Halftime defensive adjustments spark UNC's 26-13 win over Virginia

After he watched his defense allow a supposedly-feeble Virginia offense 226 yards during the first half on Saturday, Gene Chizik, the defensive coordinator in his first season at North Carolina, walked into the locker room calm as always and ready to teach.

Chizik, some of his players said on Saturday, follows the same routine week after week during halftime. He enters the room, never raises his voice – despite how poorly his defense might be playing – and explains how the opposition is hurting the defense before explaining how to fix it.

“It was four plays today, that he wrote on the board,” Tar Heels senior linebacker Jeff Schoettmer said after UNC’s 26-13 victory on Saturday at Kenan Stadium. “And we saw those exact same four plays in the second half and we just played them so much better. So he’s not in your face yelling at you.

“He’s, ‘Let’s get this corrected. … This is what we’ve got to do to win. And let’s get to it.’”

The Tar Heels got to it, to borrow Schoettmer’s phrase, often during the second half and especially during the decisive fourth quarter, when they forced four of Virginia’s five turnovers and erased any hopes, finally, of an upset. UNC’s second-half defensive success on Saturday wasn’t an anomaly.

For the second consecutive game, UNC didn’t allow a point in the second half. The Tar Heels have allowed 10 second-half points in their past three games. And only 45 second-half points in seven games this season.

“Our coaches do a great job at halftime,” UNC coach Larry Fedora said. “And it’s not about all the adjustments and speeches and all that. It’s really just staying calm and being patient with the guys and talking them through what’s really happening, and then letting them adjust to it.”

UNC’s second-half defensive performance – it allowed 127 yards and an average of 3.6 yards per play after halftime – allowed to the Tar Heels to overcome their sloppiest game of the season, one marred by a barrage of penalties, some of which wiped away big plays and negated scoring chances.

“Sloppy” was one of the first words out of Fedora’s mouth when he greeted reporters afterward. Down a hallway a little later, Marquise Williams, the Tar Heels’ fifth-year senior quarterback, was talking as if he felt like his team got away with one.

“It was real ugly,” he said after UNC committed a season-high 13 penalties for 135 yards. “But, hey, I’ll take it.”

The victory, in some ways, provided proof of how far the Tar Heels have come in their first seven games. A year ago, Williams and some of his teammates acknowledged, UNC likely wouldn’t have been able to overcome so many mistakes.

There was an illegal man downfield penalty that wiped away a 22-yard gain, and a first down on the Virginia 13-yard line, on UNC’s first drive. And then, on its final drive before halftime, an offensive pass interference penalty that erased a 53-yard completion that would have had UNC on the Cavaliers’ 1-yard line.

Yet amid all the mistakes and miscues, the Tar Heels did what they’ve done the past several weeks: they simply overcame them and moved on. Williams afterward wondered whether UNC could have won a game like this last year before he said, “Honestly, I don’t think so.”

But last year is last year. And this year the Tar Heels are proving they’re nothing like what they were.

“It just means we’re a tough bunch of guys,” Elijah Hood, the sophomore running back, said of winning ugly. “I mean, we’ve been down 21 points (and won at Georgia Tech), we’ve had a penalty-ridden game and won. We’ve completely (come) out and beat people.

“We started slow and won games. We’ve won in a lot of ways.”

Hood ran for 101 yards and two touchdowns and Williams passed for 226 yards and ran for 71 more. They provided most of the Tar Heels’ offensive highlights.

Yet it was UNC’s defense – rebuilt and reprogrammed, mentally, in Chizik’s first season – that had the biggest say in the Tar Heels’ sixth consecutive victory. The winning streak is UNC’s longest since 1997, and its 6-1 start is the best since then, too.

That year the Tar Heels had one of the best defenses, if not the best, in school history. The one this season includes a lot of players motivated by the painful memories of what happened a year ago, when UNC fielded one of the worst defenses in school history.

Shakeel Rashad, the senior linebacker, spoke on Saturday of the talent Chizik and his staff have for adjustments. For teaching amid tense moments, like after the Tar Heels had allowed all those yards in the first half.

“We put in a lot of things through spring football and training camp, just kind of tools we call it – tools for our toolbox,” Rashad said. “We may not use them for a while. But then we come in at halftime, we say this play’s hurting us, let’s break out this tool.”

Virginia’s Daniel Hamm, for instance, broke free for a 53-yard run in the first quarter. The Cavaliers tried a few more times later in the game to repeat the play’s success, Schoettmer said, but by then UNC had long made adjustments.

Chizik, Schoettmer said, speaks to players “like grown men.” The sense of panic that pervaded the defense a season ago has dissipated, replaced by a calm confidence. A season ago, amid 13 penalties, amid long gains wiped away by mistakes, UNC might have lost a game like this.

But, Schoettmer said, “There’s no comparison to last year, that’s all I’m saying. It’s fun.”

He was describing how the defense adjusts at halftime, but he could have been speaking about a lot of things.

This story was originally published October 24, 2015 at 9:40 PM with the headline "Halftime defensive adjustments spark UNC's 26-13 win over Virginia."