Phil Longo Talks Challenge of Pitt Defense, Polino's Return and UNC's Effort
North Carolina's coordinators met with reporters on Monday for the first time since the Tar Heels' loss to Virginia on Nov. 2.
After an open week, the Tar Heel return to action on Thursday night at Pittsburgh. Here's what offensive coordinator Phil Longo had to say about Carolina's progress over its week off and looking ahead to the Panthers.
You look back at UVA nine days ago. What was the plan learning from that and getting prepared for Pittsburgh during the break?
Well I will say the first bye week that we had during the season, I thought Coach Brown had a great plan. We got a lot out of the first week, the bye week. We improved a lot of things. We went back to fundamentals. So really the format for this week was we make corrections or upgrades or change some things from the Virginia game. And we started a little bit earlier game planning Pitt because this bye week came before a Thursday night game and not a Saturday afternoon or evening game.
And so we probably got into Pit maybe last Wednesday and Thursday instead of later in the week. And so now, I mean tomorrow is a polish day and then we'll be ready for Thursday night.
UNC has had recent success against Pitt. Do you take anything from that winning streak?
No, I mean, no offense, that's more of a media or a PR or a statistics thing. What happened in the past has no bearing on this game. So our focus is on what does Pitt do well on defense? What do we have to do to attack them? And the only focus the last two weeks has been on putting the plan together to win this game. That's it.
Speaking of that Pitt defense, what's the challenge in working against quarters coverage?
What's the challenge? The Pitt defense is, they're very, very good. They're ranked tenth in the nation right now, I think they're seventh in passing and sixth in rushing or vice versa. And they've got some great numbers. They've kept people's points and yardage down. They do a great job on third down, they do a great job in the red zone. So when you're facing a defense like this, our approach to this week with the caliber of a talent athlete that we see on the defensive side, it really just reminds me of maybe the way we prepared for the Clemson game. And I think we've had good focus and good effort and I think we have a great plan that the staff put together. So we'll polish it tomorrow and then get everything reviewed and then we're going to have to play.
This is a very, very physical defense. They're very physical up front. I think there are a lot better than they were last year. They pursue well, they stay home, they don't give up a lot of trick plays. They don't make a lot of mental mistakes. And you’ve got to be good on the back end to play quarters the way they do and they are, so they're a good coverage team. The corners are out on an island, but they're very, very good and they're going to challenge our receivers. And I think the front seven's as good as almost any that we played this year.
It's taken him a while to get his defense to kind of play to his standard. What do you think finally clicked there this year?
Well, in previous jobs you've seen the defense get better over time and he's gone through the same process at Pitt and they really look like what he did at the previous job. They really do. And they're good at it. And it really stems from, it's predicated on being extremely physical upfront. They're not very multiple. They'll do enough to make you think. But they know what the weaknesses are to their defense. So areas of the field that look like they are there, they know how to squeeze the grass and defend areas that should be weak in quarters and in some of the other things that they do. And like anything else, I think anytime you have a front four like they do, it provides you with the ability to do some things because you don't necessarily need the pressure to make the quarterback feel uncomfortable. Their front four's good enough to be able to do that on their own at times. And so that's going to be the No. 1 challenge is the battle on the line of scrimmage.
Nick Polino got on the field against UVA. How much more ready is he to give you snaps this week and how much better does that make that group?
It does. It adds more depth. I think he practiced X amount of reps that week and probably the number of reps he got in the game correlated with what he did in practice. He was a lot more active these last two weeks. I think he's feeling good. I talked with him at lunch the other day and I just said, ‘how are you really feeling? Are you back to 100 percent.’ He feels good. And I think he's just kind of worked himself back into practice and playing mode here. And so he's on the two deep to get reps and help us. And I think it does, it gives us some depth that we missed earlier on in the season…
I don't think he'll start, but starting on the O-line or at any position here really isn't... If you're in the rotation, you're going to play. If you're hot, you're going to play more. If you're doing well, you're going to stay on the field. If you're not, we'll rotate you through and keep everybody fresh. And that's the plan with Nick, just like it is with anybody else that's in the rotation.
Pittsburgh is second in the nation in sacks per game, but they're not the only one in the conference. You guys have gone through Virginia, Miami, Clemson, all of them are in the top-20. How difficult has it been maybe to run an offense with teams that can get after the passers, not just Pitt, but all of these teams you have seen this year?
