Last season Everett Withers led one of the worst passing defenses in the nation. His Minnesota squad was 115th in the country in pass defense, giving up 289 yards per game and the Gophers finished dead last in the NCAA in total defense, allowing a staggering 518 yards per game. They intercepted only seven passes and produced a meager 11 sacks.

Withers, who was the architect of one of the NFL’s top ball-hawking secondaries as the defensive back coach of the Tennessee Titans, installed a complex, shifting, coverage changing, aggressive style that only served to expose the weaknesses in the Minnesota defense, not mask them.

It didn’t work.

This season as UNC’s new defensive coordinator, Withers has taken a different approach. He has focused heavily on fundamentals and has turned the Heels defensive backfield into a quarterback menace. Carolina concluded 2007 with the nation’s 28th best passing defense (207.2) but produced just 11 interceptions. Withers has shelved his complex Minnesota concepts and retained most UNC’s successful 2007 schemes but added the ball-hawking components that made the Titans a terror.

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