North Carolina has had two weeks to prepare for Georgia Tech who is coming in for the Tar Heels Homecoming game Saturday. That could be key for the defense to prepare for Paul Johnson’s oddball “flexbone” option attack. Johnson thinks the key will be his offense controlling the clock.

“You’ve got to limit the possessions,” Johnson said of combating UNC’s high-scoring offense. “If you get 20 possessions a game, you’re going to score some points. A normal game for us has been 9 or 10. So they’re getting the ball twice as much as you’d get in a normal game. So you’ve got to keep your offense on the field and try to limit the game and do that.”

Johnson said he doesn’t think they’ll be 20 possessions in the game whether Georgia Tech is on the field or not. “Now we’ve got to do a better job stopping them when they do have the ball than we’ve done most of the year,” he said. “But I’d be the most surprised guy in the state of North Carolina if in the end both teams had the ball 20 times.”

UNC coach Larry Fedora said that while the Jackets go on long drives, they can also beat you with the big play. Still, he knows they want to control the clock. “They do a great job of eating clock,” he said. “We understand we’re not going to get the possessions we’ve normally had in a game because of their style and it’s just the way it is. So we’ve got to be very efficient.”

Johnson said, “they could conceivably play a 12-possession game and score on seven of the possessions and you’ve still got 50 points. But you’ve got a better chance if you play 12 possessions than if you play 20.”

As for his defense, Johnson said that the Jackets need to contain the running game, primarily Gio Bernard. “If they get (their running game) going and they can do whatever they want, then they become very, very hard to stop.”