Carolina Football Live: Freshmen Finding Opportunities

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — North Carolina enters conference play this week after completing its first bye week of the season, a time Bill Belichick used to evaluate UNC’s play to date. While doing so, he pointed out the contributions the team’s youth has provided.

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Belichick joined Jones Angell and Michael Lombardi on the Carolina Football Live radio show to talk about North Carolina’s use of the bye. In discussing UNC’s body of work so far, he spoke about the opportunities the team’s younger players have received in the early part of the season.

“That gives you a chance to take a closer look at what you’re doing and either improve it, keep doing more of it or get rid of it,” Belichick said on Monday. “We’ve had an opportunity to do that in all three phases of the game. And I’d say a lot of our younger players have shown a lot of improvement over the last couple of weeks, and they’re starting to get a little more playing time and continue to improve this week when they’ve had more opportunity to just work on fundamentals here.”

Freshmen like Demon June, Xavier Lewis and Shanard Clower have received increases in usage recently. June leads the team in rushing this season with 250 yards on 33 carries. Lewis has the highest defensive grade on the team, according to Pro Football Focus, with an 81.8 through four games. He leads the team with three quarterback hurries. Clower flashed in his home state against UCF with four catches for 34 yards.

Belichick said it’s “exciting” to see the improvement of some of the team’s younger players as the season goes along. He said that level of development is vital as the team is a third of the way into the season so far, and that the young players have received opportunities by grasping consistency and fundamentals.

“The guys that are running the other teams’ plays, (when) they start to make plays against our good players, you start to notice,” Belichick said. “And Xavier is another guy that’s really been a productive player for us, and has just continued to get better in there in his role on the D-line. That’s the opportunity. We’re all about opportunity, and if players come in and show they can do it, then they’re going to get a chance to play. I think they’re all excited for that opportunity, whether it comes usually about two or three times a week, when we go live and have an opportunity to give those guys an opportunity to play and show how much they’re improving.”

Michael Lombardi revealed earlier this month that the Tar Heels ran a Sunday scrimmage after the Charlotte game with the players who didn’t play against the 49ers, encouraging depth from top to bottom.

On Monday, Lombardi added that Belichick gives attention to players lower on the depth chart on Fridays to further their development efforts. He said Belichick meets with those players on Fridays while the assistant coaches continue with the game preparations for the following day with those who are suiting up.

“You’re getting personal attention, and you’re getting it from the head coach, which tells the players that if they do well, they’re going to start to play,” Lombardi said. “And I think that’s really important for our program. Most colleges have just a scout team, and they send scout guys down there. Scout team offense and scout team defense, and then the two teams don’t intertwine. We don’t do that. We have one team, and then the younger kids get a lot more reps, which we need to get those young kids to get them to play better.”

The Tar Heels are 2-2 with wins against Charlotte and Richmond and defeats to Big 12 opponents TCU and UCF. The rest of their eight games will be against ACC opponents. North Carolina opens conference play on Saturday against Clemson in Kenan Stadium.

Belichick said the team worked on situational football throughout the bye week, also working on technique. He believes the communication is getting better, and that UNC will have to stack days to see results. Belichick added that the bye week allowed for a time of recuperation as well.

“We’ve been going pretty hard since the start of August,” Belichick said. “We had an opener, and then a short week and a couple more games. So everybody got a couple days to just kind of relax and get refreshed a little bit here and come in and have a great week getting ready for Clemson. It’s exciting to play, exciting to play that team, that program, and start off the ACC schedule.”