
{"id":20666,"date":"2011-09-08T11:15:30","date_gmt":"2011-09-08T15:15:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/?p=20666"},"modified":"2011-09-08T11:34:58","modified_gmt":"2011-09-08T15:34:58","slug":"heels-dismantle-jmu-in-opener","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2011\/09\/08\/heels-dismantle-jmu-in-opener\/","title":{"rendered":"Heels dismantle JMU in opener"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/2011\/08\/18\/support-the-players-by-filling-kenan-stadium\/landreth-mug-30\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-20318\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/landreth-mug1.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"landreth-mug\" width=\"100\" height=\"134\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-20318\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/landreth-mug1.jpg 100w, https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/landreth-mug1-84x113.jpg 84w, https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/landreth-mug1-74x100.jpg 74w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 100px) 100vw, 100px\" \/><\/a><strong>By Eddy Landreth<br \/>\n<em>Staff Writer<\/em><\/strong><br \/>\nThe ultimate challenge facing the Carolina football team this week is to defeat Rutgers to start the season 2-0 before opening conference play at Kenan Stadium on Sept. 17 against Virginia.<\/p>\n<p>But when Carolina and the Scarlet Knights kick off at 12:30 p.m. this Saturday at Kenan, the Tar Heels will also be working to build on one of their finest opening games in years.<\/p>\n<p>UNC dismantled James Madison, 42-10, a club that returned 10 defensive starters from a team that defeated Virginia Tech in Blacksburg a year ago. Not only did the Tar Heels beat JMU, they played nearly flawless football.<\/p>\n<p>Carolina committed five penalties for just 35 yards in losses. The sloppy play that so often accompanies first games never really materialized. The closest UNC came was when punter Thomas Hibbard fumbled a snap.<\/p>\n<p>The Tar Heels looked to be in midseason form.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153One of the things we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve talked about is that we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been 8-5 with a lot of talent around here,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d interim head coach Everett Withers said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153We feel like if we do the little things right, we can do better than 8-5. That has been a team emphasis. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m talking about on the field, in the meeting rooms, in the classroom, everything. The little things are what make good teams good. That is what we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re trying to strive for.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Any time you win, you can always go back the next day and find some things you need to work on,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Withers said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It gives you great motivation to go in there and coach your butt off. We want to be better. Our goal is to be better Week 2 than we were Week 1.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153That is the whole emphasis. How can we get better, Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, so we can be better when we play Rutgers \u00e2\u20ac\u201c bottom line.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>Redshirt sophomore quarterback Bryn Renner can improve on his first performance as a collegiate starter, but it will not be easy to do so. Renner set an ACC record by completing 22 of 23 pass attempts and threw two touchdowns. His only incompletion came on an interception, which he threw when he went deep into double coverage.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153He was just really poised,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d redshirt freshman running back Giovani Bernard said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153He did not get ahead of himself. Even after the interception, he came back strong. He never really worried about that pass.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153To have only one incomplete pass in his first start is an amazing thing. The equivalent would be a running back scoring every single time he got the ball. He is definitely the leader of this team.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>Renner said that he will not rest on one game, and that he doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t expect this team to let off the gas.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153The type of character kids we have on the team now [will stick together],\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Renner said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not saying we didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t before, but there were some distractions before with certain players.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We did a great job Saturday of playing football and having fun. Our main goal was to go out there and have fun.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>The Tar Heels\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 offense played so well, it overshadowed a solid game by the defense. JMU gained just 59 yards rushing and had 211 total offensive yards compared to Carolina\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 461.<\/p>\n<p>Another factor that may have gone unnoticed by many fans is that the Tar Heels caught the ball on punts. Last year, Carolina let far too many punts hit the ground and roll, costing the Tar Heels precious yards in field position.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We feel like that is such a big part of the game, fielding punts and not letting the ball hit the ground and determine whether we will lose field position,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Withers said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153We can control that.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Eddy Landreth<\/strong><br \/>\nThe ultimate challenge facing the Carolina football team this week is to defeat Rutgers to start the season 2-0 before opening conference play. . .<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":20318,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[431],"class_list":["post-20666","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20666","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20666"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20666\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20668,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20666\/revisions\/20668"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}