UNC Checks the Boxes in Win over ETSU - The Day After | Inside Carolina Analysis | College Football

0:00Insurance says it's on one side's fits all. That's why drivers have enjoyed progressive's name your price tool for years now. With the name your price tool you tell them what you want to pay and they'll show you options that fit your budget. So whether you're picking out your first policy or just looking for something that works better for you and your family, they'll make it easy to see your options. Visit progressive.com, find a rate that works for you with the name your price tool. Progressive casualty insurance and company and affiliates, price and coverage matched limited best state law. Welcome into insight.com on this day after I'm Tommy. Actually this book centers that is Jason Staples, a couple housekeeping things. Tell us where you're watching us from. I see a bell haven already already. I hope the weather's nice down there. If you're on the river enjoying the sun and the salt air. I'm jealous. Let us know we're in the world you're watching from because we have world viewers. Shut up. Johnny T. Shirt. But status quo here, you're opening thoughts. Carolina wins 35 to 3 in a rain interrupted ballgame that ended with friends and family

1:08maybe in the stadium. But Carolina gets the job done against East Tennessee State. Yeah, I think well you and I have already shared our thoughts about the fact that we expected more scoring and I think everybody expected more scoring from North Carolina. That in the on the preseason on the game plan, sorry. Podcasts, both of you guys picked them in the 50s and that's probably where I would have picked them. And also I think they they did what they needed to do, which was to win convincingly. And they're apart so about the offense that weren't clicking exactly right. And I think probably the third quarter, it took up to the third quarter before they began to really feel it offensively. So there's that defensively I think they played really well. Even though they only gave up on like 26 less yards to TCU than they did East Tennessee. So there's work to do there as well.

2:14It's a win. There are parts that we can nitpick about and maybe some more troubling issues. I don't like the fact that another field goal was missed. I mean that's two in a row, which doesn't vote well. So there's some issues to talk about. It's not a game of perfect yet. So there's a lot to discuss. And you know, but they did what they needed to do and move on to Clemson I guess. So absolutely. On the Clemson Jason, your initial thoughts here. And we're going to get into the to the five things we discussed pregame. What they needed to accomplish. And we'll talk about those individually. Also the comments are on right here folks. And the comments are on the inside. Carolina message boards. I don't control the YouTube comments. They seem to be on for the lives on the YouTube channel. But there's plenty of access if you're a part of insight. Carolina to discuss this show and here in the live chat. Appreciate everybody here.

3:18Jason, initial thoughts. Well, I mean, I think the first thing is that you took care of business. Right. So, you know, are you handling things the right way or or not? And, you know, this is the kind of game where it should never be in doubt. And it wasn't. So, you know, offensively. Yeah, I mean, there were some things where it's like, okay, they're not operating at 100% efficiency. There were some misses that they, I think, will definitely want to have back when those things are discussed in in the in the film room. But as far as what's happening in in the actual in the actual game, you know, this is a game that was. They didn't score over 20 on last year. Right. Maybe they scored maybe they scored, you know, 20, 24 last year, something like that. They weren't really moving the ball that much last year, even even against this, this level of team.

4:22So, I do think you saw progress. I think the other thing is defensively. You saw guys flying around and playing with passion. And so those are things that that I look at first. And, you know, there's still a lot to clean up. But I think there's been progress. But it sounds like Alexa and somebody's background. I don't know if it's who's in the song, but anyway, if you hear that, it might be you book. I'm not sure. Anyway, but let's talk about up. There's Jason with the do rag, the hook hook and do rag representing sponsorships. So we get into it. It's a win. Oh, absolutely. You got to wear it. But let's talk about got to wear the winning head gear head gear. Let's talk about Billy Edwards. Missed a wide open ship on the open and drive, missed a tight end wheel. That was wide open. Ends up 15 for 20, which the numbers sound great. But that I feel like against good teams, those passes have to be hit. Your thoughts on what Edwards looked like to you

5:25on Saturday. I think he looked a lot better in the second half. Well, you know, you and I talked about this on the staff chat as people are not aware we were doing a staff chat during games these days. And it is as fun to be a part of. But in that in that chat that we had, he threw one pass. I thought was exceptional. And that was the one he layered into a trick. Check a Huna. Over the line backer in front of the D.V. He was perfectly thrown. He get more from that more like that from him. And you will be in great shape. And the other thing that we'll talk about is how it's going to help him to have an emerging player like a Sadler. CJ Sadler is just really stepped up in that game and did some things you would expect from a much more mature player. Coming back to the ball when

