Extra Points: Energy

By Lee Pace

The football hung against the Carolina blue sky, slung from the arm of one Texan toward the hands of another. Beau Corrales turned his shoulders at the 40 yard line, drew a bead on the pass from Nathan Elliott, gathered himself, jumped in the nick of time, extended his arms as far they'd reach and snared the ball. He secured it in front of a Miami defender while falling to the turf, landed on his back at the 35, popped quickly up and tossed the ball with flair to the nearest official. Twenty-six yards in the Carolina total yardage column.

"The coaches talk all the time about making 'ordinary plays,'" the freshman Corrales said of this third career catch. "Every now and then, one will turn into a spectacular play. I'm just trying to make ordinary plays."

Nearby on the Carolina sideline during the second quarter of the Tar Heels' homecoming tilt against the eighth-ranked Hurricanes, the players and coaches erupted with a bolt of fire not seen since quarterback Chazz Surratt stiffed-armed a Duke defender more than a month earlier. There in a microcosm was the spark and execution a 1-7 Carolina team brought to bear in the aftermath of a 52-point annihilation the week before at Virginia Tech.

"Just two young kids trying to make some plays and give us a spark," Coach Larry Fedora said moments later at the halftime break.

Sadly it wasn't enough for the beleaguered Tar Heels. They turned the ball over four times on offense and yielded three big plays on defense and lost by an anguishing 24-19 margin.

"Honestly, if you didn't look at the record, I couldn't tell that we were losing with leadership we have," Corrales said. "I'm proud to be on this team, proud to be playing. Our leaders make it really easy."

Some of those leaders were wearing game jerseys and sweat pants, their seasons relegated to recovery and rehabilitation after season-ending injuries. Linebacker Andre Smith, lost in the Louisville game back in week two, was in the thick of the defensive huddles along the bench area, applauding and encouraging his teammates and launching the occasional woof at a Miami defender. Receiver Austin Proehl mimicked a Heisman pose—knee cocked upward, arm extended—when Elliott rushed for 16 yards on one play.

Others were in the thick of the scrum all afternoon—senior linebacker Cayson Collins as he has repeatedly done all year receiving treatment in the medical tent at some point but shrugging it off and returning to action. He had eight tackles—tied with end Malik Carney and one behind the nine notched by linebacker Cole Holcomb.

"The energy was the difference on both sides of the ball and on special teams," Holcomb said of last week to this. "It was unreal out there. It was just about having fun today. I'll go out every Saturday with those guys if they bring that kind of energy."

"The atmosphere this week was great," Elliott said. "We came back to work and didn't let anything that happened last week ruin this week."

"We had the juice today," added cornerback M.J. Stewart.

The Tar Heels made 27 first downs, their most since the Louisville game and a staggering number compared to 11 against Virginia Tech and 12 versus Virginia the week before. They controlled the ball nearly 33 minutes, a vast improvement over woeful games against Virginia (20 minutes) and Notre Dame (23). And in a good news/bad news line item, they had one drive that lasted 17 plays and ate up half the first quarter; problem was, they couldn't finish it off and a fake field goal went awry when holder/quarterback Manny Miles threw short in the flat to Brandon Fritts when Jake Bargas was open further down the field.

"We ran the ball better, we played better up front, our protection was better," Fedora said. "Overall we played better as a football team. But we've got to punch it in when we get into the red zone. And you can't turn it over four times. It was a miracle we turned it over four times and still had a chance to win."

The defense yielded a scant average of 3.4 yards a snap on 70 Hurricane plays. Miami gained but 59 yards on 32 running plays. Carolina had two sacks, three tackles for loss and played some efficient pass coverage for most the game. The Tar Heels forced a field goal after Miami took over at the 15 following a blocked punt.

But two of the Hurricanes' touchdowns came on passes of 51 and 78 yards, the first when safeties Myles Dorn and J.K. Britt inexplicably missed tackling the receiver after the catch and the latter when cornerback K.J. Sails got out of position when the receiver faked an out-move and then angled toward the middle. And Miami's third score was set up by a 49-yard throw over the middle when a couple of Tar Heels missed a chance to make a stop after the catch.

"Defensively our guys played their butts off," Fedora said. "There were a couple of plays where we've got to get a guy on the ground and give up a play, and again it turns into a catastrophic when we don't. Those are hard to overcome."

Despite the energy and tenacious rebound from the misery in Blacksburg, the themes of 2017 were front and center. QB Brandon Harris was out with an injury and Surratt was hurt early, making way for Elliott. He played well and gave the offense a boost, but the oft-repeated combination of a bad decision here and a poor throw under extreme duress there came home to roost in the form of interceptions. And with Carolina driving late in the game and inside the Miami 40, sophomore tailback Jordon Brown had the ball stripped, ending the Tar Heels' last hopes.

"There were a lot of good things overshadowed by the things we didn't do, and that's the gut-wrenching stuff," Fedora said.

The gamut of emotions Saturday ran from the elation of the Tar Heels heralding Beau Corrales' impressive catch to collectively embracing a heartbroken Jordon Brown after his fumble. Gut-wrenching sums it up nicely.

Lee Pace is in his 28th year covering Tar Heel football through "Extra Points" and 14th as the sideline reporter for the Tar Heel Sports Network. His book, "Football in a Forest," is available in bookstores across North Carolina and online at www.johnnytshirt.com. Email him at leepace7@gmail.com and follow him on Twitter @LeePaceTweet.

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University of North Carolina Athletics

Players Mentioned

Jake Bargas

J.K. Britt

Jordon Brown

Malik Carney

Cayson Collins

Beau Corrales

Myles Dorn

Nathan Elliott

Brandon Fritts

Brandon Harris

Cole Holcomb

Manny Miles

Austin Proehl

K.J. Sails

Andre Smith

M.J. Stewart

Chazz Surratt

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