Kaimon Rucker reveals what North Carolina is emphasizing on defense
If not for an absolutely putrid defense, North Carolina might have emerged as a bona fide College Football Playoff contender in 2022 thanks to the offensive fireworks produced by Drake Maye and company.
But that wasn’t how things played out.
North Carolina allowed opponents to average 30.8 points per game, ranking just 101st nationally. Eventually it resulted in a four-game skid to end the season at just 9-5 after such a promising 9-1 start.
Needless to say, improving the North Carolina defense is a key point of interest for the program this offseason.
“I feel like right now we’re definitely improving on our blitzes and definitely just taking care of the little things in each and every position,” linebacker Kaimon Rucker said. “I feel like with defense it comes with a lot of execution. You have to pay attention to a lot of little details that for a lot of people may not seem that big but for us we have to make sure we take the right steps, we fit the right gaps and stuff like that.”
Should the North Carolina defense show some considerable improvement this fall, there’s definitely the potential for a special season.
Maye is back at quarterback, returning as one of the heavy favorites to contend for this year’s Heisman Trophy. The offense seems all but certain to score points in bunches again.
The schedule won’t necessarily be easy, and it comes with some tests right out of the gate.
South Carolina is up first, followed by Appalachian State, Minnesota and then a road trip to Pittsburgh. That’s a pretty tough first month of the season.
Still, Rucker and his cohorts feel the North Carolina defense took some strides this spring.
“I feel like our blitzes and our overall attention to detail are improving and y’all saw it in the game today,” Rucker said.
North Carolina using poor finish as motivation
The team’s poor finish to the 2022 season — losing four straight to end the campaign, including the bowl game — didn’t sit well with many on Chapel Hill.
He noted the goal is to make sure the team prepares hard and is in a position where it can flip its fortunes should a similar opportunity present itself in 2023.
“We most definitely feel like nine was not enough but I don’t feel like it’s necessarily its the record,” Rucker said after North Carolina’s spring game. “It is the way that we finished. I feel like for us, the way that we finish wasn’t the way that our expectations were set because we had high expectations for last year and obviously we did not. We won the Coastal. We went six and one all until the later half of the season we lost (four) in a row. That wasn’t our standard. Greatness is our standard and we did not achieve that.”