6:26Edwards got in trouble, those sorts of things. And he can be. And last year we saw towards, especially towards the end of the year, Jordan ship was basically it as far as a target for Lopez. That was about all that Lopez could throw the ball to. He was just way in a far and above the target for Lopez. Sadler, if you can move him to the outside, which they did on the first play of the game, actually. They had him on the outside as the number two is the Y receiver two. And then you've got Thurmond that they did not have last year. And so you've got some pieces, dynamic pieces to the game that he did not that worked on this team last year. Those things as they develop should help Edwards see more in the passing game. And I think that's what we have to kind of, if you're forecasting good things for North Carolina, you've got to count on Sadler

7:32continuing to emerge, Thurmond doing what he's doing and ship doing what he's doing. He's certainly got some options. And that's what's interesting to me, Jason, when I watch Edwards, he doesn't just stare down ship as it was the case last year and ship. I don't know if his frustration. But he's done well at running routes and getting open nearly every time. I don't know if he gets frustrated or not. He doesn't show it if he does. But the early pass got to give credit on the layered throw to Trechke Kavuna. That was nice. And that was right in front of us. And you could see the depth of that throw and the quality of it. But your thoughts here on Edwards, we talk about in the pregame being efficient in the passing game. Well, 15 to 20 certainly looks efficient. You're you're more expert eyes in what you're looking for. Well, I mean, I think the number one thing we've talked about for the quarterback position boils down to Turner were worthy plays. Are you putting the

8:35ball in danger? We've talked about how managing managing the game is the first and foremost thing that you're looking at, right? Is he actually doing what? What's going to cost you games? Through two games, how many turnover worthy plays does Billy Edwards have? I believe in the upside one. That's impressive. Take it. So, I mean, you look at this game, two touchdowns, no, it's a clean sheet. And you know, so Buck, we have we we we talked a little bit about revising the win-loss projection after TCU. Let's just think about what's our win-loss projection if this team doesn't turn the ball over the rest of the year. I mean, obviously, that's not going to happen. But let's just say they're they don't turn the ball over the rest of the

9:36year. What's the win-loss projection? That's like maybe you go to eight. That's exactly where I'd be. So, this is a team that that probably goes to eight or nine wins with zero turnovers on the year. Well, okay, well, through two games, you've got a clean sheet and you're doing and you're not even putting it close to endanger. All right, I again, that to me is first is first order of business. Now, do you want your quarterback to recognize a wide open wide receiver in a concept like that opening play of the game? Yeah. But I will say that's one where when they're calling that, Bobby Patrino is going to talk to his his offense all week about they're going to be in this they're going to be in this look. We're going to line up. It's going to be this hard play action. We're going to get this look and I'm telling you that post should come open here. So get your

10:40get your eyes to the post. That's probably going to be the one that comes open. We want to get our young guy an opportunity right away. That's why we're calling this. So, you know, get your eyes to the post. But make sure you recognize it. You know, if they adjust here or if they if they the safety goes there, you got to get your eyes elsewhere and Edwards got his eyes to the post. And it wasn't not open. It was just not as open as the other, which was really the second place he's going to be looking. And so he just took that first option instead of looking over there. Now, a little bit longer in this system, a little bit more opportunity to rinse and repeat after film session. Maybe three weeks from now, you call that same play against the same coverage first on a first down first play of a series. And he just peaks at the other spot and goes, oh, shoot, he's wide open. So, I mean, that's that's part of where I think things are right now is

11:45things are still not fully in the whole system is automatic. But he's managing the game. And that to me is the part that matters absolutely the most is he's managing the game. He's putting the ball in in good spots by and large and playing winning football. And that's that's really what you're asking from him at this point. You're not asking him to be Michael Vick or or Lamar Jackson or, you know, one of those types of players and you're not asking him to go out there and be a high husband, high-sman type quarterback. You're asking him to make sure that your team is in the best position to win. And I think that's where he is. He's certainly done that Billy Edwards. Like I mentioned, 15 of 20, 244 or two and no touch to or two touch and no interceptions and two Jason's point, no turnover worthy plays. I think it's pretty solidly efficient. The one thing that I see is I see the throw to Kekohuna that we talked about. And I see what's in there. It's kind of like the

12:49environment, right? It's the it's the pregame environment. On Wilson library steps yesterday, you see what can be. So you expect that. You start to expect that. And I think it's the same with with Edwards's play. But yeah, no complaints at all. It's funny. We're not even we shouldn't be talking about after the quarterback play we saw last season. What we should be nowhere near negative with Edwards, but there's more in there. And that's what we do. Talking with Buck and Jason on the day after. I'm Tommy Ashley shout out again to Johnny T shirt. All right, running game buck. This is this is an interesting thing. It turns out 27 for one 61. Carolina ran the ball when they had to and when they wanted to last weekend. Your thoughts today after watching them against East Tennessee State, I thought ETSU played hard. I thought they played with some of that passion. Carolina needs to be able to pound the team like this did they to your liking on Saturday.

