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UNC Football: Gene Chizik calls Tar Heels defense 'soft'
UNC defensive coordinator Gene Chizik isn’t happy with the Tar Heels defense in the first 3 games
The North Carolina Tar Heels will face their first Atlantic Coast Conference test of the season when Pittsburgh comes to town on Saturday.
After opening the year at 2-1, the Tar Heels will dive right into a tough ACC schedule that will make or break their season. In 2015, they went unbeaten in conference play as they won the Coastal Division en-route to the Conference Championship Game.
But if they want to repeat that feat this season, they must improve on defense.
The Tar Heels defense has been a weakness of the team through the first three games, especially in the run game. They let Nick Chubb rush for 200-plus yards in week one, gave up some big chunks to Illinois and couldn’t stop JMU on the ground for a quarter last Saturday.
The struggles have certainly caught the attention of the coaching staff, in particular defensive coordinator Gene Chizik.
Chizik is in his second year as coordinator and so far there are no major improvements from last year.
In the final two games of 2015, the Tar Heels were carved up by Clemson and Baylor as they couldn’t stop either team on the ground.
Now Chizik is trying to get his message across and has some harsh words for the defense:
“I thought we were soft, and I thought it was a very disappointing performance all the way around,” he said. “And soft defense is a choice. And that’s the choice that we made, so we’ve got to improve a lot this week or this game could get ugly.”
We will see on Saturday if the Tar Heels defense got the memo from Chizik as Panthers’ running back James Conner looms.Kickoff is set for 3:30 p.m. EST at Kenan Memorial Stadium. Check back with Keeping It Heel for more coverage on the game.
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