UNC head coach Bill Belichick previews rivalry game against Duke

Duke and North Carolina battle for the Victory Bell on Saturday afternoon in Wallace Wade Stadium. The Blue Devils are coming off an upset loss to Georgia Tech, 28-25, in Atlanta, their first loss of the season, while the Tar Heels took down Pittsburgh, 21-17, to improve to 3-2 on the season.

Second-year North Carolina head coach Bill Belichick previewed the matchup on Monday with the media. Here is what he had to say concerning Duke.

Opening statement

Moving ahead to Duke, obviously big rivalry game. It’s great to be a part of this kind of rivalry, just a few miles apart. A lot of these guys know each other well. We’ve got to know each other, but get on the field and it’s all great competition. So I’ve known Manny a long time. He’s done a really good job. I think he’s an excellent coach. Did a good job in Miami, Penn State as defense coordinator there, Texas, Miami.

So he’s got a great defensive background. They’re really good on defense. They’re well coached. They cause a lot of negative plays with their front and their pressure. So staying out of long yardage and obviously taking care of the football are two top priorities for us.

Offensively, Shepherd leading the country in rushing or all-purpose yards, whatever it is, he’s got a lot of them. He’s a good receiver. He’s very good at breaking tackles, making yards after contact. Tackling’s going to be, as it always is really important for us. But particularly with him, he looks very, very good, very productive. As I said, both catching the ball and running with it. The checkdown play he had against George Tech last week to put him in position to kick the tying field goal was just indicative of what he can do on a two-yard pass and turn into a 45-yard run. Tight end Hasley’s a really good player. He was productive against us last year, but he’s one of probably… We’ve seen a lot of good tight ends. He’d be right there at the top of the list.

Notre Dame last week at Pitt. I mean, we’ve seen a bunch of good tight ends. We see good tight ends in practice, but I mean this guy really, he does a good job. I’m sure he’ll be playing on Sundays going forward. But overall it’s a pretty veteran team, and the quarterback’s done a good job coming in and taking advantage of the opportunities. They’re a well-balanced offense. Obviously it starts with the running game, but they’ve done a good job of converting on third down, taking advantage of some big-play passing opportunities and scored a lot of points and haven’t given up many on defense. So last year we had a really hard time in the kicking game, gave up a lot of plays there. We obviously can’t win, can’t beat anybody playing like that with the problems we had in special teams last year. So that needs to be a big point of focus for us this week as well in our preparation.

So Duke’s well-balanced team, undefeated, lost a tough game last week, but they were right there and reigning ACC champions. So we have a lot of respect for them, and we need a good week here, good week preparation. We need to play well on Saturday.

Other than Nate Sheppard, what makes Duke difficult to handle?

Well, it starts with him. I think you got to commit, and teams have. They’ve committed a lot of people to try to stop him. He still has been hard to stop. Again, I think he’s whatever it is, all-purpose yards or rushing yards. I mean, he’s right at the top of college football, so that says a lot right there. Obviously, Illinois and Stanford and George Tech, everybody’s had trouble with him. And so when you collapse everybody in there to deal with him, that softens you in some other spots. So they’ve taken advantage of that. They do a good job with their scheme, their play calling, and try to stay balanced. But if you let Shepherd out, you’re going to pay for it. So you commit a lot of guys to him, and you’re just lighter in some other spots. So those guys got to hold up or you just don’t cover that space as well.

And they’ve been able to take advantage of that. So it starts with him. And look, everybody knows that he’s no secret now. So everybody’s trying to stop him, and really nobody’s been able to do a very good job of it through the first five games.

On Duke’s defense versus Pitt’s

Yeah. I mean, look, they’re a good defense. We know that they’re one of the top run defenses in the country, or things that we need to do better and can and will do better, but Duke’s defense is different than Pitt’s. They may try to do some of the same things, but first thing is we got to get the runners started and eliminate penetration on the line of scrimmage and let the runners get going into the line so they have a chance to cut and get their pads down or run through tackles or move the pile. But we had too many plays where we just couldn’t really get the run started, and then the backs just don’t have anywhere to go. So controlling the line of scrimmage and getting the backs into the line of scrimmage with some momentum is our number one goal on honestly every running play.

No place where we want to get stuck in a backfield and have to hop around just to get back to the line of scrimmage. So that all starts with control on the line. Pittsburgh ran some linebackers through. They stunted a little bit. Some of those things we could have done better, maybe coached them better, played better, but hopefully we can eliminate those negative plays.

This article originally appeared on Duke Wire: UNC head coach Bill Belichick previews rivalry game against Duke