UNC Preview Thread -- Who is UNC?

[slugboy]

Looks to me like the biggest difference between Clemson and UNC that will give us the most trouble besides the QBs is the offensive lines, Clemson has a lot of OL problems and the OL seems to be a really strong point with the Tarheels. Hard for me to see us getting much pressure with our front 4.
Might help us if White were ready, don't have any idea about him and I'm sure they are not going to let anyone know.

Here's week 1. VT is in a 3-3-5. A linebacker is showing blitz. He shows blitz a lot. He doesn't blitz at all. The NT and the left DE come through a swinging gate and are all over Howell:


The NT bumps the center and runs past him to the right. The left DE lines up outside the tackle, bumps the tackle, and goes around. Both guards are just kinda hanging out.

I'd give a more detailed dissection of the play, but the UNC OL just looks aimless on this play.

 

[Silk3]

Unc oline was terrible against va tech. Good against ga st and uva so who knows

 

[MidtownJacket]

Here's week 1. VT is in a 3-3-5. A linebacker is showing blitz. He shows blitz a lot. He doesn't blitz at all. The NT and the left DE come through a swinging gate and are all over Howell:


The NT bumps the center and runs past him to the right. The left DE lines up outside the tackle, bumps the tackle, and goes around. Both guards are just kinda hanging out.

I'd give a more detailed dissection of the play, but the UNC OL just looks aimless on this play.

Now imagine we have Zeek at NT and JD at rush edge. We do the same thing me hopes.

 

[Northeast Stinger]

Love the optimism. No way we win by 2 TDs as we just don’t score enough points and holding HND under 30 would be a good defensive effort. Howell won’t miss open receivers like Clemson’s QB did. He can run as well. This will be the best offense we face, a notch above Pitt.

I don’t disagree. As I’ve said before, we either show further improvement with this game or we have a long season. I’ve also said this may be the toughest offense we face.

 

[Heisman's Ghost]

Here's week 1. VT is in a 3-3-5. A linebacker is showing blitz. He shows blitz a lot. He doesn't blitz at all. The NT and the left DE come through a swinging gate and are all over Howell:


The NT bumps the center and runs past him to the right. The left DE lines up outside the tackle, bumps the tackle, and goes around. Both guards are just kinda hanging out.

I'd give a more detailed dissection of the play, but the UNC OL just looks aimless on this play.

Christ in His Church, but it will be a miracle if Howell survives the season behind those guys. They did not even slow down a three man rush and the linebacker faking the blitz did nothing. On the other hand, this is the same offense that hung 59 points on opponents two weeks in a row. The difference to me after watching both the Virginia Tech game and the Virginia game was that the Tar Heels ran all over UVA and could do nothing against Virginia Tech. Crazy.

 

[danny daniel]

Christ in His Church, but it will be a miracle if Howell survives the season behind those guys. They did not even slow down a three man rush and the linebacker faking the blitz did nothing. On the other hand, this is the same offense that hung 59 points on opponents two weeks in a row. The difference to me after watching both the Virginia Tech game and the Virginia game was that the Tar Heels ran all over UVA and could do nothing against Virginia Tech. Crazy.

M Brown explained the difference between the VT and V games thusly: There were 3 OL starters injured before the VT game and one running back. Howell was not himself (for whatever reason?). By the third game those issues with the backups and returning injured were fixed. They found another effective running back. He also said that Howell running was now the game plan but not so much at VT. He also credited much better ST play. Sounds like good coaching between the VT and V game.

 

[slugboy]

This is from https://www.cfb-graphs.com/. It's an interesting site worth checking out. The glossary of terms is at https://www.cfb-graphs.com/about.html

I had to screenshot--the tables are formatted in a way that just doesn't translate over here. The author will do advanced stats previews of games, but so far he isn't covering us and UNC.

At least, the way he charts us, we're decent on defense (top 30/40 or so), but really atrociously weak on offense (100th-111th). UNC is top 10-25 on offense (believable) and poor on defense (47th-73rd).

I'm not sure about UNC's numbers, but I feel we're probably slightly overrated on defense (but we can turn out to be good, and look to be improving), and slightly but not heavily underrated on offense. If this point of view has merit, we need to drastically improve the efficiency of our offense before Saturday.

On defense, we need to improve our tackling and lower yards after contact. That's not from this chart--that's personal observation.

UNC:

GT:

 

[Augusta_Jacket]

This is from https://www.cfb-graphs.com/. It's an interesting site worth checking out. The glossary of terms is at https://www.cfb-graphs.com/about.html

I had to screenshot--the tables are formatted in a way that just doesn't translate over here. The author will do advanced stats previews of games, but so far he isn't covering us and UNC.

At least, the way he charts us, we're decent on defense (top 30/40 or so), but really atrociously weak on offense (100th-111th). UNC is top 10-25 on offense (believable) and poor on defense (47th-73rd).

I'm not sure about UNC's numbers, but I feel we're probably slightly overrated on defense (but we can turn out to be good, and look to be improving), and slightly but not heavily underrated on offense. If this point of view has merit, we need to drastically improve the efficiency of our offense before Saturday.

