The UNC football program got its 2022 season off on the right note with a 56-24 win over Florida A&M on Saturday night, but it didn’t come without any concern.
Coming into the season, the UNC secondary was a question mark. Not due to the talent level, but due to the injury concerns and the inconsistent play that has plagued that unit for much of the past few years.
Add on top of that a new defensive coordinator and a new defensive backs coach. On Saturday, it definitely showed.
Florida A&M’s quarterback Jeremy Moussa threw for 279 yards and two touchdowns. While the Tar Heels’ secondary did pick off Moussa once, it also gave up a 73.7 completion rate.
While one of the touchdowns from Moussa came on a wheel route to running back AJ Davis — defended by linebacker [autotag]Chris Collins[/autotag] — the other came against defensive back [autotag]Dontae Balfour[/autotag]. It was a 22-yard strike where wideout Trevonte Davis got behind Balfour and Moussa placed a perfect ball.
The Tar Heels finished with three sacks, but overall the defensive pressure wasn’t there much of the night. It was a problem the Tar Heels struggled with last season and thus, contributed to the inconsistent play of the secondary. That and a lack of consistent tackling was something that stood out to UNC head coach Mack Brown.
“We didn’t tackle well early, which is usually the case in your opening ballgame because you have trouble tackling a lot in preseason,” Brown said postgame. “… they were 3-for-3 (in the redzone for touchdowns). So we’ve got to do a better job defensively in the red zone situations.”
Part of the lackluster effort could’ve been contributed to the early exit of talented junior cornerback [autotag]Tony Grimes[/autotag]. Grimes left early in the game with an ‘upper body’ injury and didn’t return.
Balfour led the defensive backs with six tackles while [autotag]Storm Duck[/autotag] had the lone interception on the night. Sophomore [autotag]DeAndre Boykins[/autotag] flashed his potential with four tackles and a fumble recovery.
Overall, regardless of the moving pieces, the secondary definitely delivered a lackluster performance. Moving forward it’s something that needs to be cleaned up and should.
“If you look at it, Storm Duck hadn’t played in a long time. Dontae Balfour hadn’t played. So there are a lot of guys out there that hadn’t played,” Brown said. “Noah Taylor we’d never seen. So three sacks is good. We expect more. And I do think that we’ve got some work to do. But defensive staffs never had a game together. Coaches that hadn’t called defenses for five years. So I will I think we’ll all see a tremendous amount of improvement in a short time. Because I knew they weren’t very happy there in that late second quarter either.”
North Carolina gets another crack to take a step forward with its defensive performance next weekend against a talented Appalachian State team on the road.
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