13:55In a way, yes. And in a way, no, but I'll go with the yes part first. Benjamin Hall is obviously somebody they trust in the backfield. They just trust Ben Hall. And you know, he is a reliable catcher of the football for sure. Is he the best runner in the backfield? That's my question because I think you've got a couple of alternatives. Demand June, who is sort of a favorite of mine. And he did get three studies yesterday. And then you've got Jalen McGill, who is he and Sadler or the two players on the offense that have the ability to break tackles, make people miss. They get at yard extra yards. So I kind of think those two guys maybe need a little more play in time. Now they're going to run Demand June

15:01around a goal land. That appears to be a certainty. You know, because he runs hard. He runs angry. That's the kind of player you want when you get into Red Zone and that's where they bring them on the field. McGill is the guy that has some wiggle and some moves that I don't think anybody any of the other running backs to. I don't know that they are getting all the help they need from the offensive line as far as running the ball. So that's a piece of it. But for this particular game and I think the things that they were working on and had in their mind, these are the things we're going to work on today. They did fairly well enough in the running game. Jason, let's blend running game and offensive line. You buck mentioned them. Christian Alvarez got a fair amount of run. I can't, my my eyes are going bad. So I couldn't figure out who it was.

16:06And certainly a freshman, your thoughts when you blend the offensive line and the running game together, the yards per carry look look okay. Put your thoughts here against against the team that they people ask me what I wanted to see on Saturday versus ETS US. I wanted to see 400 yards rush it. Well, I don't think that's going to happen with the way this team is constructed. But your thoughts here before we move on down the line. Yeah, you know, I think there are some limitations in terms of what this team has and and and it's ability to line up and pound the football. This is not 2009 Alabama. It's not. And they're not going to scheme like it's 2009 Alabama because you know, they actually have some competence called plays for that now. So would I like to see more success running the football than what they had? Yeah, I would.

17:08But on the whole, you know, I thought I thought the offensive line was was okay. I was not I did not find myself watching it going. Geez, here we go again. There were there were some places where you know, I thought the interior guys did a really good job of comboing and getting to the second level. You could watch that first that first touchdown. We walks in. Was it was a good opportunity to see a nice combo get to the second level. They could have called holding on three there actually because he did have a little bit of a take down. And that was one where it was interesting because three pad level got up and it did a few times in this game where it's like, okay, well, we they got to get get a few things fundamentally under control on the interior. But I mean, how many times were against a team like this against an East Tennessee state when you're evaluating run game? One of the things that you want to look at is how many times

18:10did you actually have a situation where a back got hit in the backfield or a back didn't get to the line of scrimmage before he was having to elude somebody. And in this game, that really didn't happen much, which tells you that the offensive line largely did their job. The thing that I still would rather see more of is not just a take the contact and fall forward for an extra yard and a half, I still want to see more broken tackles. I still want to see somebody essentially just flat out win the one on one in the hole. And we didn't see a lot of that. But in terms of the overall running game, I would say it was, you know, a B minus somewhere in there. And, you know, that's passing. But look, it could be worse. You could be Clemson right now. You could be last year's UNC right now. And so, you know, Jason, they were, had 102 yards on 13 first down rushing attempts. I

19:14averaged 7.8 yards, a carry on those first down running just on the run, not passing. Yeah. And beyond that, that's still with under three yards per carry after contact. So, what's that tell you on where they're getting before they even get touched? You're going, I was going, I was about to get in that point. You, J. Joe, true had two of the force, Miss force tackles or Miss tackles forced. And let me ask this, Jason, this is a question people have come up on the message boards. And even at the game is, why do you believe that hall is your starter versus a guy like McGill and even Demand June, who I've said a good day? When it feels like when it gets down in crunch time, if there's crunch time in a 35 to three win, that those guys are getting the reps rather than hall late. Is it a pass pro thing, you think, or what do you see in there? So, I think first of all, it's reliability.

