UNC is tackling the issue of missing tackles ahead of facing Mataeo Durant and Duke
The magic number for North Carolina’s defense is 10.
When an opponent gets more than that , the likelihood of a Tar Heels’ win diminishes greatly. When they can keep an opponent less than the number, UNC coach Mack Brown expects they’ll be positioned to win.
“Those” are missed tackles. A week ago, Carolina’s defense had 13 missed tackles against Georgia Tech, a 38-22 loss on the road.
In Saturday’s rivalry game against Duke (3-1, 0-0 ACC), the Heels (2-2, 1-2) will face one of the best running backs in the ACC in Mataeo Durant, who is sure to put that theory to the test. Durant is the second-leading rusher in the ACC with 522 yards and eight rushing touchdowns. He’s got three scoring runs of more than 50 yards this season.
“The offense actually runs around him. If he’s doing well, their whole offense is going to do well,” UNC linebacker Tomon Fox said. “Everything is set up after his big plays. They’re able to pass the ball because of him. He’s going to be able to extend drives by himself. He’s just a great player we’re going to have to contain.”
Duke is a different team than the one UNC blasted 56-24 last season in Wallace-Wade Stadium. Fox said the biggest difference the Blue Devils have shown from last year is they are more explosive in the run game and that is all attributed to Durant.
Last season, Durant rushed for 132 yards against the Heels including a 46-yard score.
“Last year at halftime against him, we said look, don’t think for a minute that we can relax,” UNC co-defensive coordinator Jay Bateman said. “Sure enough, he popped a long one on us. We misread a split zone play. He’s fast. He’s tough. When he gets his shoulder square, he’s a very hard guy to tackle.”
That’s bad news for UNC if it can’t clean up the mistakes in its run defense from last week’s loss in Atlanta. Linebacker Jeremiah Gemmel lamented after the game that the Heels had a couple of players playing the wrong call on Sims’ 50-yard touchdown run.
Linebacker Eugene Asante had a chance to stop Sims at the line of scrimmage on his 38-yarder, but one hesitation move got Asante off balance enough that Sims ran right past him down to the UNC 1.
Carolina got the benefit of an inadvertent whistle that blew dead a Dontae Smith run in the fourth quarter that could have led to a 60-yard run. Smith appeared to be wrapped up and heading to the ground, but used his arm on the turf to keep his balance and his knee never touched the ground, but the official had mistakenly ruled Smith.
Brown said Yellow Jackets’ quarterback Jeff Sims and running back Jahmyr Gibbs “as good as anybody in the country.”
“Part of the tackling problems on Saturday night with Georgia Tech we’re Sims and Gibbs -- they’re really good and they’re gonna make a lot of people miss,” Brown said. “We needed to have more people there to do it and then we had some structural things that we didn’t do. We’re still making too many mistakes we were making five mistakes of events, it seems like all five are really really costing us, but we work on tackling every day.”
Duke quarterback Gunnar Holmberg can make plays in the running game, but fortunately for the Heels’ defense, he’s not as hard to corral as Sims was last week.
Sims rushed for 128 yards and three scores despite only playing for 33 minutes. He was the first quarterback to rush for more than 100 yards against UNC since Jordan Travis gained 107 yards with two touchdowns in Florida State’s 31-28 win over the Heels on Oct. 17, 2020.
“Three of the runs of 130 yards rushing with with Sim’s were mistakes or missed tackles and we just can’t do that,” Brown said. “We’ve got to have fewer mistakes and and do a better job of tackling.”
The Blue Devils lead the ACC in rushing offense, averaging 247 yards per game; yards per rush at 5.29 yards per run; rushing attempts (187) and with 17 rushing touchdowns.
“(Duke coach David) Cutcliffe and his staff have always been committed to running the tailback and they got a really good one,” Bateman said. “Certainly if you don’t stop the running back against these guys, you’re going to have a hard day for sure.”
This story was originally published October 1, 2021 at 7:00 AM.