Elon to be the ?rst to see new offense

North Carolina head coach Larry Fedora is new in town, so this time no one should be offended that he doesn’t know exactly where Elon is geographically.

“It’s in North Carolina,” he said Monday in his first weekly press conference of the season. “I know that.”

Elon is less than 40 miles west of Chapel Hill and Saturday, the Phoenix will make the short trip down Interstate 40 to open the 2012 season in Kenan Stadium.

Even though Fedora doesn’t know where they are, he knows where they’ll be coming from when it comes to the game plan.

“(Elon) has a quarterback that can throw the football,” Fedora said. “The kid’s six-four, 222 (pounds), and he’s got a really good arm.”

Senior quarterback Thomas Wilson has wide receiver Aaron Mellette as a weapon in his arsenal. Fedora said Mellette could play anywhere in the country.

North Carolina quarterback Bryn Renner said he has been studying film on the Phoenix and believes the Football Championship Subdivision team to be very good.

“They’ve got a lot of guys coming back,” Renner said. “They’re a veteran group. Just watching them on film they fly around, they attack the ball. We’re going to have our hands full.”

Saturday is not only the first game of the season and the first regular season game of Fedora’s career at UNC — it is also the first match up ever between Elon and North Carolina.

Additionally, it is the first official game in which the Tar Heels will run Fedora’s fast paced spread offense and 4-2-5 defense.

Fedora said the game will be a good barometer of how the Tar Heels received the new systems.

“It will be a great test for us defensively to find out where we are,” he said. “On the defensive side of the ball, they are not afraid to play man coverage and bring people … We will have our work cut out for us.”

The Tar Heels will be using all three running backs against Elon. Fedora made it clear that Giovani Bernard, Romar Morris and A.J. Blue will split time in the back field based on production, not any pregame distinction.

“With this offense that we have, with this running corps that we have, I think we kind of need three guys,” Bernard said. “We’ve done a great job of meshing each other together and getting better.”

Regardless of who plays where, the Tar Heels are just excited to start hitting players not wearing light blue.

“Whoever we play, we’re going to be excited for it,” Renner said. “Obviously, the first game is the most fun.”

Contact the desk editor at sports@dailytarheel.com.