20:20In terms of him being being the one who's the least bad at all of the things, whether that's pass protection, whether that's catching the football, whether that's route running, whether that's carry in the football, all of those things. He's the person that you can, that is most reliable and reliability matters a lot. I also am not sure, I mean, one of the things that's going to be charted during, during fall camp that we haven't seen that we don't know is who put the ball on the ground in fall camp. And I would bet a sizable portion of this month's inside Carolina paycheck that the guy that put the ball on the ground, the least is the starter. So now he did put the ball on the ground in this game. So, that's something to think about. But that's a

21:21that's the thing that they need to consider, or at least there was not a mist, there was not a fumble on a carry, but as I recall, there was a ball hitting the ground after hitting hands, so I'll just put it that way. So that that would be number one. Number two, though, is that that good coaches also distinguish between your starter and your finisher at this position. And, you know, we remember the days of Michael Carter and Javante Williams. Javante Williams, as you recall, did not start. Michael Carter was the starter. Javante Williams was the finisher. And I think they're kind of set up for Benjamin Hall to be the guy that is the starter and kind of softens teams up a bit and so on. And then, you know, you're they're figuring out who the finisher is going to be still. So I think that's a factor in all this.

22:21All right, last part of the offense, we talked a little bit about the receivers. Are we at Buck? Are we at the point where Jalani Thurman's just flat out stood? Or is it a combination of the Zadab Treeno? And let's go cover both of those points at one time. Thurman is just a massive target. And what a safety blanket for Edwards to have somebody that big who catches the ball as well as he does. You know, in on his lineup, the other piece of that is how many times did you see Thurman catch the ball when he was wide open? No, nobody within five yards of it. And that's Patrino. Patrino was scheming those plays up and you know, it was each Tennessee state. We probably should say that more often, you know, we're not talking about there and just did this

23:21against a high state or loss, but you get the point. This is not the best team there was going to play this year. So at the same time, I marveled at many times, not just with Thurman, but with other players. He'd have the entire East Tennessee state team moving in one direction and one player leaking out into the, you know, back in on the field. And that's where the ball, I mean, obviously, that's where the ball should go. But so many times that the Thurman and Paul and different players, they were mainly of been like five yards down field, but there was nobody in front of them. And they were well into space. Remember back in the day when it was Larry Fedora calling offences.

24:21And he would talk about short passes long gains. You need to get Greg Barnes talking about that on the game plan this week. It reminds me of that a lot that, you know, he's not these gains that he have. I mean, they have a lot of big plays. I guess what, 13 big plays, maybe 11 or so or 9 or so to one over 20 yards. Those passes didn't travel more than 10 yards in the air. And they would end up with 20 yards down, down field. So, and that's all Patrina. He is scheming that up. And, you know, what a asset to have, somebody that can scheme an offense that way so that the, he's making things easy on Edwards. That's why he's completing 75% of his passes because it's, you know, pitch and catch. And so I think those two things together, Thurman, being the huge target that he is,

25:22and Patrina was scheming up those plays that Boat's well for Thurman to have a big year. I hope so, because I was the one to pick the over on the touchdown. I've tied in touchdown receptions this year. I'd like to win that one. It's fascinating that the guy was what third or four string at his former school. And he's as good as he is. But Jason, talk about Thurman. You talk about sneets. Need as played well as played well as well. But Patrina to a book's point is refreshing. And somebody in the chat says just refreshing to watch sitting in blazing sun. Oh, Saturday, at least into the monsoon came. But Patrina, I mean, he's got a love having a tidy and light Thurman. Yeah, you can see how much he loves it by how much he directly schemes for him. I mean, you know who the playmakers are on Bobby Patrina's offense pretty quickly. I mean,

26:23Bucky wrote some columns about this in the off season that you know, Patrina's feed your studs, man. And you know, when you're, when you're calling your screen passes to your tight end, when you're doing, when you, you can see it actually that there are times where Patrina has this, he has this sense between, between series where you can tell he's evaluating how long it been since we got this guy the rock. And you'll see the first or second call of the next series is like, okay, we got to get, we got to get that guy back involved. And you know, Thurman keeps rewarding that. And you start to see that it's not just the athleticism, it's not just the, the size, the biggest thing is that he just does not drop the football. When he gets his hands on, he's got great hands. And we heard about that all camp that he has the best hands on the team.

