UNC football talks Trubisky draft stock and bye week at weekly press conference

North Carolina head football coach Larry Fedora, senior cornerback Des Lawrence and redshirt junior quarterback Mitch Trubisky spoke with the media Monday inside the Kenan Football Center for the team’s weekly press conference. 

Here’s what you missed.

Much-needed rest

The Tar Heels took advantage of their bye week, resting starters and giving practice time and experience to players lower on the depth chart. 

Both Fedora and Lawrence said the bye week came at an opportune time.

“It’s at this point in the season where you’re always gonna have some bumps and bruises,” Lawrence said. “Your body is gonna be as fresh as you want it to be, so there’s a lot of rest and rehab on your own.”

Fedora said the coaching staff used Friday to recruit and Saturday to watch as much football as possible, a luxury he doesn’t normally have. He said he watched as a fan, but it can be hard to stop watching games analytically.

“I keep a pad of paper right next to me,” he said. “By the end of the night, I got all kinds of things written down — just ideas that come up, things I think I could steal or implement. You can learn something from every game that’s out there.”

Lawrence and Trubisky also took advantage of their free time on Saturday to watch football, but both viewed the games more casually than their coach.

“It was really nice not to have to do anything,” Trubisky said. “I was just watching it as a fan. I was really just relaxing.”

Triple threat

Fedora said his team used the extra practice days to prepare for Georgia Tech — which faces UNC at 12:30 p.m. on Saturday — and the unconventional triple-option offensive scheme it presents. 

“We probably spent two practices that we wouldn’t have gotten,” he said. “It’s something that’s totally different, and that’s one of the advantages they have — that your kids never see (the scheme) except for one week.”

Since UNC sees the Yellow Jackets once a year, Lawrence said he feels more comfortable facing such a dynamic threat than in years past.

"It’s always going to be different once you line up against them, because their speed and tempo of the way that they play is always different than what you practice against,” he said. “I think that our mindset is a little different from last year (with) being able to understand what we have to do.”

Trubisky climbing the ranks

Perhaps the biggest news over the bye week was ESPN’s Mel Kiper Jr. listing Trubisky as his highest-rated quarterback among those eligible for the 2017 NFL Draft. 

Trubisky — a redshirt junior who can declare for the draft after this season or return for one more year— was listed as the 14th-best player in the draft on Kiper’s rankings. 

The quarterback said he has tried to ignore the attention, but the combination of social media and jokes from teammates can make that difficult. Even Lawrence joined in, snapping a few pictures of Trubisky surrounded by media before he left.

“It’s all about controlling what I can control and focusing on each week,” Trubisky said. “If I have that opportunity at the end of the season to have that decision whether to go or to stay, that’ll be a blessing in and of itself.”

Fedora, unsurprisingly, brushed aside questions about his quarterback’s accolades.

“We’ll see what happens at the end of the season, and we’ll address it at that point, he said. “I think it’s so important as a player that you don’t get caught up.

“All that matters is that we’re in a position early in the month of November of reaching our goals.”

sports@dailytarheel.com