UNC’s new football coach Withers ready to tackle 2011 season

After more than a year of controversy surrounding the North Carolina football program, interim head coach Everett Withers is the new face of UNC football. Senior writer Jonathan Jones caught up with Withers to discuss the upcoming season.

You’re a new head coach, but you’ve also got a quarterback who’s thrown two passes in college. How much are you going to be leaning on him, and how much is he going to be leaning on you this year?

I think, and I made this statement earlier, anytime you have a quarterback that’s young, that’s inexperienced, you have to rely on the people around him to play well.

We can’t expect Bryn Renner to go out there and win games for us. That’s not the way all of this works. So what we’ll do is, we’ll try to be efficient running the football, give him some things in the passing game, but we’ll try to help him build his confidence and become a better quarterback as the season goes on.

Quinton Coples is slated to be a top pick in next year’s NFL draft, already he’s in these mock drafts. Describe his freakish talents on defense, and who does he remind you of?

Well, Quinton obviously has the size, speed, measurements that all the NFL scouts look at. I think his strength is an attribute. I really think Quinton is still ways away from being what he’s going to be.

Hopefully he’ll progress this season, but we think Quinton has all the ability in the world and can help us be a really good defense. His abilities are what they are right now. We hope they continue to get better.

You’re the interim head coach. With that tag, how do you stay focused when the future is unclear, and better yet, how do you keep the team focused when there is no certainty for a year from now?

Well I think anytime you’re a football coach, you’re day-to-day anyway. And that’s the way I’ve always been in this profession — I’ve been day-to-day.

So you know, my focus is take care of what I can take care of, and the things that I want to take care of are this football team and the kids on this football team. It’s not an issue of focus for me. Because everyday is about trying to make this environment good for our kids.

How much support have you received from Tar Heel fans and the Tar Heel nation since becoming head coach?

Well I think I’ve received a lot of support. I try and look at the support, not so much for me, but for this football program. I want this support to be for this program.

I want the students to be in that Tar Pit yelling and screaming and make that a great environment for our team when they come out. It helps us in recruiting. I want the alumni and the lettermen in the stands yelling and screaming because the kids owe that to them to go out and play well and they need that support back.

The faculty, we want them in the stands because we want to show our faculty that we’re going to do it both on and off the field. So I think this thing has to be a community effort and my whole deal is we keep playing and keep doing the things we need to do on campus and on the football field and hopefully the support continues to grow.

You’re kind of banged up in the backfield right now with Ryan Houston recovering from an injury, as well as Giovanni Bernard with his hand injury. Is that any concern to you?

Right now it’s not because I think Gio’s injury will be something that he could play today if he had to. He’s been practicing just like he has no injury. He can catch the ball, he can do all those things so we’re not as concerned about that.

Ryan, I think we’ve done a great job this offseason and the summer taking care of him. This camp we’ve done a good job. Ryan’s probably in as good of shape as he’s been in since he’s been here, so hopefully that’ll be a plus.

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