27:23And on a team of Jordan ship that's saying a lot. So yeah, I mean, I think that, that, that adds a completely different dimension to your team because you can't just rely on him to be single covered if you're the defense. Now that opens things up for those other receivers. Now, I'm going to shift gears here a second. If I have a kind of concern at this point on the, at the wide receiver, you know, passing game situation, you know, Thurman's been, been, excellent. You know, you know what you got with Jordan ship. Through two games, I do feel like we, we still have an MIA on Mason Humphrey. Yeah, that was the negative of the show here is like, who's the two? Yeah, this is the guy that, you know, I felt coming into the season. You need to have the player who can stretch you, who can stretch the defense,

28:25who can run by you with, and force, force them to play a little bit over the top with, with respect. You know, you, you need to have that guy where speed happens as it were, right? So far, that hasn't come about so far, everything has been in that intermediate zone area. Everything has, you know, you're getting, you're getting some bigger plays, but they're on some verticals that are in that intermediate area. They're on over routes. You're seeing Jordan ship and, and Jolani Thurman and the backs and all of that doing their damage. But you still haven't really seen the take the top off the defense guy. And if I'm Patrino, if I'm Bellicic, that's something that I'm looking at in this week going, we need to make sure that teams have to respect that. And so far, that's been kind of a missing element of this offense. And that's been a huge element to pass

29:26Patrino offenses is that guy run and open down the field wide open on post post routes, things like that where you have, you know, that the speed merchant doing is doing his thing. And by the way, if you are the speed merchant on your way back home from, from a game, or you have to get your kid to a, to, to practice on time and you're just running a little late and you get a little bit led footed and you happen to get nailed by the cops because again, speed happens. You got to give the folks over at iTicket.law a call. I would say just go to the website, fill everything out, let them know your, your ticket information. They've worked for me. You know, they will make sure that you have someone who represents you in court in the state of North Carolina. You basically can set it and forget it. They'll make sure that that you get the minimum in terms of points, in terms of a lot of times you get your ticket knocked down. In my case, I got a ticket waived.

30:32It is well worth it. You end up not, not, not, not having to pay as much and they save you on your insurance. So give those guys a call. Tar Heel folks based in Chapel Hill. Really good company. And again, speed happens. You want to let them take care of it. And see if they let you have a do rag or a band or whatever. Jason's got to ask for the victory head gear. We all need that. All the bugs we're in a hat. Jason's got that. We're covering ball heads today. Let's flip it over. Let's flip it over to the did cracks me up every time. I did see they had adding Kenan Stadium, by the way. But you got anything left on the offense for a flip to the defense because I got to do. I do. I just to follow up on Jason's point. As far as long passing plays, North Carolina is fifth in the ACC in terms of passes of 10 yards or better. They've got 25. When you get to passes of 30 yards or more, they're dead last. They only have one.

31:41So that's a huge difference. So they only have one pass of over 30 while having 25 over 10. So that that verifies what Jason was talking about. When you look at it, last comment on that is Carolina needs that guy that can wave his hand and go like the Army Brown did against Clemson in 19. I mean, and it's relevant coming up against this Clemson team on Saturday. It's Carolina just needs a guy that can go. And I'm not sure that guys on the roster unless it's Jefferson that's got the speed. But if guys are open, Edwards needs to find them and Edwards is done well doing that. Let's talk defense. And Jason, I'll start with you on defense. So I started with Buck on offense. Xavier Lewis, somebody in the chat, probably pressed and pressed and you're always good for this, is Xavier Lewis going to at some point be everybody's favorite player. I put it. If you look at the

32:44thumbnail for this show, I put him on the front for sort of thumbnail. Jason, this guy is pretty good. And he is disruptive. And you had him and you got Mel Carte and you got Jalen Harvey out there. How good is this defensive line? I guess we'll find out more next week. But in your opinion, first two weeks of the season, how good are these guys on the defensive front? Because we said they had to be good for curling and having any success. Yeah, I mean, he's already my favorite player on the defense. You know, I like to, it's one of the things when you're watching a game. At certain points, you can't watch everything at once. Your eye has to go somewhere first. One of the things that I find myself doing at this point is pre-snap. I'm locating where that guy's lined up. And that's kind of how you know where where where the difference makers are. Does your eye, if you're watching a defense or whatever, does your eye gravitate toward one guy? Because you know that that guy is really

33:48important. He has become the guy where my eyes like, all right, he's lined up. All right, he's there. And then from there, I can kind of zoom out a little bit and then, you know, try to assess, okay, they're this coverage pre-snap. He's there. All right, they're coming here. They're probably going to have a stunt. All right. So that that tells you where you are. And I'm guaranteeing you coming into every week for the remainder of the season. Every offense is doing the same thing. You're going to identify the mic and you're going to identify where 90 is. And you know, that changes the defense. We've talked about this for years on the show that having a difference maker who can beat double teams up front radically changes what you can do defensively. And you know, coming into the year, we knew that Melcart was was a solid player. And he didn't even play in this one. But we knew Melcart was a solid player. We knew that

