Butch Davis Quotes
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Virginia vs. North Carolina
Oct. 18, 2008
Head Coach Butch Davis Quotes
Opening Statement:
“I’ll tell you exactly what I told the team when we got to the locker room that Virginia made the plays they needed to make to win the game. I have to give them credit for that. We missed some opportunities during the course of the game and in almost every football game I’ve ever been in, when you don’t take advantage of field position and don’t take advantage of opportunities, it almost always comes back to haunt you. Defensively we played about as well as we could probably play in the first half. Defense had a good grasp of what they were trying to do. We were having some success running the football, making a few plays, but we didn’t capitalize on the field position opportunities and score as many points.
“We made some mistakes in substitutions and formations that really hurt us, trying to shuttle as many different people in trying to replace Brandon Tate and that’s no excuse. Brandon not being here has nothing to do with us not winning this football game. We weren’t as sharp and crisp as we needed to be. We put together one little drive late in the ballgame when Casey kicked a field goal and put us up 10-3 and probably the biggest nemesis of the ballgame from the defensive perspective is the number of third downs and probably third-and-one situations that they were able to convert and that was probably the story of the whole game.”
On North Carolina’s defense:
“We had some problems, as I said, on some third down situations where we just didn’t make the plays we needed to make.”
On North Carolina’s turnovers:
“I look at where drives start and where drives end. Too many of our drives ended in fourth and three at about the 40-yard line and having to punt and trying to dive inside the five. You’re one first down away from being in four-down territory and four-down territory probably gives you the chance that some of those drives maybe end in field goals. And every time you don’t take advantage of really good field position by capitalizing on it, by scoring touchdowns, which you’d like to do, or putting yourself in the position to kick field goals, it’ll come back to haunt you. I’ve seen it way too many times.”
On Virginia’s tactics:
“It was a chess match. They have an awful lot of defensive schemes. They have blitzes they probably showed three or four different run blitzes today that we had not seen out of them. But I mean it’s something you’ve got to adjust to. Every time they try to put a fire out, you’ve got to do something to try to restart the fire.”
On North Carolina’s tactic on Virginia’s last drive:
“We were trying to get to the quarterback, trying to pressure him, trying to be in the right place. Again, we had chances, we probably had at least one or two or maybe even three opportunities for interceptions ourselves but we just missed the ball and those balls have gone to us in the previous six ball games and today they didn’t go to us.”
On Bruce Carter’s blocked field goal:
“He’s a terrific football player. He’s extraordinarily physically gifted and he spills his guts on the field. He leaves everything out there.”