North Carolina football did a lot of good things on offense in 2014. But playing mistake-free football was not one of them.
UNC committed an average of 7.6 penalties per game in 2014 — costly errors that held back one of the most explosive offenses in the country.
“Last year it was a false start here, false start there, holding penalty here or a delay of game penalty there,” said redshirt senior quarterback Marquise Williams. “Just some of the stuff that shouldn’t be happening.”
This offseason, correcting those mistakes was a point of emphasis for Head Coach Larry Fedora and his staff. Through five games in 2015, the team is seeing good results. UNC averages five penalties for only 38.6 yards a game, which ties it with Vanderbilt for 14th in the nation, compared to 63.2 yards per game in 2014.
“That’s helped our offense in a big way; we’re way more efficient this year than last year,” senior wide receiver Quinshad Davis said.
This decrease comes even while UNC has played in tougher environments — such as the season opener against South Carolina in Charlotte and Saturday’s 38-31 win on the road against Georgia Tech.
Against the Yellow Jackets, the Tar Heels went to a silent count to try to neutralize the crowd noise. Thanks to an experienced offensive line led by junior Lucas Crowley, redshirt junior Caleb Peterson and redshirt senior Landon Turner, the team had only six penalties for 42 yards.
“It puts a lot of pressure on the guards to make calls they usually wouldn’t make, but that’s not a huge deal to them,” Crowley said. “Everyone knows the positions and knows the plays and calls and things like that.”
