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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

October 17, 2018

Dino Babers

Greensboro, North Carolina

DINO BABERS: Well, I'll tell you what, North Carolina, everyone saw the game against Virginia Tech the other night. They've got a fabulous football team, and they're one fumble in the fourth quarter from winning that game. They're an outstanding unit. Coach Fedora does a fantastic job. Their defense is super athletic, their front four is really outstanding, and they can run the football. It's going to be a challenging task for us, and thank goodness we're at our place. Questions?

Q. Just to speak on Eric Dungey, what you've seen with this being your third season with him, just how he responds to adversity, just what you can see from a leadership standpoint and how he bounces back?
DINO BABERS: Well, I think that, sheesh, that guy has been through so much that he really does bounce back well. The adversity parts, I think he embraces stuff like that. He's such a competitor, whether he's doing well or not so well, he's always looking forward to the next play. He has a lot of confidence in his abilities, and based off the things that he's done so far in his four years in college, rightfully so.

Q. And then as far as the defensive line, just what you've taken away from their pressure on the quarterback, what they've done this season from Alton Robinson and Kingsley Jonathan and so on and so forth, just what your takeaways have been from them on film as they step into their next game?
DINO BABERS: Well, I think it's one of our finer units. I think it's a unit that's really starting to make a name for itself around the league, and we need those guys to play well if we're going to be the football team that we're going to be.

Q. Speaking of your defense, what's your assessment of your run defense coming off these last few games?
DINO BABERS: You know, obviously it's something that we needed to improve on. We worked on it during the bye week, but the keys to winning football games is obviously stopping the run, being able to run the football on offense when you want to run it, and winning the turnover battle and winning the kicking game. If you can do those four things, chances are you've got a heck of a lot more wins than you have losses, and you can just look across the nation at the top teams in the conferences, and those are the four things they're getting done.

Q. What's kind of been the focus in terms of what you want to see you guys do better in terms of the run defense?
DINO BABERS: I'm not sure of your question.

Q. What's the area of improvement you're looking for in terms of run defense? What needs to improve in order for the run defense to be better?
DINO BABERS: I think we need to tackle better. I think we've been in the right spots at certain times, but we're not bringing the ball carrier down, and we need to be more physical in that department if we're going to be able to slow some people down.

Q. Talk about what you guys worked on during the bye week. I know a lot of teams like to get away from football for a week and regroup and second half starts right now. What did you guys work on during the break?
DINO BABERS: We worked on a bunch of little things. I don't want to get too specific, but little things turn into big things, and we did some of that. We also rested them. We gave them three and a half days off for some rest, and then we also conditioned them based off some of our -- how late our games have been going, overtime games and all that kind of stuff, and we wanted to make sure they stayed in game condition even though we didn't have a game that week, so those are the three things we worked on.

Q. How do you guys prepare for a quarterback situation in North Carolina because they have one guy that went down with injury. How do you get prepared for what quarterback they're going to be throwing at you on Saturday?
DINO BABERS: Well, we're kind of at the liberty of the media and what you guys say, we kind of listen to. We don't know who the guy is going to be. We think it's going to be Nathan Elliott, but I'm sure they've got other guys that we haven't seen, and I'm sure they've got other options that we can use, so we've got to be ready for all of them.

Q. I was talking to Kielan Whitner last night about some of the things he's involved with in the community and all the charitable things he does. I'm wondering how proud you are of him and some of the things that he's involved with, and two, what kind of impact has he had for you guys on the field this year?
DINO BABERS: Well, let me start with the latter. Right now he's our leading tackler. He does a fan fantastic job not only getting people down on the ground but also getting our defense lined up, so he's a real key to what we've been able to do defensively up to this point. On the first point, I mean, he does an unbelievable job in the community. He actually takes what little free time he has, what little spare time he has, and he puts that back into the community and charitable organizations. He's a wonderful, wonderful young man, and one of these days we may be voting for him for some political office because he's got that type of character, and that's the people that we want, that type of character are the people that we want in our politics.

Q. Koda Martin, I wonder what that dynamic is like having your son-in-law as your starting tackle?
DINO BABERS: Well, as long as he blocks everybody really good in practice, it's really good dynamics. (Laughs.)

Q. Are Georgia and Atlanta at all right now part of your recruiting area?
DINO BABERS: Yeah, we spend some time in those states, yes, sir.

Q. And obviously it's a long way from campus, but what can you sell players that makes you competitive in terms of recruiting?
DINO BABERS: Well, we sell the same thing that we always sell. We have an opportunity to play 28 home games in absolutely perfect weather, no rain, no wind, no snow. We're the only Power Five team with a dome. You want to play in the National Football League, you're going to play in a lot of stadiums that are domed like that. That along with our academics, which we feel is some of the top academics on the East Coast, I think we have a lot to sell for the young men in North Carolina to come up here and experience what Orange football is all about.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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