Butch Davis is going to ride the horses that brung him.
The starting lineup from Georgia Tech will be the same for Saturday’s home game against Virginia (0-3).
“We’re playing the best players that we’ve got,” Davis said. “The worst thing that we could do is try to do some kind of a magical hodge-podge.”
Davis stressed the Heels weren’t back to square one after their first loss; rather, they needed to re-evaluate what went wrong and play better.
On offense, that means establishing a running game and expanding their passing game. UNC gained 17 rushing yards on 18 carries against Georgia Tech.
Receiver Erik Highsmith was the highlight on offense with six catches for 107 yards and the team’s only touchdown. However, the passing game needs to do more than just take some chances downfield with Highsmith.
In two games without injured starter Zack Pianalto, the Heels haven’t completed a pass to a tight end and have found scant room over the middle of the field, where Pianalto usually works.
To even entertain a lineup change would mean Davis has some super, duper secret cache of players no one has seen yet he can trot out there to fix whatever went wrong at Georgia Tech. I am sure coaches often find this line of questioning humorous since it implies the head coach has been holding better players out for reasons only known to him. Anyone who has followed this team since August knows Davis has been playing all the cards in his hand so far. There is no reserve running back who is going to show up and tick off 800 yards rushing over the final 10 games like Shaun Draughan did last season probably because we sort of expect Draughan to do that and more this season. The offensive line is thin as it is and the only imaginable change I see at WR is Erik Highsmith starts ahead of Greg Little with Dwight Jones returning from injury on the other side. As discussed yesterday, there is not another option at QB. Plus, talk of massive changes to the system is pretty foolish considering this team is still 3-1 and facing two imminently winnable games at home. What’s more, Davis is right, there is no magical salve he can apply and making wholesale changes tends to be a short term gain type of situation which probably will not help UNC down the road.
The only lineup changes we will see going forward are players returning from injury to hopefully bolster the offense. Lowell Dyer, Zack Pianalto and the aforementioned Jones will hopefully shore things up on that side of the ball by the time the Thursday night game versus FSU rolls around.
