Bill Belichick Q&A: UCF Game Week Presser

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — North Carolina blasted FCS opponent Richmond 41-6 on Saturday at Kenan Stadium. Carolina held an opponent without a touchdown for the second straight game, marking the first time the Tar Heels have kept consecutive opponents out of the end zone since 2012.

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UNC ramps up back to Power 4 play this week, when it travels to take on UCF on Saturday (3:30 pm, FOX). The Golden Knights are under the direction of coach Scott Frost again, who returned this season for his second stint at Central Florida. Frost directed the Golden Knights for two seasons from 2016-17, and he led UCF to an undefeated season and Peach Bowl victory in 2017. 

Here are the key points from coach Bill Belichick’s availability with the media on Tuesday inside the Kenan Football Center, and see below for the full video …

Opening Statement

 “First of all, I’d just like to open this up by passing along our thoughts and prayers for UCF offensive line coach, Shawn Clark. … Our thoughts to Coach (Scott) Frost and his staff and team there. To get started on UCF, this is kind of an interesting game. They played a couple games. They’ve had a bye week. They have a lot of transfers, which, if anybody can relate to that, we can. Their coaches are all from different kinds of spots.

“They have a lot of talented players. They’re very well coached. Scoot and I go back. I can’t believe it’s been over 30 years since we were together with the Jets. He was drafted, he played quarterback at Nebraska, and we drafted them as a defensive back. A safety for me, and really smart guy, tough, big kid for a quarterback, big safety too. And really had a great aptitude for the game, both offensively and defensively and playing the kicking game as well. So he has a lot of experience as a player and certainly as a coach, both at UCF and Nebraska. So a ton of respect for Scott and the program that he runs and the people they have down there.”

Players like Daniel King and Melkart Abou-Jaoude come from smaller schools. Do you like signing those types of players?

“I’m just partial to good football players. It really doesn’t matter where they come from. If they can help our team and our program, and they’re good teammates, then definitely like having them. Both of those guys have done a good job on that. One of my former coaches coached Daniel, and so that was very insightful. But he’s improved a lot since he’s been here. He’s a big, strong guy, but his footwork, his technique, his conditioning, he’s put a lot into it. And you can see the improvement that he’s made in the last few weeks, it’s kind of jumped out. And he’s playing good football for us. And Melkart the same thing. He’s worked so hard since he’s been here, he’s improved. Feels like every single day, going all the way back February, March, we started spring ball. He just keeps getting better and better at little things.”

How confident are you in the defense and the progress that they’ve made?

“We’ve definitely made a lot of progress. Our fundamentals are better. We’re more consistent in our run fits and our coverage adjustments and things like that. Are we there yet? No, of course not. We have a long way to go, but we are definitely making progress. And I think as those players play together and they have more confidence in each other, our communication improves with different adjustments and challenges the offense gives us. They don’t want to make it easy for us. We have to handle the hard things, but we’re doing better at that. It’s getting better. Coach Frost, I think they led a nation in scoring when he was at UCF the last time and they threw up 60 however many points it was last week. They’re very explosive.

“So we’ll see how we’re coming along this week, but definitely getting better. And not just the linebackers, I’d say the entire unit, the defensive backs, the defensive line, just the communication between those different levels of the defense. Sometimes communicating on the same level is part of it, because we’re all sort of doing the same thing. But then communicating with the guys in front of us or behind us is sometimes a little more challenging, but they’re all important, so we stress all of it, and we’re definitely getting better.”

When looking at Gio Lopez and the passing game, how do you work on his timing? Is that something that can be improved in practice or does it require live game reps?

“The timing really comes from two people, the person throwing and the person catching, but then also the distribution of the players around them. So if there’s good spacing, and that one route doesn’t get it, sometimes you need it to complement the other route, sometimes you need it to complement it by creating space so that the players can work into open areas. If a receiver is half second quicker or half second slower, then throws off the quarterback’s timing. Sometimes the quarterback has to move around a player to throw a ball into an open lane or avoid a rush, or whatever. And so those things, just those little things can be the difference between a big play and an interception, honestly. So there’s no, I would say, magic wand to it. It’s just doing it over and over again and having that confidence where you can, as a quarterback, let the ball go just a split second early.

“And so we just build that through repetition. So again, we’re not there yet, but I feel like we’re getting closer each week, and things come up in the game, or things come up in practice that we correct or talk about and say, ‘okay, here’s how we’re going to do this.’ And then we do it, and then we gain confidence in it, and then hopefully we’ll be able to do it again in game situations.”

Can you see confidence in a quarterback?

“When the ball comes out on time, there’s confidence. And so I think a couple of Gio’s throws, like to Jake (Johnson), came out real quick. They got there just in time. And Jake was able to squirt forward for a first down a couple times. Things like that where, if you just hesitate another split second, maybe he makes a catch, maybe doesn’t get that extra two yards for the first down, things like that. So those are just there’s a difference between anticipating the receiver being open and then seeing him open and then throwing the ball. A lot of times it’s too late, and if you can anticipate the receiver creating separation and getting open, then you hit him. If you wait till he gets open a lot of times, that window closes by the time you get him the ball?

On coaching different types of quarterbacks:

“There’s so many things that a quarterback does, there are a lot of different categories of things, and they’re all important. I think you try to find the ones that you feel like are the most important for that particular player. They’re probably some things he’s really good at. There’s probably other things that he’s okay at, and there’s probably other things he needs to improve on. And so, you try to help the player with whatever it is that you feel like will help him the most, or maybe that you know are the most important things for him. It’s not the same with every player. We all learn differently. We all process differently, and coaching the quarterbacks is a one on one proposition. You may have multiple quarterbacks, but they may learn differently as well, or have different strengths and weaknesses, so you have to adapt to it. It’s very individualized. 

“So I don’t think you want to overload them. I think you want to find something that they can tangibly grab a hold of and say, ‘okay, yeah, that makes sense.’ That helps me. But as you coach players, and my experience has been with all players, sometimes the way you see it isn’t the way they see it. And if they don’t see it that way, then you need to find some other way to teach it.”