UNC Game Week Coach Interviews: Matt Lombardi & Brian Belichick

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — Wednesday afternoon marked the first opportunity to hear from two new members of North Carolina’s coaching staff: quarterbacks coach Matt Lombardi and defensive backs coach Brian Belichick. Each fielded questions regarding both their position group’s performance on Monday night, as well as their thoughts on the week ahead. Watch those complete interviews below and read some noteworthy excerpts… 

Matt Lombardi

“(Gio)’s here today, so we’re gonna see how it goes and where it goes from there, and we’ll see what it looks like on the practice field. But he was in here today, and he looked great, so we’ll see how it goes…

“I think we’re going to look at everything in terms of an offense. I think that when you don’t perform well, I think you’re going to look at some things we did well, things we didn’t do well. So I think we’re going to take that all into account. I don’t think it’s necessarily just because of his skill set or things that we have to do to match his skill set. He can do everything in our eyes. So we’re going to do what’s best for the team, alright, and do what’s best for what gives us the best chance to win at the end of the day…

“I think that you always want to start fast, and that’s one of the things we always emphasize, is starting fast, and we did that. But again, it’s really about us, and it’s about us taking care of the football and making sure that we’re running clean plays, operating at a fast pace, and not getting behind the chains. But nothing in terms of scheme wise that we were shocked. It’s just they were obviously ready to play and and they performed well, and they they did a great job of tackling and playing their coverage and blitzing and doing that. They were ready to play, and we’ve got to do better job of getting our guys ready to play and performing throughout the game for 60 minutes and not just the opening drive.”

Brian Belichick

“I mean, we gave up a lot of points, and that’s the name of the game. Starts there. So we gotta do better in the pass game. We gotta do better in the run game. Gotta limit points better in the red area. No big plays. Tackling, a lot of things to work on. And that’s what we’re here for…

“Obviously we could do a better job rushing the passer. (Josh) Hoover and TCU are a team that got the ball out really quick, and they do a great job of doing that, and credit to them for blocking us and getting the ball out. But we got to do a better job of getting to the quarterback, and that’s not just on the front and the pass rusher. That’s on us in the back end of covering guys, making the quarterback hold the ball and giving the rush a chance to get there…

“I think we want to play guys who have earned trust and dependability over the course of camp and the spring. We’ve met a lot, we’ve practiced a lot, we’ve built a lot of trust with these guys. And the guys that have been out there and done it in practice, you have confidence for them to do it in the game. You don’t want a good player to stand on the sidelines next to you as a coach for the whole game and you want to give them a chance to play and get out there.”