University of North Carolina Athletics
O'Cain Happy To Be A Tar Heel
September 2, 2000 | Football
Sept. 2, 2000
by Lee Pace, Extra Points
Mike O'Cain owes us one.
Everyone knows that the Tar Heels' new offensive coordinator has spent the last 14 years coaching at NC State, seven as quarterbacks coach and seven as head man.
Most everyone knows he played college football at Clemson.
But who remembers that November afternoon in 1975 when O'Cain had a career day in Kenan Stadium and led the Tigers to a 38-35 victory over Bill Dooley's Tar Heels?
The statistics are recited to O'Cain one recent afternoon on the practice field: 290 yards total offense, including 12-of-19 passes completed for 243 yards, one rushing TD and one passing TD.
"Now don't get that confused with a career," fellow coach Darrell Moody says with a wise-cracking grin.
O'Cain laughed. "I know," he says. "I had 500 yards of total offense in a career and all of it in two games."
The other game he was referring to was Clemson's 38-21 loss the following year, 1976, at NC State when O'Cain set the school record for most rushing yards by a quarterback in a single game, a standard that would live for 18 more seasons. He had 140 yards on 13 carries.
"Most of them were on two runs," he says. "They were outside veers, and the linebacker overran the play. Another thing I remember about that game--I had one punt for eight yards. Eight yards! It went further up in the stands than down the field."
A few more details about O'Cain you might not know: He grew up on a farm outside Orangeburg, S.C. .... originally wanted to play receiver until high school coach Dick Sheridan said he'd be a better quarterback .... was offensive coordinator under current Virginia Tech head coach Frank Beamer for four years in the early 1980s at Murray State .... hobbies are hunting and photography, and his office wall is decorated with images of his wife and two girls, the fruits of the latter pursuit .... has remained close with the Tar Heels' new offensive-line coach, Robbie Caldwell, since they were center and quarterback on the 1991 South Carolina Shrine Bowl team.
O'Cain reflects back on his career and notes the curious turns of events it's taken. He was pursuing graduate work at Clemson and thinking of a high-school coaching career in the spring of 1978 when he received a phone call from a man he'd never met. Citadel Coach Art Baker, on the recommendation from Sheridan, wanted to know if O'Cain wanted to coach QBs at the Charleston military academy.
"I got the phone call on a Monday, interviewed on Tuesday, went back to pack my bags on Wednesday and started spring practice at the Citadel on Thursday afternoon," O'Cain says. "I was lucky the numbering system was almost identical to what Coach Sheridan used in high school."
Twenty-one years later, O'Cain was enjoying his seventh season as boss at State with at least two major notches in his belt--a thrashing of Florida State in 1998 and a victory at Texas to open the next. A Raleigh newspaper columnist opined he might be in line for other college coaching vacancies, i.e., LSU. The State booster club's chief was quoted saying O'Cain was a major piece of the school's football future.
Then--poof!--within 10 days in November, O'Cain loses No. 7 running to the Tar Heels and then the season finale to bitter regional rival East Carolina. He's fired and is quickly hired by Carolina Coach Carl Torbush.
"This business can take some funny twists and turns," O'Cain acknowledges. So what do the Tar Heels get in their new offensive coordinator?
To begin with, a man who's well-organized and pays close attention to the details. "I really liked Coach O'Cain when I went to his quarterbacks camp in high school," says Tar Heel QB Antwon Black. "He was a great help with the little things, things I retain today."
He's a coach who's driven to win but also to play a positive modeling role in his players' lives. "His players will enjoy playing for him," former State QB Shane Montgomery says. "He's a fair coach, and he'll respect them and they'll respect him."
He's a coach who'll adjust his offense to suit the talent at hand, Exhibit A being tailback Tremayne Stephens leading the ACC in rushing in 1997 and Exhibit B being Torry Holt being first in receiving that year and 1998 as well.
"State was always a difficult team to prepare for," says Torbush, the Tar Heels' defensive coordinator for 10 years. "Mike always gave defenses fits."
Given sufficient talent, the Tar Heels will move the football and score points under Mike O'Cain--enough for Carolina fans to forgive one minor affront from a quarter century ago.
