By Will Vandervort.
It will be a tale of two defenses when North Carolina visits Clemson’s Death Valley Saturday at 7 p.m.
The Tigers (1-2, 0-1 ACC) come in ranked 12th nationally in total defense and fresh off a dominating performance in which they held top-ranked Florida State to 318 total yards, including 12 on the ground.
“They are really playing with a lot of confidence and are flying around,” North Carolina head coach Larry Fedora said.
“Defensively, at every position, they can run,” he continued. “They really can run. Their defensive line is extremely quick and aggressive. They get after it and they fly around. They do a great job. Their linebackers can run and their secondary does a tremendous job. They can play you in man at the corners and can hold up against anybody.”
The Tar Heels (2-1, 0-0) on the other hand gave up 70 points and 789 total yards to No. 23 East Carolina last week, and rank 123rd nationally in total defense, 122 in passing defense, 117 in scoring defense and 109 in rushing defense.
In other words, North Carolina is simply bad on defense.
“We have to do a much better job in every aspect of what we are doing defensively,” Fedora said. “You can’t play like that and be successful. It makes you evaluate and look at everything you are doing in your program.”
In three games, UNC has done very little right on defense. It has held no team fewer than 157 yards on the ground, including 343 yards to East Carolina.
It’s not much better in pass defense as the Aztecs totaled 341 yards through the air, while the Pirates had 446.
“They are a lot better than that,” Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney said. “We have been on the other side of that. They will want to get out here and prove that they are better than that. Turnovers, pick sixes – let me tell you. If you get in a couple of those situations, it will get out of hand in a hurry.
“When you are on the road, the energy and the momentum can lead to you having a mess on your hands. You learn from it, grow from it and move on to the next one.”
Swinney knows a little thing or two about having one of those days. His Tigers gave up 70 points in the 2012 Orange Bowl loss to West Virginia, and the Tigers have improved greatly on defense since, but Swinney had the whole off-season and hired a new defensive coordinator to fix those issues. Fedora does not have that luxury.
For right now, he is stuck with defensive coordinator Vic Koenning—who was the defensive coordinator for Clemson from 2005-’08—and he has just a few more days to get his defense ready for a Clemson offense that has found itself now that Deshaun Watson is the full-time quarterback.
“Offensively, you look at them, and now that they may have settled down on the young quarterback, the scheme they run puts them in position to make quite a few explosive plays,” the Tar Heels’ head coach said. “I think Deshaun Watson shows that he is very capable of running that offense and can beat you with either his arms or his legs.”
Watson threw for 266 yards and ran for another 30, while the Clemson offense totaled 407 yards against the Seminoles. But Fedora knows he has to fix the confidence of his defense and focus on that when they come to Death Valley on Saturday.
Being that UNC is allowing 42 points and 548 total yards per game, it can’t get much worse, right?
“That’s the toughest thing in any kind of loss that you have. You have to make sure guys have not lost confidence in themselves.” Fedora said. “You have to make sure they have not lost confidence in what they are doing and that’s the mind game part of it.
“Physically, nothing has changed. Once you understand the mental part is ninety percent of it then you can be okay.”