University of North Carolina Athletics
Extra Points Thursday
October 4, 2001 | Football
Oct. 4, 2001
By Lee Pace
Carolina's defense has been making plays the last two weeks that--dare we say it--are conjuring memories of the vaunted Tar Heel units of 1996 and '97.
Those were the defenses that sent nine starters to the professional ranks, that were No. 2 in the country two years running in total defense, that landed coordinator Carl Torbush the Carolina head-coaching job when Mack Brown went to Texas in December, 1997.
This defense isn't quite in that league, and probably won't get there-- given that it has only half a year remaining with eight senior starters in the first season under a new coaching staff. But it's playing very, very well at times.
"I'll stand here and talk about our defense for as long as you want," Tar Heel Coach John Bunting said after the 17-9 victory over the Wolfpack.
Individual efforts like the ones made last Saturday at N.C. State by end Joey Evans and tackle Ryan Sims were as good as anything performed by Greg Ellis or Vonnie Holliday.
Figure 1 illustrates a nifty search-and-destroy mission by Evans (95) on a third-and-four play with about five minutes left in the first quarter. Defensive coordinator Jon Tenuta made a "swarm" call in the coaches' box, which specified that three linebackers blitz through the middle and defensive ends Evans and Julius Peppers (49) drop into zone pass coverage. State's premier tailback, Ray Robinson (5), was set to 
the right of QB Philip Rivers in a shotgun formation. Rivers threw a quick flare to Robinson, and Evans, after backstepping an instant, quickly recognized the play and found himself in space against Robinson, one-on-one.
Fifty thousand spectators and a regional TV audience would certainly have expected Robinson to turn the corner on a taller, supposedly slower defensive end and pick up a handful of yards before support from the Tar Heel secondary arrived. But no help was needed.
Evans ran with Robinson step-for-step and nailed him for a one-yard loss.
"That play sent a message," defensive end coach James Webster said. "That told them what kind of speed we had. If we had defensive linemen running down their running backs, they were in for a long day."
Evans modestly gives the credit to strength and conditioning coach Jeff Connors for helping him improve his quickness over the summer and to Tenuta for making the right call at the right time. Those might have been factors, but this was a great athlete making a great play.
"It's nice to have that kind of player in front of you at end," says linebacker Quincy Monk.
Head coach John Bunting said State had not shown a tendency to put Robinson in that position and make that throw to him out of that particular personnel group--thus it was a play the Tar Heel staff hadn't shown the defense during practice last week.
"We were taking a little bit of a chance putting Joey and Julius in that position, of having to cover a running back on any pass to the perimeter," Bunting said. "But Joey was alert, recognized the play and put him on the ground."
State moved into scoring territory on its next possession at the Tar Heel 35 and brought out a gadget play (Figure 2) it had used successfully a year ago in taking a 38-20 win in Kenan Stadium. Rivers (17) takes the snap, throws a quick lateral pass to wideout Bryan Peterson (2), then peels to the opposite side and receives a forward pass back from Peterson. It went for 19 yards and a score in 2000.
This year it could have gone for a bunch as well if not for a sharp play by Sims (87). The Tar Heel defense flowed to the side of the first pass. Meanwhile, four Wolfpack offensive linemen, after stepping first to the play-side, rolled to the backside and had set up a wall in front of Rivers.
"I came off the ball, and it looked like the line was setting up a screen," Sims said. "They were setting something up, I knew that. I saw No. 2 with the ball, but the line wasn't blocking that way. I thought, 'Something's not right.' Then I saw the O-line guys look at Rivers. Then I thought of the throwback. They'd used it last year and it was still in our minds."
Sims fortunately had the athleticism to back-up his mental dexterity. He sprinted to the backside and caught Rivers from behind for only a three-yard gain. His position coach, Rod Broadway, joked in the meeting room on Sunday that if Sims were really good he'd have intercepted the pass and returned it for a touchdown.
