University of North Carolina Athletics
View From The Press Box
October 27, 1999 | Football
Oct. 27, 1999
By Rick Brewer
One of the few bright spots for North Carolina's injury-riddled football team in the last couple of weeks has been the play of Antwon Black at quarterback.
Black, a 5-11, 190-pound junior from Central, S.C., was switched from safety to quarterback after Ronald Curry was lost for the season with a torn Achilles tendon at Georgia Tech. Black had been working in the secondary since first coming to Chapel Hill in 1996.
Red-shirted in his initial season on campus, Black had played both safety positions and also been a good special teams performer in 1997 and 1998. However, with the loss of Curry, he was moved to quarterback to compete with Luke Huard for that spot.
Black had played that position at Daniel High School, guiding his team to a 14-1 record and a state championship as a senior. He passed for 1,702 yards and 11 touchdowns that season and also ran 190 times for 1,121 yards and 26 scores.
The move to quarterback wasn't because Black wasn't playing well on defense. In this year's season opener he had the third-longest interception return in Carolina history-- an 89-yarder for a touchdown against Virginia. Last season he returned a fumble 81 yards for a TD against Georgia Tech. As a freshman he had a seven-yard return of a blocked punt for a touchdown in a victory over Stanford.
Plus, he had come into the year averaging 21.4 yards on 14 kickoff returns and had a 30.2-yard average on four returns this fall.
However, the Tar Heels could not afford to try to play with one scholarship quarterback. So Black was shifted to offense. Carolina coaches had hoped to recruit a quarterback last spring. But, with Curry being a sophomore and Huard a red-shirt freshman, it was impossible to do that. Players had feared they would be behind those two for three or four years and have little chance to play. So the top high school quarterbacks went elsewhere.
Carolina had gone through a similar experience earlier in this decade when Mike Thomas and Jason Stanicek were on campus at the same time. Star quarterbacks didn't want to come here with those two set to get the playing time for four years.
Black saw late action in the Houston game and seemingly gave the Tar Heels an offensive spark. He came off the bench late in the first quarter at Maryland last week and completed 10 of 21 passes for 128 yards and gained 57 yards on 16 carries.
It's not unusual in college football to see a player switch positions. It is a little more out of the ordinary when it happens with a position like quarterback and as late in someone's career as Black is moving. But, that is also part of the beauty of the college game-this is a game and the individual is willing to make sacrifices for the good of his team.
Since the return of two-platoon football in 1965, a number of other Carolina players have made major position changes. There have been many instances where a lineman has shifted from offense to defense or vice versa. Learning processes had to be made in each instance and new techniques mastered, but these weren't as dramatic as going from safety to quarterback.
Perhaps, the most difficult assignment by a recent player making such a move was in 1997 when Ebenezer Ekuban went from tight end to defensive end. Ekuban, a native of Ghana, had only played two years of high school football and two seasons at Carolina before attempting that shift. As a senior last fall he had 23 tackles for losses, breaking the school single-season record previously held by Lawrence Taylor and William Fuller. He was a first-team All-ACC selection and a first-round choice in the National Football League draft.
Two of the most unusual position changes in the last few years have come with players moving to the secondary after playing three seasons on offense.
Larry Griffin came to Carolina as a quarterback in 1981, but asked to be shifted to wide receiver in pre-season practice. He played there as a freshman, missed the entire 1982 season with a knee injury and then recovered to play wide receiver in 1983 and 1984. In three seasons on offense he had 38 catches, including seven for touchdowns.
But, prior to his senior season, Tar Heel coaches talked with him about shifting to the secondary. They felt another athlete with great ability was needed there and that Griffin would be a good fit. He agreed to the switch and simply led the Atlantic Coast Conference in interceptions in 1985 with six. That move also led to a seven-year NFL career as a defensive back.
A similar shift was made with Torin Dorn a few years later. Dorn had been an explosive tailback at times for three seasons at Carolina, but was plagued by a series of injuries. In the spring of 1989 Coach Mack Brown talked to him about moving to cornerback. He had a standout senior season, intercepting three passes and breaking up 11 others. That moved also earned him a seven-year NFL career.
In 1978 Bob Loomis moved to tight end after playing fullback for three seasons. Carolina had good experience in the offensive backfield, but was in need of depth at tight end. Coach Dick Crum felt Loomis could best fill that role. He responded by winning first-team All-ACC honors with 31 catches, including seven for touchdowns.
Other significant and successful position changes have seen linebacker Sammy Johnson become a 1,000-yard rusher at tailback in the early 1970s, quarterback Mike Mansfield win All-ACC honors at linebacker in that same period and quarterback Deems May switch to tight end in the early 1990s and go on to the NFL at that spot.
But, rarely has a player shifted to quarterback after spending most of his career at another spot. Gayle Bomar may have come the closest to doing something similar to what Black has done this season.
Bomar, like Black, had been a high school quarterback and had split time between that spot and safety on the 1965 freshman team at Carolina. After he joined the varsity in 1966 he was used strictly in the secondary and had played well there.
When Bill Dooley replaced Jim Hickey as the Carolina head coach following that season, he felt he needed the best athlete possible at quarterback to run his offense. After reviewing his personnel he decided that was Bomar and shifted him to offense for spring practice.
Bomar won the starting job and had two solid seasons at quarterback, breaking some of the school total offense records set by Charlie Justice two decades earlier. His 416 yards of total offense against Wake Forest in 1968 was the ACC record for over 10 years and has only been surpassed at Carolina by Mary Maye's 420-yard effort at Georgia Tech in 1987.
Tar Heel fans are hoping that Black's position change turns out to be as successful as these. It would be a major boost down the stretch of the season.
