Sept. 28, 2009
By Turner Walston
Honesty is such a lonely word. So sang Billy Joel. Nowhere is that more true than in the film room the day after a loss.
Saturday's game at Georgia Tech is over. It goes down as a loss, and, try as they might, the Tar Heels can't un-lose it. The real tragedy now would be to let Georgia Tech keep beating them in the subsequent weeks. The only way to prevent that is to learn from mistakes and move forward. That work begins in the film room, where honesty is the only policy.
The film room is no place for taking things personally. If you want to learn from mistakes, you have to be willing to hear criticism. T.J. Yates completed 11 of 26 passes and threw two interceptions Saturday. He admits he played poorly. But Sunday night he faced the music. "Coach Shoop always says, `Did you bring your sensitivity pills today?'" Yates says. "We're very critical of ourselves, and we want the best out of each other and ourselves. We look at our performances hard and with a critical eye."
"If you played bad, you played bad," cornerback Kendric Burney says. His defense could not get off the field on third downs. But Sunday night, he watched and learned from the film. "You've got to face the facts that are on film. Some feelings get hurt, but that's part of the game; that's part of life. Everything's not going to always go as peachy as you want it to be but as long as you've got teammates and coaches who tell you exactly how it is, when you're doing bad and exactly how it is when you're doing good, you can't go wrong with that."
Shaun Draughn rushed for 26 yards on Saturday behind an inexperienced offensive line. But Sunday night, he found some areas for his own improvement. "You've just got to look in the mirror and actually look at yourself and just look at what you're doing, not at what other people are doing," Draughn says. "Myself, I feel like I just need to run harder and hit my holes when they're there. You need to have patience at the same time but you can't wait to hit what you see."
The players say that it's much easier to watch film after a win. Mistakes happen in wins, too, but they don't seem as costly. After a loss, players want answers, and they want to improve, so they look at the film with a critical eye. And the film doesn't lie. "Everybody sees what's going on on film," Yates says. "To kind of stand up and admit and say, `Yeah, I messed up,' then guys respect that and know that everybody makes mistakes and you've got to learn from it and move on."
It may be hard to face the film after a loss, but the team and players will be better for it. "It's tough to take criticism anytime," Burney says. "Even when you win, if you didn't do what you've got to do, you've got to be told that. And a loss is a loss. We took it to the heart, but luckily it's a new week and we can get ready for Virginia."
Turner Walston is the managing editor of Tar Heel Monthly. Follow the THM staff on Twitter.
