Gene Chizik assesses UNC's defensive performance, calls fourth quarter an 'implosion'

UNC avoided an upset this weekend in their 63-61 shootout victory over Appalachian State. On the offensive end, the Tar Heels took care of business throwing for 352 passing yards and rushing for 215. But on the defensive end, they struggled, and Assistant Head Coach for Defense Gene Chizik evaluated the performance of his defensive unit.

“As you go back and look at it early in the game we gave up a couple of explosive plays, one 41-yard pass and we gave up a long touchdown run. Then I think we kind of settled in and started to play better probably midway through the second quarter all the way through the third quarter and we settled down, we kind of had an idea of what they were doing. Thought we fit the run well, we weren’t giving up any explosive plays, we were getting off the field,” Chizik said.

The fourth quarter was a different story for UNC, as the Mountaineers put up a whopping 40 points in the last quarter of the game in an attempt at a comeback victory.

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“And then the fourth quarter, at that point, I think we had given up 21 points and then the fourth quarter was an implosion and it was a lot of things, and it was not on a single individual, it wasn’t on a single group of players, d-line, linebackers, secondary, it was everybody,” Chizik said. “And usually when those scenarios happen it’s poor execution and then you throw on top of that, we had several opportunities to get off the field and then we had penalties. I think special teams did a good job of giving us long fields where they had to drive the ball, there was times where we were getting ahead of the chains and we’d get a penalty.”

Chizik elaborated on the collection of issues that led to their late game defensive collapse.

“So the fourth quarter was a mixture of a lot of things, some of it was great execution by them, some of the throws they made in the fourth quarter were right where the ball had to be, but we have to be better in the coverage element and when we have opportunities to get off the field we gotta be able to get off the field. And those penalties aided three or four different drives, that ended up turning into points,” Chizik said.

At the end of the day, the Tar Heels left the game with the most important thing, a win, and Chizik is optimistic that his defense can learn from their mistakes and clean them up. UNC faces another Sun Belt opponent in Georgia State next week in a game where they’ll expect more of the same from their offense and an improvement in their defense.

“So there’s a lot of good that can come from this, obviously it was a performance we wish in the fourth quarter hadn’t happened, but there a lot of learning, a lot of teaching. We have to tackle better on top of that as well, I feel like we missed a lot of tackles we shouldn’t have, that was evident pretty much through most of the game, but I think we can get better at that,” Chizik said. “And overall just the penalties, the tackling, the missed execution of some coverage elements, all of those things it was a perfect storm and it will be a learning experience for our whole defense.”