Wake-UNC Head Coach Quotes

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C.--- Following Wake Forest's 28-27 victory over North Carolina in both teams' Atlantic Coast Conference regular season opener, head coaches Jim Grobe of Wake Forest and Larry Fedora of UNC spoke with the media.

WAKE FOREST HEAD COACH JIM GROBE

On the game-winning final Wake offensive drive.....

"I think we were probably trying to have Tanner sit in the pocket too long, and I think when we got away from that and started getting off some quicker throws, I think that helped him. We just had a bunch of guys step up and make plays in that drive. I couldn't be more proud of them."

On the play of the Wake defense.....

"Our defense had to keep going back out and back out. I was really worried that our defense was going to gas out. The best thing we did defensively in the second half, we held them to two field goals. That was huge."

On Wake Forest's depth and overcoming some of the injuries.....

"We tried to play as many as we could, but we're just not very deep. We don't have a lot of depth. We lost KJ (Kevin Johnson) out in the corner, which presented a lot of problems for us. Then losing Nikita (Whitlock), we had to play Tylor Harris, the true freshman, at nose guard the rest of the game, and I thought he fought hard and played pretty good football."

On the flow of the game.....

"I think throughout the course of the game you get good breaks and bad breaks. I felt like throughout the game it was like a boxing match. It was punch and counter-punch and it all balanced out in the end. I am disappointed that we had as many penalties as we did. I was concerned at the beginning of the game. There was a lot of hitting and pushing and I think the officials did a nice job of handling that."

On the play of Sherman Ragland.....

"Sherman showed us a lot of toughness because he had a compound dislocation in his finger last week. He broke the skin and had to get 12 stitches in his finger. He showed a lot of toughness because a lot of kids would have gone ahead and taken this week off, but he came back and made a couple plays for us. I think he did some good things blocking. I thought he went out there and showed that he was a pretty good guy."

On the play of Michael Campanaro.....

"The guy is amazing. He's got a knack for getting in the creases and getting open. The thing that Tanner did tonight was try to distribute the ball a little bit. I think Brandon Terry came up big tonight. Terence Davis made a couple of really nice plays and we even got it to (Josh) Harris. I thought overall, Tanner distributed the ball well. If you looked at Camp's height, weight, and all those tangible things, you wouldn't know he's that kind of player. It's pretty special, and he was huge for us tonight."

UNC HEAD COACH LARRY FEDORA

On the loss to the Demon Deacs......


"(It was a) hard-fought game. Got to give a lot of credit to Jim Grobe and his football team for the way they played tonight. It was a typical game for them in terms of playing hard, playing with minimal mistakes and capitalizing on the mistakes of the visiting team. Too many mistakes on our part."

On the Wake Forest passing game......

"I didn't see too much pressure on the quarterback (Tanner Price) all night. I didn't see anybody close to any receivers. It will be interesting to see on film."

On quarterback Bryn Renner's return to the game after a solid hit......

"We put the ball on the ground on that series. That's one I've got to go look at myself. And I made the call at the end to put him back out there. He felt like he was ready to go. The medical staff felt like he was ready to go. By all indications he was (ready to go back in the game). The ball came out on that series, so I'm going to question myself on that deal."

On running the ball in the second half.....

"When we went in at halftime, we felt like they hadn't stopped us running the football. We needed to go ahead and establish the run and continue the running game. There was no reason to get out the gameplan at that point. We felt like we were very effective running the football and in fact we were for a lot of the game."

On Wake Forest flanker Michael Campanaro.....

"Tonight we made him look like an All-American. He might be."

On high expectations heading into the game with Wake Forest.....

"A lot of people were ready to crown us champs after beating Elon 62-0. We've still got a long way to go. We'll be a better football team because of it. This is the first form of adversity that we've had as a football team now in 2012. We get to find out a little bit about how the Tar Heels are going to be."