Well it's an area of a defensive football that the ACC excels at and I think playing Clemson, playing Virginia and playing some of those other teams that provide some of the same challenges, hopefully, should help prepare us to battle on Thursday. Their two D-ends are really, really good. No. 91 is a game-changing player and the D-tackles do a great job. They have some depth on the D-line, also, so they keep those guys fresh and they have some numbers to play.
And so that's where the depth on the O-line comes in. It helps us stay fresh with them. Like every other game, that's where this thing is going to start for us. And I think right now we may be one man deeper than we had been all year, so that's a help. And we've had a couple good weeks of practice for this game, so it will come down to who wins the physical battle at the line of scrimmage. That's kind of how I feel every week, but that's the must this week if we're going to score against Pittsburgh.
How has Nick been during this time or not as far as being supportive of the other guys, helping the other guys? He is kind of like a mock coach for you guys?
You asked me that about Jace Ruder a while back, I would compare it to that. I mean he's coaching guys on the sideline. He's involved in drills, you know what I mean? He's as active in meetings as he was before. And the only thing that was missing from Polino was the fact that he wasn't active out there in practice because of the injury. But I don't think Coach Searels would tell you, or I would tell you, or Coach Brown would tell you that there was any other difference in the way he prepared and the way he helped lead the team and it's hard to be active and energetic and as fully invested in what you're doing during the week when you're not playing on Saturday. So it's a tribute to our locker room and our players and Nick and Jace and some of the others that had been injured that had done a great job maintaining the role that we expect and doing the things that we wanted to do all week. We got the same from Nick. And I don't think that was any surprise to any of the coaches. I think that's what we expected and that's what we got.
What separates Sam from other freshman quarterbacks who you have coached in the past?
What separates Sam from the other freshmen? I think I've started, in my 30 years now, I think it's about five freshmen I've started. The thing that I think is special about Sam is, and as I said this all year, is his poise. I just think he's unflappable. I think he's very rarely, if ever, affected by a hit or a bad throw. He has an uncanny ability to do what we're really asking him to do. You ask this of every player, but it's take the previous play and put it behind you regardless of how good or how bad it is and focus in on the next one.
Because play-by-play production is really the way to be consistent, which he has been, and to be productive. And that's what you're striving to get out of every player at every position. His personality and the way he focuses and the way he prepares himself during the week, I think it adds to the confidence that he already has. A prepared player is going to play with confidence and they're going to play fast and they're not going to think. And he's an example of what we would like and where we'd like to be with every player on the field. I think that's his advantage is his poise.
A little open-ended question here. What's something that is different now that maybe you didn't expect coming into the job in December about the program, recruiting, coaching staff or players that you can reflect on?
I think when you go into a program and it's new, I always take the roster and study it. I watched all the recruiting films from all the players. You try to evaluate where they are from a talent standpoint. Really just stealing from something Coach Brown said, he said he thought you might come into a program, there may be drug issues, didn't have those. Maybe academic issues when you’re not winning, didn't have those. He was surprised that there were some things that typically exist when you take over a program that really weren't evident here. And I think it's all a testament to the character that we have in the locker room. So I think looking back, I'm really impressed at the level of character that we have in our locker room and I'm really impressed at how hard our guys work and how hard they play on game day.
You know, that's been really, really consistent, is how hard we play. We've been up and we've been down score-wise and we've had great quarters and tough quarters, but we're getting the same effort out of our guys. Loafs in games are not something that we typically have conversations about because it's not an issue here. So I think coming into it, you don't know those things. You're asking me this open-ended question. Looking back, I would say the strengths of this group that come to mind are really how hard we play on Saturday. I think we're doing a better job each week of preparing and learning and understanding what it really takes to prepare for some of these teams. And I think we get better at that each week. The coaching staff has done a great job and the players have done a great job of kind of getting better at preparing for the opponent each week. So that would be my experience after being here since December.
Along those lines, how about playing with instinct that you have talked a lot about? How much better are they at playing with instinct?
Much better. I think we have more players… Periodically as you go through the season I'll ask the staff where they think guys are instinctively and those numbers have slowly but surely gone up. We're playing with more guys right now that I think can easily just grab the signal and line up and go play. And they know how to adapt to different coverages and fronts. We're not freezing right now to think about what is our assignment. We're playing football and I think we're playing fast. The challenge right now is consistency and trying to close the show in the fourth quarter.
