Jay Bateman pleased with coverage, effort at Wake Forest; excited for future in secondary

The Carolina defensive coordinator said the Tar Heels made the same mistakes other teams have against the Deacons

How did the loss of Jason Strowbridge affect your gameplan?

You always prepare for the worst-case scenario. For a while there, we thought he might play some, so we kind of went in thinking if he played at all, we’d try to get him on third downs some. I don’t think it affected us a lot. Obviously, Jason is a really good player, but I thought Xach (Gill) and Ray (Vohasek) battled pretty good in there when they were in there. Wake forest did a good job of not allowing a lot of one-on-one pass-rush opportunities, so I don’t know how much it would have made a big difference, really.

What is Eli Drinktwitz doing different from Scott Satterfield offensively?

Eli is running his offense, which is really good. It’s what he did at N.C State; you can watch it and pretty much put it together. It’s a little bit hard to tell, because I don’t think they’ve been super-challenged the first two games. I thought Charlotte did a good job battling at the end, but in the first game, they could just kind of hand the ball off and have a lot of success.

We’ve told our kids already that we’ve got to be prepared for a lot more offense than is on film and I think that’s going to be the challenge. We’re watching a lot of N.C. State film and applying it to their personnel, seeing where we think the two things mesh.

What did you do to adjust to Wake Forest’s RPO success?

I think you’ve got to give Wake Forest credit, they do a really good job. We preached all week and we showed them all week and we made some of the same mistakes other people have made, which I think is a tribute to their coaching. Once we settled down and got them to stay in the right run fits and slow down a little bit; they make you play kind of passive in the front and that’s hard for kids to do sometimes.

I think we kind of got into some calls that cleaned the picture up for our linebackers and that made it easier, too.

Did pass coverage improve throughout the game?

Obviously, the 52-yard touchdown, we didn’t cover anybody, so we covered better after that.

I thought we were in good shape. All those throws were really contested throws and they made good catches. I knew going in they were going to bang a couple of those; I’ve got a lot of respect for that quarterback and Sage. Going in, we knew that was going to happen a couple of times, I just wish it hadn’t happened on the 3 and 13.

There were probably four or five times in that game there was one-on-one throws, and they won a couple and we won a couple. I kind of thought that going in. I thought if we could stop the run and end up 50/50 on those throws, we’d have a chance to win the game.

On what the return of Corey Sutton gives App State’s offense

He’s a really talented kid. I think (Thomas) Hennigan, No. 5, is really talented. Any time you get two receivers on both sides that are both really talented guys that are both bigger guys, it gives you some concern.

Watching him in our offseason study from the summer, he’s a really talented kid. ACC player, I think. I wish he’d sat out one more week.;

On whether he was pleased with the performance of Trey Morrison, Greg Ross and Storm Duck

I told them, ‘We’re going to play press-man, you’re going to get beat once or twice and you’re going to have to make plays once or twice.’ I think that’s how the game went.

I think the story of the game was us giving up a 52-yard touchdown on an unbalanced check. I think if we don’t give that up, I think we’re in a much better situation at the end of the game. I’ve got a ton of confidence in Trey; I thought Greg played very well and they took a couple of shots at him and he played very well. I’ve got a lot of confidence in those kids.

On developing depth at corner

We’ve got two scout team corners I think would start for a lot of people. A year from now, you get Bryce, who started 14 games at Virginia Tech, and you get Kyler, who was top-100 kid in the country, 150 kid in the country, who I think are both really talented. Then, a year from now, you get Patrice back from an injury and it becomes, ‘Boy, who’s not going to play?’ which, as a coach, is a great situation. I’m very confident moving forward.

Don Chapman and Cam Kelly are two young safeties that are going to be dynamite players. I’m excited about our secondary moving forward. When we first got here and we looked at it, there was a little bit of a gap in our depth in the secondary. We had some really good older kids, which we do, that are playing for us right now and playing well. Then, I felt like there was a little bit of a gap in the next group of kids and I think we’ve addressed that pretty well.

On whether he’s satisfied with the progression of Jeremiah Gemmel and Chazz Surratt

I don’t know if you’re ever satisfied.

Jeremiah, I think, has improved every day that I’ve coached him. Saturday, I thought he played well; I thought he played really, really well against Miami. Tommy Thigpen and I were talking about him Sunday; I feel very confident when he’s out there that we’re going to be in the right call, that things the opponent is doing that we’ve identified as a tendency or a rule-breaker, he’s going to identify those for the defense. He’s a really bright kid and I think his future is really, really bright.

Chazz didn’t play as well (Friday). I think Chazz pressed a little bit on Friday and he’s got to learn at linebacker, you can’t. At quarterback, the ball is in your hand every time and you can force the issue a little bit. At linebacker, you’ve got to kind of do your job and the ball will find you. Once he settled down in the second half, our run defense got a little better because of that. Chazz is still fundamentally improving as a linebacker, but he is super talented.