Pat Narduzzi’s team dropped to 4-6 on the season with a 34-31 loss to UNC Thursday, and here’s what he had to say about it after the game.

Narduzzi: Obviously, it’s a disappointing game there. I really don’t know how to explain it. We talk all the time about taking it, and we found a way to give it away, really, in my opinion. The opening kickoff - you lose the game by a couple points, the opening kickoff, really seven points there does not help you. Kind of a gift, in my opinion. I give them credit, but it’s not what they did; it’s what we did. And then we take one down to the goal line there and fumble the ball at the 1. They return it and get three points right before the half, so that’s 10 plus seven is 17 points, and no team is good enough to overcome that stuff. We certainly aren’t there yet to the point where we can overcome some of those things.

Our kids never gave up, they never stopped fighting and that’s kind of where we are.

Not just the seven points, but how much did it change things playing behind from the very beginning?
Narduzzi: Obviously, it changes things. Who wants to play from behind? But we did a great job running the football. Darrin Hall was a man again today, I think. So I was impressed again with Darrin Hall and the way we ran the football. Not throwing it good enough, gave up three sacks. Obviously on that last drive, it really hurt you and put you behind the sticks. Anytime you’re second-and-20 or whatever the heck it was, not a good thing. Gotta throw the ball away if it’s not there and live to play another down without putting you that far behind the sticks. That really got us at the end. I felt like we could punt at the end and hold them, but we didn’t get that done.

Did you get away from Hall a little bit too much on your last possession?
Narduzzi: Not really. I mean, if you go back to it, we tried to run the ball, I think, on first down, but they went into a different front, which kind of took away - and they didn’t stop it; the first two drives of the second half, we gashed them. It was unstoppable. They went to a different front which caused us, I guess, to maybe throw it a little bit more. I’ll have to look at the tape. Then the second down and 12 or whatever it was, Darrin didn’t get any yards on that one. Again, you get behind the sticks and then you end up throwing more than maybe you’d like to.

How much of a step back was it for the defense after the way they played the last few games?
Narduzzi: Again, I told you the North Carolina football team was a good team. If they don’t turn it over - the reason they lost a lot of games was turnovers, and we didn’t get any and we gave them one. So we’re minus-one in the turnover ratio.

But it’s disappointing. We made some gains; I think our corners still played okay, I think they rushed for less than 100 yards. But we gave up some stuff in the middle and Ratcliff’s a good football player. We’ll have to look at the tape to find out where it was and why. It doesn’t help that Avonte Maddox is not out there. I can tell you that.

You said all week they’re better than their record, but have you been in a situation where one program is just a bad matchup for the other team?
Narduzzi: No. It’s not a matchup problem. Not at all. Just gotta make some plays. Finish it. Should have won the game a year ago, you know?