Williams plans to 'bring the fire' against Georgia Tech

After the North Carolina football team's 34-17 loss to Virginia Tech Oct. 4, the Tar Heels’ offensive linemen decided they needed to make amends.

Marquise Williams had been sacked five times for 33 yards — the most in any game all season.

“A lot of guys came up to me saying, ‘My bad, my bad,’ after seeing me with a lot of bumps and bruises,” Williams said.

But he didn’t hold it against them.

“I’m excited to have the offensive line that I have,” he said.

Williams must have been ecstatic then during UNC’s matchup against No. 6 Notre Dame. Veteran linemen Jon Heck and Landon Turner — who had both been absent for weeks due to injuries — were reunited for the first time since Sept. 6.

Though the Tar Heels fell to the Fighting Irish 50-43, Williams wasn’t sacked once.

It’s part of the reason he was able to have the best game of his career, becoming the first UNC quarterback to throw for 300 yards and rush for 100 more.

But when UNC’s upset chances uneventfully ended Saturday afternoon, it was Williams saying, ‘My bad.’

Even though he had a record-setting day and scored in almost every way possible short of a field goal, Williams wasn’t satisfied with his efforts.

“A lot of people talk about the performance and what I did, but I didn’t do that performance (alone),” Williams said. “The receivers caught competitive balls. The running backs and offensive line made great lanes for me. I give all the credit to my receivers, my running backs and my offensive line. I don’t deserve anything, that’s why I say it. With the loss, I don’t deserve any credit.”

Though he may be hard on himself, Williams played his most complete game of his career, aside from one critical lapse of judgment late in the game.

It was also the first game all season in which Williams played the entire game under center while Mitch Trubisky watched from the sidelines.

“I just felt good with the flow,” Williams said. “I just felt like I was in the groove and the groove was going and the guys felt the groove with me so it felt real great.”

Coach Larry Fedora said the coaches would decide tomorrow how to approach the quarterback situation against Georgia Tech Saturday, but Williams’ performance was not a surprise to him.

“It wasn’t always that he made the best decisions in the game, but he made up for it in heart and want-to, and provided a spark for our football team to give us a chance to win the game,” Fedora said.

Though Fedora won’t say just yet what his plan is for Williams against the Yellow Jackets, if his quarterback can come anywhere close to his production level in South Bend, Ind., he’ll give his team a chance to turn the season around.

It is a pivotal point in the season — North Carolina hanging on for dear life with the threat of utter failure nipping at its heels.

Still, it would be easy for the Tar Heels to not have the same energy in Kenan Stadium Saturday against an unranked team after coming down from the high-octane environment of Notre Dame.

But what Williams says he’s taking to the game seems to be a surefire way to take care of Yellow Jackets.

“I’m going to always bring the fire.”

sports@dailytarheel.com