"Coach Tenuta preaches that you play hard, play for 60 minutes and play smart," Sims said. "He says football's played from the eyebrows up, that it's a thinking game."
They were The Survivors.
When the final whistle blew at the end of Duke game in Kenan Stadium in November, 1970, 14 players had reason to celebrate, reflect and brim with pride.
They were among the approximate 33 percent of Coach Bill Dooley's original recruiting class in 1967 to survive four football seasons and three spring practices.
It called for a photograph.
"I can't remember exactly who it was, but somebody said, 'We need to have a picture taken of our class,'" says Russell Ross, a linebacker at the time and attorney today in Atlanta. "We pulled everyone out of the locker room after coach Dooley addressed the team. Several guys weren't in it--I know Ricky Lanier was in the shower and out of the locker room in a flash after every game. He had more girlfriends than anyone and he had things to do."
The 11 pictured above are grateful someone thought to take the photograph. Ross is front-row, far left, followed from left-to-right by Jim Papai, Bill Richardson, Keith Hicks, Jim Hambacher and Ron Gryzbowski. On the back row, left-to-right, are Bob Schult, Paul Hoolahan, Don McCauley, Flip Ray and Tony Blanchard. Not pictured in addition to Lanier are John Swofford and Bucky Perry.
"Everyone in the picture has a copy of it," says Ross. "I'm sure everyone else displays theirs' as proudly as I do."
Ross sent a copy of the photo to John Bunting leading up to a reunion that will be held this weekend in honor of Dooley and members of his squads that won three ACC championships during his 11-year tenure from 1967-77. Dooley will be honored at halftime of Saturday's game along with McCauley, who's being inducted in December into the College Football Hall of Fame.
"At the banquet at the end of our freshman year, Coach Dooley got up and said, 'There are two things that make a man--Marine boot camp and spring football practice,'" Ross remembers. "That was a warning, but we didn't really know what we were in for. Those were tough times."
I got to know Ed Emory when I was a kid attending a sports camp at Brevard College in Western North Carolina in the late-1960s. Emory was head coach at Brevard High at the time, an arch-rival of my hometown team, Hendersonville High. We'd exchange barbs at one another depending on which team won the battle the previous fall. Years later, when our paths would cross with me as a neophyte sports writer and Emory as a college assistant at Clemson or Duke, he'd always greet me with, "Whaddaya say there, Hendersonville?"
So if Emory says he did not send spies to Chapel Hill 20 years ago the week of the game between East Carolina, his employer at the time, and the Tar Heels, I'll take his word for it.
"Nobody from our staff was over there, and I think they figured out it wasn't anyone from ECU about the time it got in all the newspapers," Emory told Caulton Tudor of the Raleigh News & Observer this week. "I tried to call Dick Crum three times that week to get to the bottom of what was going on. He never returned a one of my calls."
The spooks, then, must have been free-lance.
Maybe they believed a little intelligence on the Tar Heel game plan gleaned for the glory of the Purple & Gold might get them some favors from the coaches or some brownie points with the players. Who knows?
But just as Emory insists he and his office weren't involved, there was enough evidence gathered the first week of the 1981 season to lead any juror with half a brain to believe someone without proper authorization was spying on Tar Heel practices.
Here's what happened:
On Tuesday, Sept. 8, 1981, Ken Saylors was stationed in the Law School Library overlooking the football practice field. Saylors was a former football player now employed by the football office for various assignments, one of which was to secure the library during practice. He noticed a young man "paying a lot more attention to football practice than to his books," Saylors later said. The next day, the same man was back and was accompanied by an older man, one noticeable because of his bald head. Both men were taking notes as they watched practice.
Saylors immediately told Tar Heel Coach Dick Crum that practice was being watched from the library. Crum contacted Ken Broun, the dean of the law school, and had him approach the observers.
"I asked the bald man to identify himself and he refused," Broun said. "I asked if those were football plays on his pad. He covered it with a book and refused to let me see it."
