UNC Preview Thread -- Who is UNC?

[slugboy]

ACC ranking excluding FCS
5th in defense yards per play
7th in defense points per play

For offense
12th in yards per play (ahead of Miami and Clemson)
13th in points per play (only Clemson is worse)

Per drive metrics aren't great either, but given only two fbs games, there are more data points with play data currently.

NIU really messed us up. It was a real game, but I hope it's an outlier.

 

[ibeattetris]

NIU really messed us up. It was a real game, but I hope it's an outlier.

I think UNC will be pretty telling. I doubt anyone realistically expected a great performance statistically at Clemson. I share your hope that NIU proves to by an anomaly where an underdog just came out hungrier to start the season.

 

[alagold]

T doubt if we can stop uncheat.But we may be able to slow them down.That only works if our Off can score pts --mainly the run game to use clock. If we can't run ,we probably lose BIG.

 

[Heisman's Ghost]

That's team DEFENSE.
Lower is better. We're 4th in the conference in yards/game:

			Tota
Rk	School	G	Yds^
1	Syracuse	3	225.3
2	Boston College	3	256.3
3	North Carolina State	3	261.0
4	Clemson	3	266.7
5	Georgia Tech	3	285.7
6	Wake Forest	3	308.3
7	Virginia Tech	3	356.3
8	Pitt	3	366.7
9	North Carolina	3	380.3
10	Duke	3	386.3
11	Virginia	3	406.3
12	Louisville	3	408.0
13	Florida State	3	421.7
14	Miami (FL)	3	427.0

[thead] [/thead]


Provided by CFB at Sports Reference: View Original Table
Generated 9/21/2021.

We're 7th in points/game (same story, lower is better)

Rk	School	G	Pts
1	Clemson	3	7.0
2	Boston College	3	10.3
3	North Carolina State	3	10.3
4	Wake Forest	3	13.3
5	Syracuse	3	16.7
6	Virginia Tech	3	17.0
7	Georgia Tech	3	17.7
8	Duke	3	23.7
9	North Carolina	3	24.3
10	Virginia	3	24.3
11	Louisville	3	27.0
12	Pitt	3	28.3
13	Florida State	3	32.0
14	Miami (FL)	3	35.0

[thead] [/thead]


Provided by CFB at Sports Reference: View Original Table
Generated 9/21/2021.

Miami and FSU are both at the bottom of the ACC in defense. Not exactly what was envisioned for either of them when they joined the conference,. Not like bullying Big East teams is it? Tech's defense is more than acceptable it has been good enough to win in this conference but those stats might take a beating after Saturday.

 

[tsrich]

We're still early enough in the season that we don't know the answers to some of the questions. Is Georgia tech good on defense or does Clemson suck on offense? Is UNC going on offense or does UVA suck on defense?

Gt/unc is one of those good early season calibration games where we figure some stuff out, that we can then cross reference and get an idea of who is who.

Considering UNC has been good on O for several seasons now, I'd suspect that UNC continues to be good on O moreso than UVA sucking at D

 

[slugboy]

Considering UNC has been good on O for several seasons now, I'd suspect that UNC continues to be good on O moreso than UVA sucking at D

UVA won 44-41 last year and 38-31 in 2019. UNC averaged 41.7 points/game last year while UVA averaged giving up 29.
Since this year was 59-39, that’s 18 points worse than last year and 28 worse than two years ago.
We’ll find out Saturday, but UNC improvement and UVA regression are both possible.
It goes back to the original question—do we get the UNC that VT held to the mat and smothered, or the one that ran wild on UVA?
How much is up to us?

 

[InsideLB]

If we can run consistently vs UNC, limit their possessions, keep their O on the sidelines, etc we have a good chance.

Get behind and/or try to be in a shootout with them and good luck.

Will be hard to stop them on third and long. Need pressure. VT beat UNC in the trenches both sides of the ball. But game 1s can be anomalies.

Be nice to see some rushers get home.

