What Bill Belichick said after UNC football's loss to Duke
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It’s official. The North Carolina Tar Heels won’t play in a bowl game this season after falling to Duke late on Saturday.
Despite a comeback and grabbing the lead in the fourth quarter, UNC fell to Duke 32-25 after the Blue Devils ran a fake field goal trailing late. UNC never recovered and now falls to 4-7 overall and 2-5 in conference play.
It was another disappointing loss for the Tar Heels and had one leaving fans and the players believing they are just a few plays away from turning things around. But what did head coach Bill Belichick say about his team’s performance?
The head coach met the media after the game and had this to say.
All quotes are via Inside Carolina.
Bill Belichick opening statement
“Really proud of the effort everybody gave all week, and tonight, obviously came up a few plays short. And it’s disappointing. Give Duke credit, they made a few more plays than we did at critical times, and ultimately that was the difference in the game. So just keep grinding here, go back to work and be ready for NC State next week. But just made too many mistakes, too many bad plays, obviously, too many penalties. So that’s about the story.”
On the chance Duke would run a fake field goal
“There’s always a chance they’d fake it.”
On biggest mistake on that play for UNC
“We didn’t have it covered.”
On UNC committing 2 penalties in the game
“There were defensive penalties, there were offensive penalties. We had them both. We had too many penalties on everything. Personal foul on offense, we had two personal fouls on offense. We had an illegal formation on offense. We had a holding penalty on offense. There were some penalties on defense. Too many penalties on special teams, just too many penalties.”
On what UNC did differently in the second half offensively
“I think they made some adjustments after the first drive, and then we made some adjustments in the third quarter. It’s kind of how football goes, back and forth. If you hurt somebody with something, then they usually try to do something to compensate, and vice versa. So that’s football. Manny’s a good coach, and he does a good job. And they gave us some problems, we gave them some problems, and they made more plays than we did.”
On Duke converting on third and fourth downs
“He (Darian Mensah) stepped up in the pocket or they hit a draw, up inside a couple times. So we did better on that in the second half. But look, Mensah is a good player, and he got us a couple times on that third or fourth down. We got him some.”
On UNC not being bowl eligible
“We’re just playing one game at a time, not worried about anything in the future. We’re worried about Duke, prepared for Duke. Now, we’ll go for NC State.”
This article originally appeared on Tar Heels Wire: UNC Football: What Bill Belichick said after loss to Duke
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