Led by a brand-new coaching staff and faced with the task of learning an entirely different style of offense, the North Carolina football team has been forced to undergo a lot of changes in the offseason.
And one needn’t look much further than the first quarter of UNC’s spring football game to see proof.
The Tar Heels’ growing pains were noticeable in the first quarter of the intrasquad scrimmage at Kenan Stadium on Saturday, as the Blue and White teams combined for six illegal formation and false-start penalties.
Coach Larry Fedora wasn’t thrilled with the way things kicked off, but he remained positive about his team’s progress in picking up the new playbook.
“Our objective was for the guys to go out there … Play smart, play fast, play physical,” Fedora said. “It didn’t start off that way, with the penalties and the snaps — some of the problems you don’t want to have that we had. But they calmed down.”
Players on both teams looked a bit lost offensively during parts of the game, and the no-huddle, quick-paced style required Tar Heels on both sides of the ball to stay on their toes.
While the lack of breaks between plays was the most noticeable difference from last season’s offense, for Fedora, it still wasn’t quite quick enough.
“It was awful slow and sluggish out there in between the plays,” Fedora said. “We still got a ways to go in understanding the tempo. But it’s not hard to see the stress you can put on the defense when you start moving the chains a few times and you’ve got a tempo going.”
Since the day he was announced as head football coach in December 2011, Fedora has been enthusiastic about bringing a new level of excitement to UNC football.
