The offensive players on the North Carolina football team were made available Tuesday for the first time since UNC's 56-29 victory against Liberty Saturday night. Here are three things we learned after practice.
Marquise Williams embracing starting role
After weeks of speculation and the buzz around who would get the starting quarterback nod between Marquise Williams and Mitch Trubisky, Williams is settling into the role. While coach Larry Fedora didn't make his decision public until Saturday before the game, Williams said he's known for about two weeks that he would get the start.
"I came out and I worked my butt off. I feel like I deserve the spot where I'm at, I worked every day," Williams said. "That was all the talk around our school and around this football (team) — the competition of the quarterback battle. And I loved it."
Williams said that even though he has been named the starter, Trubisky continues to push him in practice each and every day. While Williams has experience in the starting role — taking over after Bryn Renner went down last season — Trubisky is in his first year of play at the collegiate level.
"I give that dude credit, man," Williams said. "He's one of the hardest working players on our team, ad he pushed me to be great ... all hats go off to Mitch even though I am the starter."
UNC looking to cut down on penalties
The Tar Heels racked up 10 penalties for 60 yards Saturday against Liberty, something that the coaching staff hopes to have a remedy for moving forward through the season.
Offensive line coach Chris Kapilovic suggested that some of those penalties were the product of a sloppy second half, while others were the result of rotating players in and out of different positions. The Tar Heels played 67 different players Saturday.
"We changed centers and he had two of them, and then Lucas Crowley had two of them in the second half," Kapilovic said. "One time he's making the call and the quarterback's saying his cadence so he hears it late — can't do that. And then the second time he just kind of twitched and that was on him. To me that's just a lack of focus."
Kapilovic said the offensive line paid a heavy price for those penalties, and that they'll continue to do so until the problem is fixed.
"A lot of running and pain and suffering," he said. "All the thing big guys don't like."
Night game atmosphere beneficial for recruiting
Saturday's season opener against Liberty in Kenan Memorial Stadium saw 51,000 fans in attendance for a 6 p.m. kickoff. Fedora has expressed his excitement for later kickoffs, and the atmosphere inside of the stadium Saturday night showed why.
The Tar Heels will have another night game Saturday, this time against San Diego State at 8 p.m.
"We're never going to be satisfied until that thing is packed to the gills and people are hanging from the rafters. It's a start, it definitely was a positive sight," quarterbacks coach Keith Heckendorf said. "It helps recruiting tremendously. The more people we have in the seats, the better atmosphere it creates and the more high school student-athletes want to come to North Carolina.
"We can say whatever we want, but that's definitely an influential factor for them. When they walk into that stadium and they see it jam-packed, that's a pretty big deal for a high school kid."
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