It's an oversimplification, but if North Carolina wants to contain East Carolina QB Shane Carden on Saturday, the Tar Heel defense will need to force turnovers.
During last week's upset of Virginia Tech, Carden threw three touchdowns and didn't toss an interception. He didn't throw a pick in the Pirates' week one game against North Carolina Central. Not coincidentally, when the Pirates lost to South Carolina in week two, Carden tossed two interceptions.
"This guy, I think he's pretty special," North Carolina coach Larry Fedora said Wednesday. "I think he's very, very comfortable in the system, and you go back all the years that Mike (Leach) was at Texas Tech and you watched all of the quarterbacks that came through, the older they got, the more efficient they were, the much better the offense was, and Carden has done the same thing. He's really a good, good football player, he really is, and he understands the system fully. He can run it at top-notch speed and be very comfortable. He's got a lot of confidence in his receivers because he's got really good receivers. He knows where they're going to be, and therefore they're able to make a lot of plays and they're very explosive"
2014 is Carden's third year starting for ECU, a team coached by former Texas Tech defensive coordinator Ruffin McNeil. The offensive coordinator is Lincoln Riley, a former Tech assistant who has adapted the air-raid offense to fit Carden and ECU. In 2013, Carden threw for 33 touchdowns against 10 interceptions.
Last season, ECU went to North Carolina and won handily, 55-31. Couple that victory with the win over Virginia Tech, and East Carolina is a two-point favorite over the Tar Heels. While the game between the Carolinas may not be a traditional or in-conference rivalry, the conference alignments make it easy to frame the game as a battle of big vs. little brother.
"Well, I don't think our guys have to be convinced that it's going to be intense," Fedora said. "I think they understand that. I think we're the underdogs going into this game from my understanding, from what I hear about everything. You know, we're going to go into a place that's going to be sold out, hostile crowd."
While Fedora is in his third season at North Carolina, he's more familiar with East Carolina than most because of his time at Southern Miss. The Eagles and Pirates were both in Conference-USA when Fedora was there. While Carden and the East Carolina offense may be good, Fedora has noticed the defense. Against Virginia Tech it was a defense that picked up an offense that went more than 45 minutes between touchdowns.
"Defensively I think they're much, much improved," Fedora said. "I think they're much better than they've been since I've started playing them, which now this will be about seven years now, and I think they've done a great job on the defensive side of the ball. I think that's the kind of hidden thing that people don't realize is they're doing a great job of stopping the run. Nobody has really run the ball effectively on them, and it's made teams try to be more one-dimensional"
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Nick Bromberg is the assistant editor of Dr. Saturday on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at nickbromberg@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
From Dr. Saturday - NCAAF - Yahoo Sports - UNC coach Larry Fedora says Shane Carden is 'pretty special'
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