UNC-Stanford Bill Belichick Q&A: ‘Made Enough Plays to Come Out on Top’

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — North Carolina earned a second ACC football victory in a row thanks to a stout defensive performance that held off Stanford, 20-15, on Saturday at Kenan Stadium.

Gio Lopez threw for 203 yards and two touchdowns on 18-for-25 passing. He found receiver Jordan Shipp five times for 83 yards receiving, including a 55-yard touchdown that moved the Tar Heels ahead 20-3 early in the fourth quarter. Running back Davion Gause added 79 total yards from scrimmage.

Defensively, UNC’s pass rush continued to show out, racking up a season-high nine sacks and forcing two turnovers. Melkart Abou Jaoude and Tyler Thompson tallied three sacks apiece, surging Carolina’s season total to 27 sacks.

Watch UNC coach Bill Belichick’s press conference from Saturday’s postgame in full, and scroll down to read some of his noteworthy comments.

Opening statement

Bill Belichick: “Good to win. Good win at home, always good to win at home. Proud of our team. Kind of interesting two halves, had a tough start offensively, and then kind of got things going a little bit in the second half. Defensively played well, really, for three quarters, and then gave up at the end of the two two-minute drives at the end and hung on with an onside kick recovery and being able to stop on defense. So, like a lot of these games, they’re close, they’re tight, similar to some of the games that Stanford’s played against Florida State came down last play, BC was tight. I scored at the end of the game to beat San Jose. So there’s a lot of games like that in this conference. And, that’s what we’re ready for, and fortunately, we made enough plays to come out on top today. And so that’s a good feeling. Just a lot of things we can still improve on, keep working on, and that’s what we’ll do, going forward, and get ready for Wake.”

Tyler Thompson has had seven sacks over the last four games. Where have you seen this version of Thompson come from in the last few weeks?

Belichick: “Yeah, he’s worked really hard going all the way back to the spring, he’s one of the players that was a carryover from the previous team, and has stayed with us all the way through, which, again, that’s like less than half the team, so I just point that out. But yeah, he’s really worked hard on his pass rush. He’s gotten a lot stronger. I mean, he was, I think, about maybe 15 to 20 pounds lighter than he is now, and that’s all really good weight. He’s explosive, he’s strong, and his fundamentals and techniques rushing the passer have been something that he’s refined and worked on, and working in coordination with the defensive lineman for the pass four games and stuff like that. So he’s our guy, blocking practice. I could just tell you some of the things you see on the games are similar to what we see in practice. He’s got good edge speed, he has power, he’s long, he’s pretty athletic.”

What kind of conversations have you had with Gio Lopez about blocking out some of the distractions and outside noise? And how have you seen him grow in that regard?

Belichick: “I think he’s handled it pretty well. We’ve talked about it a little bit, but not extensively, really. I’ve just tried to coach him, to help him do things that I think will help him execute better as a quarterback, or see the game, or see something that the defense is doing to try to help his execution. All my focus has really been more on the coaching and the performance. I think he’s a confident kid. He’s a tough kid. And look, anybody who has played quarterback has made some good plays and some bad plays and I think he’s done a good job of bouncing back from them. He’s had a couple in practice, and he said some really good plays in practice, but he’s good at moving on to the next play, and that’s really what we all need to do, whether it’s quarterback or any of the positions, is to have a short memory. I mean, learn from it, but have a short memory, move on. Don’t let it affect your confidence and your execution.”

How much of a lift does this defense provide for this team, in terms of keep you guys in close games until the offense can come through?

Belichick: “I think everybody that goes out on the field was going out there to do the best they can. Defense is going out there to stop them. The offense is going out there to move the ball and score points. And sometimes good things happen, but that’s not all the time, so I don’t think it’s anything other than that, really. We had good field position defensively from our kicking game, and unfortunately, we weren’t able to take advantage of the turnover in the first quarter… and second quarter, whenever it was. We weren’t able to take advantage of that field position, and neither were they on the fumble, missing a field goal and then scoring before the half. But we knew Stanford’s a good two-minute team. They showed that in the Florida State game, they showed it in the BC game, they showed it certainly in the San Jose game, where they came from behind to win. They showed it in the SMU game at the half. So we knew that was a good, big part of their offensive production, and they did a good job with it, better than we did until the very end.”