34:50Lee Roy Jackson is a solid player. We knew that Isaiah Johnson is, you know, able to hold his water at least on the interior to a large degree does get moved a little more than you'd like. We had some questions that those other pieces. And all of a sudden you add an Xavier Lewis, who is the best of the bunch and becomes a difference maker. And all those other guys' jobs get easier. And so yeah, he changes everything for them up front and just makes it easy. Now to think and to talk about this too, how many points in a week like this, when we're evaluating North Carolina, we shouldn't just be watching North Carolina. We also should be evaluating how, say, TCU did. Right? How many points did TCU score this weekend?

35:50I know, but did you see it? I did look at it earlier. It was in the 30s, I think. 63. 63. Okay. Yeah. So you're playing gambling, though. Yeah. Yeah. They were playing gambling, but they still. But that's what it gets there. Right. So what that does is that that then impacts, okay, what do I think of this defense? How, how do they, how did they look against TCU? And what is TCU actually? And, you know, some of that is gambling. Some of it's, you know, not playing with a wet ball. Some of it, you know, a variety of different things, but, but I am more persuaded after that, that that gambling offense is competent. Or geez, that that TCU offense is competent. And if they're competent, that again, forces us to evaluate how this front is going to hold

36:53up against everybody else or the remainder of the schedule. And it forces us to put what Xavier Lewis did to that front in perspective. So yeah, pretty good signs coming out of week two. But somebody used your term word, Eddie in there. Again, Preston Preston, let other people get in on the good stuff, man. You hitting everything into chat. Certainly a regular that is always with us. But you can talk defensive line. You can talk Peyton's film. And this is a game where you figured Peyton's film would be pretty good. And he was even on the long pass. Somebody mentioned in the chat. I mean, it was hell of a throw, hell of a catch. And the quarterback got rung up in the process. But at any rate, but your thoughts on the defense go wherever you want. Well, I start with last year when we talked about the defensive line, mostly where we focused on the improvement was at the defensive tackless fight. We were looking at the Leroy Jackson. And we were looking at Sims and

37:59the Andre Robinson, Isaiah Robinson, those guys on the inside. We're doing a great job. And and Melcart, you know, he got his, he made his hate against teams that really weren't as very strong. I mean, we've talked about that before in terms of Melcart's numbers in sacks last year and the rest. But this year, we're talking more about the ends. And Jalen Harder, I mean, just killing it. He was just all over the field yesterday. And then therefore, while I'd poor East Tennessee state, who would they going to put in there to try to stop him, he he was unblockable there for a long time. And Xavier Lewis, if he at this point, if he was on last year's team, I mean, he was on last year's team. But so far this year, he would have been fourth in sacks last year on last year's team.

39:04And fifth in tackles for loss at this point of the season after two games. It had been fourth in sacks, fifth in tackles for loss. For the season, like you're talking about. For the season for 12 games. So, you know, the sky's a limit for him. And we saw that TCU could not block him. I mean, if it was just came against these Tennessee state, that's one thing. But, you know, TCU couldn't get him blocked. And so, you know, I think when you put all those pieces of the puzzle together on the defensive line, Harvey and Lewis and the defensive tackles. And then you've got live-backer play. And I think everybody has been very pleased with McDonald and with sealant. I think there are a step up from what we had last year. And maybe a major step up from what we had last year. So, and then on the back end, you

40:07know, you got Gregory Smith. We haven't gotten around talking about him. He forced a fumble, recovered a fumble and had an interception to take away by Gregory Smith. So, the defense, their averaging giving up 6.5 game points a game. Yeah. 6.5 points per game. Fifth nationally. Take a picture that get pull that up on your computer, take a picture of it. I don't know if it's going to last. But, you might get into how great his offense has looked. That's true. The team that joined North Carolina for dead last and passes over 30 yards was Clemson. They haven't had a, they've only had one pass over 30 yards so far this year. And they're growing up when they're a rough. And they were savers or studs. And they're remember when they had receivers that were all 6.5 and about, you know, could run

41:074.4s and 4.3s. They were just amazing. But, you know, I think the defense, you can't really, at this point of the season, you see the potential that the defense has. Now, they're going to run into some teams like Miami and Notre Dame where they're not going to look as good. You know, we can might as well make our minds look about that. But I think they'll at least equip themselves with, I mean, even though, even though they may not win those battles, I think they're going to compete. And I think that's what everybody would ask for. Yeah, they're not going to, at least on appearance. And it's not going to be turned style like we've seen in the past sometimes when we're not going as defense. Jason, we talked about young guys getting some snaps. And we really talked about the quarterbacks, maybe when I look at the defense, though, and I'm going to go here with a union take it wherever you want to go. 27 guys on defense had 10 or more snaps. And I can

