Tar Heel defense gears up for Virginia Tech

The North Carolina football team made defensive players and coaches available Wednesday after practice. The Daily Tar Heel heard from defensive coordinator Vic Koenning, senior safety Tim Scott and redshirt junior linebacker Jeff Schoettmer about the team's progress heading into a matchup with Virginia Tech Saturday.

Limiting the Hokies' special teams

For 28 years, Virginia Tech football coach Frank Beamer has made a name for himself by introducing the philosophy of “Beamer Ball,” which focuses on the defense and special teams producing scoring plays.

Leading the Hokies this season at special teams is junior punter A.J. Hughes, who was named to the preseason All-ACC team as well as the Ray Guy Award watch list — which is presented to the best punter in the nation at the end of the season.

So far this season, 17 of Hughes’ 25 punts have resulted in a touchback, in a fair catch or by being pinned inside the 20-yard line.

Redshirt junior linebacker Jeff Schoettmer said it’s important for both the defense and offense to support each other and limit Hughes and the rest of the Virginia Tech special teams unit from having an impact on Saturday’s outcome.

“It’s huge. Same with the offense giving us good field position, you know, not getting pinned back,” Schoettmer said. “They’ve got to move the ball a little bit, and we have to do our part to give them good field position. So it is a team thing. We have to work with each other.”

UNC looking to force more turnovers

After forcing nine turnovers in the first two games of the season, the UNC defense has only manufactured two turnovers in back-to-back blowout losses to East Carolina and Clemson.

Senior safety Tim Scott said the defense has also been unable to generate any takeaways in practice during the same time span and has been determined to do so this week.

“As a defense, we emphasized turnovers this week, because the last couple of weeks, we haven’t been able to get them in practice,” Scott said. “So this week we’ve been getting back to what we’re used to.”

Despite a lack in the turnover department in their past two games, the Tar Heels will seek to replenish their takeaway stock against Virginia Tech quarterback Michael Brewer.

After stepping in to fill the shoes of Logan Thomas, the turnover-prone Brewer has opened this year by tossing 10 interceptions in five games, which is tied for the most in the nation.

Schoettmer said the defense has focused on applying pressure on Brewer to produce a few ill-advised throws and hopes to be rewarded with the same gifts other teams have acquired so far this season.

“Ten interceptions is a lot through three or four games. We do notice that,” Schoettmer said. “We’ve just got to be ready. We have some good packages in to get pressure on the quarterback and hopefully flush him out of the pocket and get him flustered — kind of like we did against San Diego State. Kind of get him on the run, and he’s more prone to make bad decisions. So hopefully we can exploit that.”

Defensive line and running game

A big factor in the UNC defense’s ability to procure turnovers will be the defensive line. The defensive line rebounded from a disappointing performance against ECU at Clemson last week — limiting the Tigers to 92 yards on the ground.

Schoettmer credited defensive tackle Ethan Farmer — the only senior along the defensive line — for its turnaround and said each member of the line stuck to their gaps, allowing the linebacking corps to make plays.

“They played really well versus Clemson. The one thing they did, they just did their responsibility,” Schoettmer said. “Versus ECU, they got reached out of their gaps a lot, which really hurt us. But against Clemson they got gap integrity, which we call it, and stayed true to their gap and let the linebackers fill their gaps, and that’s what worked for us.”

The defensive line will face the daunting task Saturday of stopping the Hokies’ running game, which features the two-headed monster of freshmen Marshawn Williams and Shai McKenzie.

Defensive coordinator Vic Koenning said the defensive line definitely showed signs of improvement against Clemson, but it has yet to reach its true potential and must carry over its momentum from last week to shutdown the Hokies.

“We stayed in our gaps better. We stopped the run fairly well,” Koenning said. “But again, I’m a little gun shy right now. We’ve got to play out of sight for us to be competitive. We just have to play out of our minds, and we haven’t done that yet. We’ve got to keep getting to that.”

sports@dailytarheel.com