I cried, man. I cried while I walked out, when I got out to my parents for senior day against Wake Forest. I told myself I wouldn’t, but I couldn’t hold back. That took me back a little bit.
UNC is in our way. Right now they are playing spoil-ball. With them trying to spoil our ACC Championship berth, that is a big incentive for them. But it’s big for us because they are in our way and we really don’t like them that much. The seniors that are there are revved up for this game. And we are too. I’m sure they want to win for the first time against our senior class. We don’t want to lose for the last time. It’s going to be interesting. I’m looking forward to a good, clean, nasty, physical, pretty, nasty game. Everything that goes into it, I’m ready for it.
They are still the most talent I have seen in a long time. With their recruiting, just because they don’t have the marquee names as usual, they still have guys that have the talent, guys that played as freshmen. When you look at a defense like that, they’re fast and they’re skilled. They’re still top-notch. But it’s all different this year.
We just have to make plays, like we have been doing. We have to take what we took last week and take advantage of the weaknesses in their defense. We have done that thus far since I have been here, but it’s a different year and I’m really excited to play them.
Consistency is very important in the ACC, especially in a conference like this, at this time, when a win or loss can set you up for an ACC Championship. It’s big for us to stay on schedule and be consistent. We can’t blow out one team, and then go against another team and get blown out. We just have to roll with it and keep the momentum we have now going into the heated rivalry.
Nate Irving is a tremendous talent. His instincts are like no other I have ever seen. When you have tackles for loss like that, its like you know the plays before they are coming. That’s a big part of football and the linebacker position. You have to read. You’re the quarterback of the defense and you have to know where everything is going to happen. I haven’t seen any linebacker that compare to him. His presence is felt. An offense can’t coach against that, when you have a guy that studies film as well as Nate. He has that instinct and the way he approaches film is unbelievable. And that has rubbed off on me and what I look for in a defense.
When he made the crowd-pleasing tackle that he did I remembered the one he did to ECU a few years back, which was real nice. We knew it was coming because when Nate hits, he hits high because he’s a big guy. And when he hits high, he is looking for the suplex. When I saw the guy land on his head, I was like, ‘bro, Wow.’ That whole sideline exploded. I got kind of light headed because I jumped up so quick. The whole crowd just went crazy. That’s Nate’s signature move so I’m glad he got that out of the way in front of the home crowd on his last home game.
But I tell Nate all the time, ‘I’ll kill Nate.’ When we get in red zone situations one-on-one, I always kill him. We always joke around with it. He’s like, ‘I’m going to get it next time.’ I’m like, ‘alright, man.’ Nate knows what it is when we get into a footrace.
We know that this is the biggest game of the year. You always want to win your rivalry game. We are not going to make it as big as it is already is. You don’t want to put pressure on certain people. You don’t want to get caught up in the rivalry or the hype. We just have to go out and play ball. They will put their best 11 out there and so will we. We just have to go out there and dominate.
