What North Carolina Needs to Improve On During Bye Week

On this episode of the Tar Heels Insider Podcast, beat writer Grant Chachere discusses all of the things North Carolina must do during the bye week to avoid a disastrous 2025 campaign.

To watch, check out the video below

Here are some of the quotes during the postgame presser after North Carolina's 34-9 loss to UCF on Sept. 20:

Bill Belichick

As a coach, what do you have to do in the bye week to continue uplifting the players?

Like I said, we'll take a look at not just this game but the first four weeks, address the errors we feel like need to be improved the most and work on those. We'll do what we feel like we need to do to improve the team."

What would you underline as the most important things you want to address in the bye week?

Well, fundamentals and basic execution will certainly be near the top of the list. Situational football will likely be up there, too.

Does the bye week come at a good time for you guys?

Whenever it comes, it comes. Schedule is the schedule. Whatever time we're assigned to play, we'll play. If we have extra time, then we'll use the extra time to benefit the team the best we can.

Bye week’s always a good opportunity to get some things done. Take care of some bumps and bruises and work on some things we need to work on, sure, it's always a good time to work on that."

Max Johnson

“We just gotta stick together as a team. We’re all on the same team, wearing the same helmet, wearing the same emblem. We’re all together, and we have to choose to be together, choose to be closer, choose to support each other, and play complementary football…

“We need to do a better job of sticking together and encouraging each other. That’s kind of what we talked about at halftime was ‘hey, stay together, stay together.’ That’s what we need, and I think that’s gonna be a main focus point for us moving forward…

Will Hardy

“It’s not our job to think about where we stand in the outside world. We show up each every week, focus on the opponent, and we did not do good enough job out there today. We prepared well, not well enough, but we really just didn’t execute. If you look down and you watch the film, it’s one guy here and there not not making the play that we need them to make. It starts with every single player doing their job and us holding everyone accountable. We’re gonna have a good bye week, we’re gonna get better all around, and then we’re focused on the next opponent. We’re not looking to where we stand against anybody else right now. We’re focusing on ourselves…

“We can take this loss and we can split apart, or we can get closer together. I know we’re gonna get closer together. So we’re gonna use this loss for the good of the team…

“You play the game to win, and so whenever you don’t win, you put in a lot of work, and you’re disappointed. We have to do a great job of sticking together. Moving forward it’s ‘what do we gotta fix?’ How are we going to change the way we play if we don’t change the way we practice or the way we communicate. Things have got to change in how we prepare and how we how we perform and how we hold each other accountable. Emotionally, everyone’s locked in, everyone’s still very motivated, maybe even more motivated now.”