On defense, we need to improve our tackling and lower yards after contact. That's not from this chart--that's personal observation.

UNC:
View attachment 11251
GT:
View attachment 11252

The odd stat to me is the field position where we are ranked 130th. (I can't access the website from work to see the explanation of the stat) Given that we have played NIU and KSU as well as Clemson, I don't know that I would have projected us to be wuite that bad at field position. Do they discount/discard FCS games in these stats?

 

[slugboy]

The odd stat to me is the field position where we are ranked 130th. (I can't access the website from work to see the explanation of the stat) Given that we have played NIU and KSU as well as Clemson, I don't know that I would have projected us to be wuite that bad at field position. Do they discount/discard FCS games in these stats?

I don't know for sure--he's using stats from NCAA--but I wouldn't be surprised if KSU was excluded.

 

[slugboy]

Similar--SP+ Defense (historical trendline, black is us, baby blue is UNC, we're about equal in defense (and better than average, for a change). Lower is better for defense (1990 and 2006 are a hint there):

Unfortunately, higher is better on offense. Same color scheme; the difference is we're not killing it on offense this year. Between this and the charts I posted earlier, we're not converting points through either gritting them out or through big plays. We probably need both.

If you're interested in Special Teams, well the numbers only run until 2019:

These numbers are from https://collegefootballdata.com/sp/trends

 

[ibeattetris]

I don't know for sure--he's using stats from NCAA--but I wouldn't be surprised if KSU was excluded.

And in those games we have faced quite a number of long fields. Average starting field position in Clemson was 79.2 which is especially not where you want to be against the top defense.

we're not converting points through either gritting them out or through big plays

Our "scoring per opportunity" *has* to get better for us to take it to the next level. Becoming more consistent with kicking is a big step, but we need to start scoring 7 more often when we get the chance.

 

[Jacket20]

I figured we would be scoring at a higher clip this year just from our running backs alone.

 

[ramblineck]

I figured we would be scoring at a higher clip this year just from our running backs alone.

our RZ offense is atrocious we're gonna need some td plays between the 20s to hang with UNC

 

[Root4GT]

yes

Care to share the reason?

 

[forensicbuzz]

Care to share the reason?

I think our guys are good enough to get it done.

 

[ibeattetris]

I think just getting our first sack of the season against an FBS opponent will be a step in the right direction. UNC's offense is so different from NIU or Clemson that I am not sure previous week results really matter. It'll be up to how well our coaches scheme and how well we line up against UNC's play makers.

 

[UgaBlows]

I think just getting our first sack of the season against an FBS opponent will be a step in the right direction. UNC's offense is so different from NIU or Clemson that I am not sure previous week results really matter. It'll be up to how well our coaches scheme and how well we line up against UNC's play makers.

I get that UNC is a million times better than Clemson on Offense but schematically are they really that different? honest question here, i’m no X’s & O’s guru...

 

[slugboy]

I get that UNC is a million times better than Clemson on Offense but schematically are they really that different? honest question here, i’m no X’s & O’s guru...

For most fans, they're close enough. I put some highlights below. The GT - Clemson highlights seem to have been put together by someone who hates football. However, you can see the same formation and same play action in both offenses. It could be that UNC has much better receivers, or it could be that UVAs coverage is terrible, or even both. UNC might have a better back, but Clemson's back pushed us like crazy.

Clemson - GT highlights:


UNC - UVA highlights:

 

[AlabamaBuzz]

I believe that Uiagalelei has poor timing through his progressions and also does not have great vision down the field. Sam Howell does not have this problem. I do believe he only has one elite receiver, though, and maybe if we can take Downs away from him, the others won't be able to do the severe damage I fear. UNC saw our difficulty with a large QB running up the gut, so I do expect some of that with Howell as well. He is a pretty large guy at 220 lbs, but not as large as U who was 250 lbs.

 

[ramblineck]

For most fans, they're close enough. I put some highlights below. The GT - Clemson highlights seem to have been put together by someone who hates football. However, you can see the same formation and same play action in both offenses. It could be that UNC has much better receivers, or it could be that UVAs coverage is terrible, or even both. UNC might have a better back, but Clemson's back pushed us like crazy.

Clemson - GT highlights:


UNC - UVA highlights:

Watch the condensed game versions (~30 minutes) it's like night and day for viewing experience and also for these 2 particular games. Clemson's D is great and we were still able to move the ball. Clemson O gashed us on the ground but DJ looks like a passenger in that offense. thought our defense made some great individual plays.

For UNC-UVA, it's hard to tell about their defenses but their offenses can play. UNC is dangerous. Downs is fantastic and Howell has the arm and can run when needed. UVA was able to move up and down the field on UNC but had some costly mistakes (sounds like anyone we know?). We will not win a shootout with UNC it will not be possible. We don't have the gas. We need to control the time of possession and shorten the game. We need 2-3 turnovers and can't have costly mistakes on our end. This really does look like our hardest game besides uga