Both men immediately left the building. Crum sent for an ECU media guide and showed it to Broun and Saylors, who each identified the bald man as ECU assistant coach Charles Elmquist. Saylors later spotted the younger man leaving campus in a vehicle that, after the license tag was checked, was proven to be owned by a Morehead City automobile dealership that supplied courtesy vehicles to East Carolina athletics personnel.
"It was really exciting," Saylors said. "I'd been up there two years and never thought I'd catch a spy. It was like James Bond."
Of course, whether the ECU coaching staff had any idea of what the Heels were going to do didn't matter. Carolina had simply too much talent to let the intricacies of Xs-and-Os get in the way. With tailback Kelvin Bryant leading the way, the Tar Heels pounded the Pirates, 56-0.
That was the last time Carolina and ECU have met on the football field. Saturday's reunion and the one in Greenville, set for Oct. 11, 2003, are the result of "nudging" from the North Carolina General Assembly. The deal for the home-and-home series was announced in 1995.
Brad Whitaker of Jacksonville, Fla., writes to inquire about the development of Carolina's reserve linebackers given that three seniors--Merceda Perry, Quincy Monk and David Thornton--are starting.
Linebackers coach Dave Huxtable admits that he'd like to know more about just
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"All of those guys are working really hard," Huxtable says. "But they've not played a whole lot. That's a concern for next year. But they're working on special teams, working hard in practice. I need to find spots to get them in games, but I just haven't found the right moment. Our starters are playing very, very good football right now. They've played so well, it's hard to find the spots. But I need to do it and will try to the rest of the season."
Huxtable says each of the five has potential and has showed good things in practice. "With more practice reps and another spring ball in our system, I think they'll be ready by next season," he says.
SQUIB KICKS -- Among the Friday-night motivational and entertainment fodder Bunting used last week before the game at State was to play a tape of a telephone message from former Tar Heel Dr? Bly. The cornerback, now with the St. Louis Rams, called to congratulate the Tar Heels on their win over Florida State and to say hello to Bunting, the co-coordinator on defense at St. Louis during Bly's rookie and sophomore years in the NFL. "Coach Bunting looked after Tar Heel alumni," says Bly. "Being a rookie in the NFL is tough. Having that bond with JB made the transition a lot easier for me." Bunting also showed his players tape of the State team celebrating its win in Kenan Stadium the previous year by jumping on "NC" logo at midfield. "When we win tomorrow," Bunting told his team Friday night, "you will not celebrate like that. Do something else."
** Three Tar Heel staffers with ties to East Carolina--Huxtable, Webster and Connors--are diplomatically declining this week to discuss their years at ECU. "They want to make sure the focus is on the players and the game itself, not a bunch of off-the-field stuff," Bunting says. Pirate Coach Steve Logan says his staff has changed its audible signals and hand signals given that Webster was a defensive assistant last year in Greenville. Beyond that, he says, it's a non-issue. "Once the game kicks off, you're up to your elbows in rattlesnakes and all that stuff goes right down the drain," Logan says. ** Offensive tackle Willie McNeill is the first freshman to start along the offensive line since center Jeff Saturday started in 1994. McNeill is a red-shirt freshman, and a true freshman, Jason Brown, played a lot in the second half last week against N.C. State. Brown is in the running to start this week if he has a good week of practice. "Jason's aggressive and physical, but he's got a lot to learn," O-line coach Robbie Caldwell says. ** For two straight weeks, Carolina's special teams have achieved a key goal--average more than 10 yards on punt returns and limit the opposition to less than five yards. Against Florida State and N.C. State, the Tar Heels have gained 138 yards on 11 returns (12.5 average) and limited the opponent to 14 yards on five returns (2.8 yards). "That's huge in terms of field position," says Huxtable, who coordinates special teams and personally supervises the punt/punt cover unit. "We've got to keep winning that battle. We've got to keep it going."
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