Labor deja vu: UNC, Fedora in same position they were a year ago

It was another Labor Day, and another day of explaining play-calling and why Elijah Hood didn’t receive more work – another day of Larry Fedora, the North Carolina coach, expressing optimism after another defeat in another prominent season-opening game against an SEC opponent.

Last year the scene played out after the Tar Heels began the season with a sloppy loss against South Carolina. A year later, on Monday, it was more of the same when Fedora met with reporters days after his team’s 33-24 defeat against Georgia on Saturday in Atlanta.

“All right,” Fedora said when he stepped behind a lectern. “Sun came up yesterday, if you guys weren’t aware.”

Fedora and his players have embraced a “the-season-will-go-on” mentality since they walked off the field and out of their locker room at the Georgia Dome on Saturday night. And yet questions persist about the play-calling and about Hood’s role, in particular.

They are familiar questions, reminiscent of the ones that surrounded UNC about a year ago. Back then, Fedora was left to explain how Hood, the running back who is arguably the team’s best player, was on the sideline during a critical late-game sequence when UNC had a chance to take the lead against South Carolina.

This time Fedora was left to explain why Hood received only 10 carries on Saturday – and why the Tar Heels didn’t run more, overall, given their success with the run relative to the pass. Against Georgia, UNC attempted 19 runs and averaged 8.4 yards on those 19 plays.

It wasn’t nearly as successful passing, and yet the Tar Heels attempted 40 passes and passed more than twice as often as they ran. That wasn’t exactly the plan entering Saturday, Fedora said, though he and the coaching staff didn’t arrive in Atlanta with a set number of running plays in mind, either.

“We don’t really go into a game plan saying let’s throw it this many times, let’s run it this many times,” Fedora said. “It’s more dictated on what the defense does, and how we’re performing in the game. If we were running the ball effectively, then we probably would have run the ball quite a bit more, actually.”

Inconsistent offense

The numbers, though, suggest the running game was successful. T.J. Logan, the senior running back who gained 80 yards on six carries, scored on a 21-yard touchdown run in the third quarter, and he also broke free for a 35-yard run. Hood at one point escaped for a 32-yard run.

UNC’s longest passing play, meanwhile, went for 23 yards. The Tar Heels ran for 159 yards and passed for 156 – that despite attempting 21 more passes than runs. Fedora said the offense was “too inconsistent” to place more of an emphasis on the run.

“When you start getting behind the chains every time, and you’re in long-yardage situations, it’s tough to just sit in there and say, OK, we’re going to run the football,” Fedora said. “I mean, I’ve never done that and I probably never will. It’s just not my philosophy.”

Aside from Logan’s 95-yard kickoff return for a touchdown on Saturday night, UNC had 11 possessions. On six of those 11 possessions, the Tar Heels’ first play was a pass.

Half of those passes fell incomplete. The longest completion gained six yards. Overall, UNC attempted a passing play 15 times on first down. On those 15 plays it gained 67 yards. Meanwhile, the Tar Heels gained 111 yards the 11 times they ran on first down.

UNC’s offense is based on the quarterback’s ability to read a defense and make the correct call before the snap. Rarely, Fedora said, does the coaching staff call a specific running play. Far more often, quarterback Mitch Trubisky decides the play – pass or run – based on the alignment of the defense.

“In our typical play-call system, a lot of times a run is tagged with a pass,” Fedora said. “And so it’s based on what he sees defensively. If he sees what he wants he can throw it. If he doesn’t see what he wants, he can run it.”

Missed chances

Fedora conceded that at times Georgia simply disguised what it was doing defensively. In those instances in which Georgia might have wanted UNC to pass, for instance, the Bulldogs could have initially lined up in an alignment that appeared susceptible to the pass, and then changed after the snap.

Trubisky attempted several deep passes that didn’t connect. Some were overthrown or under-thrown. Some were simply well-defended.

“If we had two of those deep balls (connect) where we got behind them, it would’ve been a different ballgame,” said Trubisky, who was making his first college start. “And I don’t know how it happened, because we were hitting the deep balls all week in practice.”

Again, though, for the second consecutive season the Tar Heels were left to wonder what might have been. It’s similar to how it was last year after UNC endured that sloppy season-opening loss against South Carolina.

Now UNC, after a defeat so similar to the one at the start of last season, is hoping for a similar response. After the South Carolina loss, UNC won 11 consecutive games, won the Coastal Division and played in the ACC Championship game.

“It can be done, and we’ve done it,” Naz Jones, the junior defensive tackle, said on Monday. “But we can’t lean on that to just say, oh, we did it last year, we’re just going to waltz in and do it again.”

Fedora hasn’t had to remind his players of the precedent. Those who were around to experience it, like Jones, remember well what happened at the start of last season. They remember, too, what came after.

“They do have a little bit of intelligence,” Fedora said with a laugh.

This story was originally published September 5, 2016 at 4:10 PM with the headline "Labor deja vu: UNC, Fedora in same position they were a year ago."