North Carolina football coach Larry Fedora gave his players the day off Tuesday to “get their school clothes laid out” and to get through their first day of classes.
He thought the Tar Heels would return to practice Wednesday with a renewed energy.
He thought wrong.
“It wasn’t very good,” Fedora said after Wednesday’s practice. “It wasn’t good enough — I can tell you that. It’s not anything the way we practiced like during camp.”
Fedora’s rigorous fall camp came to an end Monday, giving the Tar Heels a quick break before beginning gameday preparation. The first-year UNC head coach said that the Tar Heels returned Wednesday with a lack of focus and intensity — something he’ll look to correct by Thursday’s practice.
With the start of the season less than two weeks away, UNC will certainly need to get back on track quickly.
The Tar Heels will open at home against Elon on Sept. 1, and the upcoming practices will be geared toward preparing for that matchup.
“All tomorrow, everything will be Elon,” Fedora said. “But we just did some basic things today.”
Even though the Tar Heels didn’t get through those “basic things” with the kind of intensity Fedora likes to see, Fedora said he’s still pleased with the progress his players have made overall.
“I don’t want to let today’s practice ruin what we did in camp because we really did some nice things in camp,” Fedora said.
“I expected them to come back out here focused today. We just didn’t get that.”
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