42:10know the fourth quarter and the rain delay. And I've never seen a line change like I saw in the fourth quarter yesterday. I mean, it's like they let the starters in the in the high depth chart guys, they just could have gone to the house and not even come out there for the fourth quarter. So that that jades a little bit. 27 guys got at least 10 snaps. And three more got eight and seven respectively. Your thoughts on what you saw from the defense and the whole as a whole. We didn't talk about breaks me that he certainly maybe the player to game alone is every Lewis. But the depth. Oh yeah, that guy's ridiculous. We can't forget him now. We did exactly 1190 and one had big ball games, but your thoughts on the whole and would you see from maybe some young guys that made you say, okay, they do have some depth here. And there's some there's some wiggle room if

43:11somebody goes down. Yeah, I mean, I still think this is a team that's going to depend on their on their starters. After watching what we saw, I think we saw some encouraging signs from Nico Magio. There are some opportunities that he had on the interior where he was able to to show some hand fighting and to move the line of scrimmage a little bit. This was this was the first Joseph Mopoy citing we've had in a while. He played what 24 snaps as well. And you know, he does not have a whole lot of explosiveness. But he did show that he can he can eat up some snaps and be competent, especially against the run. You know, across the board. I mean, I there was one point the the pass break up that Ade Willie had in the slot was one where it's like, Oh, okay, the movement skills there were were really good. And you know, that means that

44:11you've got some you've got some some comfort with your with your number two guy in the slot. And actually given how fluid he is, depending on the team, you may actually want him to be in their a little bit more in coverage. So, you know, there were there were pieces that I like to see. I mean, I think some of the other things I thought, you know, Tray Giddens was up and down. I thought, you know, some of the young linebackers, both inside and outside were their heads were swimming a little bit. You could see that. So, and you know, in fairness, all of this was also in the in the weird, you know, post delay situation as well. So, you kind of have to adjust for that. But on the whole, you know, you know, you know, dopsin got in there. And again, you can see the athleticism. There's some hope that that he can become something. So, you know, those are those are some of the guys that kind of my eye gravitated to to see see what they would look like. And

45:16there were some encouraging signs and then just some other signs that this is a young football team. And while they, you know, I like the athletes. And this is something that uh, you know, we heard on the broadcast as well from a from a former ACC coach who knows a little bit, I think, I mean, you know, I have a ton of respect for Dave Clawson. And when he's saying, you know, I've seen a lot of teams in the ACC and some, you know, just stand out to you when you when you watch him, it's like, okay, they look the part. And he said, you know, this team, this team really looks the part to me in a lot of ways. Uh, and I think that's true. I mean, in terms of the bodies, we talked about that in camp that the that the size of some of these young guys, especially, but the the overall body types that we're seeing in practice, there is a shift from two years ago and from last year that there's been some growth there. So, you know, that part, those are all things that I've noted. Now, I'm seeing comments in the in the chat,

46:16things like all the teams on the schedule remaining are beatable except for Notre Dame and Miami. And I'm going to correct that a little bit because both of those teams are beatable. Now, am I going to pick, I'm, you know, spoiler alert, am I going to pick North Carolina to be either team in the game plan podcast those weeks? No. But we have seen Notre Dame last year lost inexplicably. What was it? Northern Illinois? Yeah. I think, I think this North Carolina team is better than that Northern Illinois team. And so you can't rule it out. You, I would have ruled it out immediately last year, like no chance. You can't do it because you can't score and you can't do it because there's no chance of moving the football. And eventually, no matter how good you are in defense, you're just going to, you're going to, you're going to get blown out. And the same thing with Miami, Florida, I mean, how many games in the ACC have they lost under their current head coach,

47:20where they had no business losing that game. Right? There's always a belief. There's always that, that, that program has always had a blip. Now, I think with the quarterback they have this year, that's the least likely year that they've had in a long time where they're going to have, it's unlikely that they have that blip this year. But they might. And if they did, this is the kind of team with some dudes up front on defense on the defensive line, you know, able to force some turnovers on the back end and then just not turn it over on the, on the offensive side and, and play with some efficiency, that opens the door. Every game on the schedule is winnable. That doesn't mean every game on the schedule is likely to win. You're likely to lose, I mean, you're very likely to lose both of those games and lose them comfortably. But that's where we are. And I think that's a pretty big shift from prior seasons, the last two seasons, where that,

