about every area, if you want me to be honest with you. I've got a lot of concerns. We've got to improve in every area on our football team, in all three phases, both offensive, defensive and special teams. We got a lot of work to do. We were solid coming out of spring, we accomplished some goals. We have to get better. Our team understands that. This summer is going to be very critical to our success. Q. Coach, if you can believe all the prognosticators, you are going to have two guys' names called tonight. Can you talk about Cooper and Williams, what that means to the program to have that kind of impact. COACH FEDORA: First of all, what I can tell you is that we're very, very proud. Both of those young men have their degrees from the University of North Carolina. They're tremendous ambassadors for our program. Great kids on the field and off. Everything is about the team, what they needed to do to help the team win. I couldn't be happier for both those young men. I'm excited for them as they make this next step in their life, this next phase of their life. I'm really, really excited for them. They have put in a lot of hard work, a lot of effort, have done things the right way. So to see two young men that have done it the right way, took your coaching to heart, to see them be successful is I think very rewarding. Q. Obviously it's part of the game, but their departure leaves a couple big holes on the roster. Can you talk about who you're looking at to fill those gaps? COACH FEDORA: Yeah, tough to fill both those holes. Probably Caleb Peterson has been playing at Cooper's spot, that left guard spot. I think he had a solid spring. He's a freshman. He redshirted in the fall, so he got extensive time in the spring. He still has a long way to go, and he understands that. He is an athletic young man. He's a solid 6'3", 310 pounds, has great strength, working on his feet and quickness. I think he really came on and did some nice things. On the other side, Tim Jackson, who played behind Sylvester last year, has the most reps of anybody over there. He's a fifth‑year guy. This is his time to shine. He has taken that to heart. I think Tim really did a nice job emerging as a leader on the defensive side of the ball this spring. Q. Now you have a chance to be bowl‑eligible this year, have you talked about that much? Have the players talked about it? COACH FEDORA: That's never been brought up. We never said one word about it. That's not something we have to talk about. It's expected. Our goals haven't changed. When you say you want to win the state, you want to win your division, I mean, that puts you in a position to reach all your goals right there. That's really where our focus is. We really have never talked about that. Those things were talked about last year when we found out what the sanctions were. We really haven't gone back and talked about any of that. Q. Did you sense last year's team was able to focus on just the 12 games that you were scheduled to play, the fact they couldn't go beyond that, did that ever play into their performance? COACH FEDORA: Oh, yeah. I think they did. I think they did a really nice job of focusing on it. We talked about it. Let's focus on each one of these 12. If it plays out where we would have played in that championship game, then we can all be mad, but we'll be happy that we're mad, you know. I thought our guys did a really nice job of focusing in on each game and making that game a bowl game in our minds. We knew we were only going to get 12. I mean, we wanted to make the most of each and every one. THE MODERATOR: Coach, thanks for being with us. We look forward to seeing you this summer at the ACC football kickoff. COACH FEDORA: Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About ASAP Sports •
FastScripts Archive •
Recent Interviews •
Captioning •
Upcoming Events •
Contact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links |
|
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297
|