North Carolina football coach John Bunting says that this year’s defense will be better than last year’s. Ya think? I would hope so, because they really couldn’t get much worse. They were one of the worst squads in the nation last year, giving up 500 yards and 38 points per game.
To help improve things, Bunting fired defensive coordinator Dave Huxtable and brought in two new coaches, John Gutekunst and Marvin Sanders. Gutekunst will be the coordinator while Sanders will be co-coordinator, whatever that means.
This season will be a critical one for Bunting, as Carolina fans are growing weary of losing. AD James Moeser isn’t saying how many games Bunting needs to win to keep his job, but it’s probably safe to say that he needs to go bowling. Unfortunately, that looks pretty unlikely. UNC may only be favored in three games this year, home against William & Mary and Louisville and away against Duke. And they may not be favored in those.
The News & Observer article I linked to above contained some interesting quotes from Bunting and his players on the upcoming season and the changes they are making. One of those changes is the likely elimination of their “goal board.” New coach Sanders had this to say about the goal board:

“I can’t control how good that quarterback is, how many receptions he’s going to throw, how fast that running back goes. I can control the effort our players are going to give. … They give the effort we expect, that will give us a chance to be in every ball game.”

That doesn’t really sound too inspiring, does it? Yeah, it’s mostly true, but do you really want a coach setting that tone? And shouldn’t a defense have some control over how many receptions the other team’s quarterback throws? Isn’t that the point of defense? Maybe that would explain why UNC had a total of two interceptions last year.
The other quote that caught my eye was defensive tackle Chase Page saying “If changes happen after this year, I think that’s sad because I think things are going in the right direction.”
Hmmm. Again, that doesn’t sound too positive. It’s the kind of quote you expect to hear in the middle of a bad season, when it’s obvious the coach is going to be gone. When you hear this sort of thing before fall practice even begins, well, it can’t be good.
But, the summer should be a time of football optimism. There’s a lot of time left and a whole bunch of games to play. No one really knows what’s going to happen, but if I had to wager, I’d say Bunting’s going to be out at the end of the season. State, Wake and Duke are all on the upswing and the Carolina faithful don’t want to be the local punching bag.