48:22that was not realistic. Yes, and I was, again, in the comments, and I was a flute game means nothing. The point is that those flute games exist. Yes. Right. It's college football. You never have the same team two weeks in a row. You never have the same team for 12 weeks. Those flute games happen. And what I'm saying is that this is the kind of UNC team that if they manage the football on the, on the offensive side and continue to play efficient ball there, there's enough that a flute game may emerge. Does that mean that I'm picking this team right now to go better than seven and five? I'm still sitting on my number right now. I'm still sitting on six and six. But I'm starting to nose a little toward, you know, maybe upgrading that a little bit based on what we've seen on the field. But I'm going to need to see more. For them to do better than that, they're going to have to go and beat Clemson next week. And, you know, good luck. It may happen. But close us out. Clemson, Carolina next week, noon and death alley is perfect timing for

49:25Carolina. Hopefully, if somebody said if we ever seen all these rain delays or teams getting rain delays, welcome to the summer in the south and the late summer. That's what happens. But close us out here, Carolina and Clemson, where are you thinking? What are you thinking? What are bookstops here? Columns going to be about this week as we build up to, I think, is a big, big game for the program. It is. And I think the number one thing I'm interested in is watching the game plan on Thursday night and see where everybody goes. I mean, that's going to be a riot to figure out or what everybody chooses to do. You know, when this year started out, Clemson in the FBI had a 76.5 wind probability over North Carolina. That has dropped to 53.3. And that's only because they're at home. So they have issues and they can't throw the ball deep very well. And so far, this defense,

50:30it'll be interesting to see what happens with Clemson because the thing about this defense that makes it so fascinating to watch is the defensive line, they can get pressure with four guys and drop seven on every single play. They don't have to rely upon a blitz to get to the quarterback. You got mail cart, you got Harvey, you got Lewis, you got guys that don't need any help getting to the quarterback. You know, they're just going to be hard chargers, which allows McDonald and Sealman and everybody in the secondary all in five of the DBs. They could be back there swarming like a bucket of minnows for the quarterback that they're all trying to throw a pass through. So that's the thing that it's going to be interesting to watch. And, you know, they're quarterback,

51:32they have got quarterback issues and, you know, Edwards is not Drake May, you know, he's not Tom Brady, even though a bellicic likes to compare the two on the negative play situations or whatever. But he's solid, you know, he's not spectacular, but he's committed, as Jason said, one turn over throw this entire year. If that kicks up against Clemson, then you've got to fight on your hands, I think. And, you know, this game is already in the margins. So I will be tuning in on Thursday night. Look for me in the chat to see what you and Jason and Greg have to say about it. Fascinating to watch. No pressure, right? No pressure. I'll be uploading that Clemson film to the shared drive this week. So we can all look at the Clemson all 22 as we're prepping for that. So, uh,

52:36but you, Tommy and Greg and I and the rest of the team will be breaking that down. I'm sure with some slack messages, I think, this week. Absolutely. The thing about the Clemson game that is a little bit concerning is those receivers are good. And they get open. And somebody's going to figure it out. I still remember last year, Carolina and Clemson, Clemson Stunt last year for the most part. And they flat out beat Dogman aside of Carolina in the stadium. It's a different team and a different defense for Carolina. But we'll see. But to your point, we'll see if those predictions change. Games are worn on the margins and Bill Belichick, Bobby Patrino, coaching staff. And they got some talent to win in the margins. Jason, I'm going to get us out of here. We'll talk more on the game plan on Thursday night, 9 p.m. Stay tuned for Greg Barnes and me on IC Daily's this week. We had fun with IC Daily's last week with differing folks on the shows. If you need your basketball fix, there's a lot of basketball

53:40players in Chapel Hill and in the Kenan Stadium on Saturday. It was fun to watch. Everybody come home for a union. Of course, Caleb Wilson, Fronten Center. But Joey and Sherelle and Sean and the Coast Coast crew live tonight at 8 o'clock for your basketball fix of the week. Johnny T-shirt and Johnny T-shirt.com of course is always the place you go to support local, to support inside Carolina sponsors. You get 10% off. I'll ticket that law if you can't control your speed because speed happens. But Jason, everybody in the chat is always fun, folks. Enjoyed seeing people on Saturday and enjoyed the, hope everybody got home safely because you about need in the dark. We get out of Chapel Hill on Saturday, so hope everybody got there. Everybody stay safe.