CHAPEL HILL — North Carolina junior Ryan Taylor enjoyed making the switch from tight end to linebacker last spring and hopes to get in on some defensive plays this season.

But his specialty remains his hard-hitting style on special teams — a facet of the game to which the team has dedicated a third of each practice late this week.

“When I’m playing linebacker or tight end, I have to be a little bit more reserved,’’ Taylor, from Winston-Salem, said. “But when I’m playing on special teams, they just kind of give you a direction to go and say ‘go!” and you just go as hard as you can. And everybody’s going full speed – and if you miss a tackle, it’s because you’re going full speed … I like it because I feel like I can open up and just hit people, fly around.”