MIAMI GARDENS, FLA — On Saturday at Sun Life Stadium, the North Carolina football team earned its second win conference win in a row with a 18-14 win against Miami. Here are some of the highlights from the post-game reaction.
Raining Yellow Flags
For the second game in a row the Tar Heels were hit with 15 penalty flags. Against Virginia Tech those penalties cost the 126 yards but in Miami on Saturday those 15 flags pushed UNC back 140 yards.
Coach Larry Fedora doesn’t even really know why the Tar Heels are still giving up this many yards this late in the season.
“I’ll just say that we need to continue to keep getting better in that area,” Fedora said. “I don’t know why it’s happening. It’s not like that we we’re not emphasizing it in practice. we’re not still coaching the fundamentals. I don’t know. I’m going to have to go back and evaluate each and every one and determine what the reasons are.”
Down Goes Morris
Around mid way through the fourth quarter, Miami’s quarterback Stephen Morris had to be helped off the field after he collapsed with a leg injury near his own sideline. It was a non-contact injury but he did not return to the game.
“I have no idea. I heard it was an ankle,” Miami head coach Al Golden said. “Obviously he couldn’t return in the game. I’ll go back after this and try to get a report.”
Golden then said that Morris would undergo further examination Saturday night.
Back-up Ryan Williams came in and performed admirably. He gave the Hurricanes a chance in the end and ended up throwing for 80 yards while completing nine of 13 attempts.
“He moved us,” Golden said. “We just needed a couple more plays. Obviously we can’t take a sack in that situation, but he did move us well. We had an opportunity, and we just didn’t finish. We had too many missed opportunities today to win today against a good team.”
Triangle Two-Step
In the second quarter the Tar Heels caught the Hurricanes off guard with a two-point conversion after Giovani Bernard’s second touchdown of the game.
“We have variety of formations down there in that area of the field and we’ve been doing it all year,” Fedora said. “We gave a different formation this week. They covered it the first time we were out there, the second time somebody just didn’t realize what was going on. And Tommy Hibbard made a nice play.
“If you think about it, that’s the difference. They could have been kicking a field goal other times and they had to score.”
Golden didn’t recall the play quite as fondly.
“We work on it all the time, and it’s just really disappointing,” Miami’s coach said. “One of our safeties ran off the field, and I don’t know why. I’m guessing we had 10 on the field. Regardless, we should be able to cover down. It’s disappointing we have some guys that don’t know how to react in that situation.
“It’s something that we cover often. We covered it on Thursday. We cover it all the time in training camp. We didn’t execute it.”
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