UNC defensive end Melkart Abou-Jaoude

know about Syracuse starting quarterback

tonight?

We didn't know much about him, but

again, defensive football is just doing

your job, doing your 111th, and doesn't

matter. It was out there.

And what did you guys kind of do to, you

know, sh yourself up a little bit? So,

you know, maybe you got to tell him a

little bit more than he did.

Say it again.

I guess what did you guys do before the

game to kind of catch up a little bit in

terms of prep, like preparing for him?

Yeah, nothing. The coaches just said,

"Do your job. Uh, nothing changes." And

that's what we did. Adam Farart, it's

obviously been a couple huge games for

you with with the sack numbers. Um, is

there is it can you get in a groove when

you're rushing the passer? Like, you

know, I don't know, basketball, you can

get hot shooting or baseball hitting,

you know what I'm saying? Like, is it

possible to get in a pass rushing group?

Yeah, you can get in a groove, but

again, sacks are team stats. You know,

if I'm in a groove and the DBs aren't

covering, then there's no sacks. So,

it's a team it's a team stat and the DBs

are doing a great job covering and just

winning our rushes.

Jeremiah,

you know, Moart, obviously, as we've

talked about, you guys have, you know,

made strides as a team, made

improvements as a team last couple

weeks, kind of right there, player

there, you know, made the difference

today to get back into the win column.

How, I guess, important was it for you

all to kind of break through and and and

get back and get the get off of the

season?

Yeah, you know, last week they asked me,

"How does a sack feel?" I said, "Good."

But wins feel a lot better. So happy to

get the win today and keep building on

that.

AJ,

where does the resilience of this team

come from? A month ago, you guys were

going through all whole lot at the week

after the Clemson game, you know, on top

of the performance against Clemson and

everything's kind of slowly been

flipping the other way. Where did that

come from?

I mean, coach Bich always tells us to

just block out the noise and focus on

ourselves. And we know we we are a

resilient group. You know, Coach Moses

put us through the ringer all summer,

all winter. So, we know we have what it

takes and it felt good to put it out

there.

And that was tested tonight. You guys

fourth and inches, end up with a penalty

and kick a field goal, then scoop and

score. We were kind of in that position

again. We're dealing with inches and bad

things happening.

How did you guys kind of got regalized

in that moment and end up closing them

out? It was what, 24 nothing?

21 nothing in the second half. Last 24

points.

Yeah. You know, that's just playing your

111th, playing disciplined football, and

just keeping your head down and working.

Adam, what would you attribute um maybe

the last three games, the Cow game, the

the UVA game, and this game

specifically for your defensive front?

It just seems like you guys have taken

it to another level. Um like where can

you point to like maybe the most

improvement for you guys as a defensive

front? Um because it seems like, you

know, things are better.

Yeah, I mean we're deep. are two deep

great players all around and we all do

our job and we all want to get better

and you can see it throughout the week.

We all hold each other accountable. We

get on each other but we're humble and

we take that and we just try to get

better and obviously it's been showing

like you said.

Is there anything you can point to

though? Maybe maybe like a turning

point.

No, I just feel like when the whole team

does their job, it makes everybody look

better.

Right here. Um, obviously you guys had

success uh rushing the passer, but you

also played played a pivotal role in

stopping the run. Can you just talk

about gap responsibility and what kind

of adjustments you guys made in the

second half to kind of force Syracuse to

be more onedimensional?

Yeah, just again just doing our job, you

know, just do your 111. If you're

supposed to be there, stay there and

trust your brother to be in the other

spot. That's what we do.

Anything else to Melkart?

Yep, sure.

Like AJ was asking Melheart, you know,

about like coming out of the Clemson

game, you had lost the game badly and

there's all sorts of noise out there and

people talking bad about you guys as a

program. Like do you feel like this team

has gotten through that

bad bad stretch, that adversity, and

maybe at this point in the season is is

headed in a better direction? You know,

teams are going in all sorts of

directions at this point in the year.

You feel like you guys like are headed

the right way?

Yeah, but coach Bichc says, you know,

every week you got you restart. So,

we're going to restart game plan for our

next opponent and just win.

And last one.

Yeah,

kind of an easy question here, but we

saw complimentary football tonight.

Haven't really seen that much this year.

You guys have got a lot of stops before.

Dline's been getting better the last few

weeks, but the offense complemented what

you guys did scoring. So, what's it like

seeing the offense actually move the

ball down the field for a change, get

into the end zone? Feels good. You know,

we we question

we don't worry about the offense because

we can't control that on defense. So, we

just do our job and they score points.

They score points.

And they make your work pay off though.

There were times where that hasn't

happened in the past and your work was

kind of validated when they were able to

cash in a few times.

Yeah. Feels good.

All right. Good stuff. No cars.