 

[forensicbuzz]

We have to pressure Howell or he will run up the scoreboard on us. So far we have been unable to pressure other than the KSU game. On Offense, we have to learn how to get the ball in the end zone and not settle for Field Goals and Field position. On paper, this shapes up to be a lopsided loss. I'm glad we don't play the game on paper.

Go Jackets!

I don't think UNC will be THAT far behind us at the end of the game, but you may be right. We could really wallop these guys.

 

[ramblin_man]

Where’s the best parking at or near the Benz?

 

[awbuzz]

If we can score touchdown in each one of our possessions I think we have a good chance to win. We should be focusing on doing that regardless of what UNC does in their first two or three possessions.

 

[4shotB]

If we can score touchdown in each one of our possessions I think we have a good chance to win.

This should be true in all of our remaining games, this year and beyond.

 

[ibeattetris]

This should be true in all of our remaining games, this year and beyond.

The math checks out.

 

[4shotB]

The math checks out.

At the end of the day, isn't everything pretty much a math problem?

 

[slugboy]

More on Josh Downs. This week is going to need a fantastic coaching job on defense

 

[tsrich]

The math checks out.

Someone get this to Collins, stat

 

[YJMD]

I think we need to be aggressive on both sides of the ball. If we don't try and confuse Howell and just rely on our front winning one on one matchups, we'll get picked apart. If we don't try and push the ball in the middle of the field through the passing game, we'll get clamped down in the middle and have guys flowing to the edges without abandon, and Yates won't have time to push the ball downfield in obvious passing situations.

We've got the pieces on both sides of the ball to be disruptive, but we do have to leverage them schematically to have success.

 

[slugboy]

Josh Downs highlights against VT. He scored UNC's only touchdown on a bubble screen (video is set to start on the bubble screen):

 

[GCdaJuiceMan]

If we don't try and confuse Howell and just rely on our front winning one on one matchups, we'll get picked apart.

Replying to just this line.

Against DJ we found that confusing him by flooding the passing lanes was effective. With a much better passer who is capable of putting the ball at exactly the right place at exactly the right time I wonder how our strategy will change. I'm not sure how Howell does against the blitz but I have to assume we are not just going to sit back and let him and his receivers find open space. I think we have to send a whole lot of different pressures from every direction in this game. This will put a lot of pressure on our defensive backfield to not get beat by UNC's talented receiver(s).

 

[UgaBlows]

If we can run consistently vs UNC, limit their possessions, keep their O on the sidelines, etc we have a good chance.

Get behind and/or try to be in a shootout with them and good luck.

Will be hard to stop them on third and long. Need pressure. VT beat UNC in the trenches both sides of the ball. But game 1s can be anomalies.

Be nice to see some rushers get home.

I hope this is the game where we see the reemergence of a GT pass rush the likes of we haven’t seen since the Tenuta days. This is the game where we need to get the QB a few times and get in his head. Establish a solid run game and win the turnover battle and we can win this thing.

 

[YJMD]

Replying to just this line.

Against DJ we found that confusing him by flooding the passing lanes was effective. With a much better passer who is capable of putting the ball at exactly the right place at exactly the right time I wonder how our strategy will change. I'm not sure how Howell does against the blitz but I have to assume we are not just going to sit back and let him and his receivers find open space. I think we have to send a whole lot of different pressures from every direction in this game. This will put a lot of pressure on our defensive backfield to not get beat by UNC's talented receiver(s).

Against VT, he really got out of sync. Has a tendency to hold on to the ball and got in no man's land sometimes. Of course if he finds Downs etc. he will turn it into a big play. I think the bigger things are going to be getting him out of sync and being able to break down their offensive line. If they get chunks in the run game or Howell gets in rhythm, it will be bad. We have to be prepared to move fast defensively and get them stay on schedule so they can't keep us on our heels with tempo.

I don't expect to keep them from scoring. We just want to have enough stops, turnovers, and field goals instead of TDs to let our offense operate and hopefully put the pressure on them instead.