University of North Carolina Athletics
Extra Points Thursday
November 8, 2001 | Football
Nov. 8, 2001
By Lee Pace
One of the bright spots in Carolina's defensive performance last week at Georgia Tech was a goal-line stand in the first quarter. The Tar Heels kept the Yellow Jackets out of the end zone on four consecutive snaps inside the four yard-line, the final two inside the one.
"We had some guys determined to make a statement and make plays down on the goal line," Tar Heel coach John Bunting said. "Keeping them out of the end zone was really saying something given that those plays came at the end of a 19-play drive."
On the goal-line and in other short-yardage situations at other positions on the field, defensive coordinator Jon Tenuta takes three defensive backs out and substitutes two tackles and one outside linebacker. The one DB who remains on the field is Dexter Reid, the Tar Heels' best tackler and toughest defender among their secondary players. Tackles Eric Davis and Donti Coats entered the game, as did linebacker Malcolm Stewart.
The defenders are aligned in an eight-man front, with the four tackles flanked by two ends and two outside linebackers. The two OLBs first are responsible for options, 
toss-sweeps, anything that comes to the outside. Reid (24) is responsible for covering any receiver that comes out of the backfield. It's the job of linebackers David Thornton (30) and Quincy Monk (41) to sniff the ball out and make a play.
Tech tailback Joe Burns carried between the tackles on all four snaps, losing one yard on first down (tackle by Joey Evans) and gaining three on second (stops by Monk and Reid). The diagram shows what happened on third and fourth downs.
On each of the goal-line plays, Carolina's down linemen did an excellent job of getting underneath their blockers and/or pushing them back off the line of scrimmage.
"The line's job is to invert the line of scrimmage," says Tentua. "You want as much beef as possible up there to control the line and give the linebackers the freedom to run to the ball. We want our guys to knock them back at least as far as the depth of their feet in their stance. That allows the linebackers to play high and make a tackle."
"You want the linemen to get in the way of the backs," says tackle Ryan Sims. "You don't want them to have a free run to the line of scrimmage. Penetration is what it's all about."
Tech's third and fourth-down plays were essentially mirror images of one another, with fullback Ross Mitchell (45) providing the lead block for Burns first to the left and then to the right. Russell Matvay (80), one of three tight ends in Tech's goal-line personnel group, lined up as a wingback on each down to the play-side, going in motion pre-snap away from the play and then wheeling and coming back toward the play.
On third down, Tar Heel end Julius Peppers (49) did an excellent job fighting off the block of the tight end opposite him and getting penetration. Thornton was the target of the lead block from the fullback, and his responsibility in that case was to "splatter" the fullback--force him to the inside so that the tailback would have to go to the fullback's outside. With the tailback flushed to the outside of the fullback, some combination of Malcolm Stewart (85), Peppers and Reid should be available to make the play.
Peppers was indeed there to make an initial hit on Burns around the legs. And Thornton not only "splattered" the fullback to the inside, he shucked Mitchell off and slammed Burns around the shoulders. The combination of Peppers and Thornton was enough to stop Burns for no gain.
"David reads plays extremely well," says linebackers coach Dave Huxtable. "That's what he did there--he made a quick read, reacted and tackled high and kept him out of the end zone."
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"They had the courage to go for it on fourth down," Thornton said. "We had to have the courage to stop them."
"Those were two big-time plays," says Huxtable. "It was a great job by David and a total job by the defense. The line kept their pads low and held the line of scrimmage and allowed the linebackers to come over the top."
As John Bunting has talked about the opponents on this year's schedule at various times since taking the Carolina job last December, and particularly now that the Wake Forest game is on tap, you can sense he holds the Demon Deacons in higher overall esteem than the rank-and-file Tar Heel fan.
The modern Carolina fan, after all, has witnessed the Tar Heels win 10 of the last 11 meetings with Wake Forest.
But in Bunting's playing days from 1969-71, Wake Forest was one of the ACC's better teams. The Deacons won the league title in 1970, edging Carolina and Duke by one-half game in the standings after beating the Tar Heels, 14-13, in late October in Winston-Salem. The following year, avenging the Deacons was priority No. 1 as Carolina ripped through the league with a 6-0 record.
The Wake Forest games in Bunting's junior and senior years were marked by two elements--the alleged "assistance" that Deacon QB Larry Russell got from a teammate on a touchdown in 1970 and the Tar Heels' shaved heads in 1971.
The Deacons rallied from a 13-0 deficit with two fourth-quarter touchdowns before a record crowd of 30,500 at Groves Stadium in 1970. The first of those was a quarterback sneak by Russell, who was apparently stopped short of the goal by, among other Tar Heels, outside linebacker Bunting. But then Larry Hopkins, one of two halfbacks in the Deacons' veer attack, came to Russell's aid from behind and pushed him through the resistance, over the goal line.
"I had the ball and seemed to be stopped at the line of scrimmage, but Hoppy charged into me from behind and knocked me across the goal line," Russell said afterward.
Carolina coach Bill Dooley was fuming when he met the news media.
"We were beaten today by two teams--the Wake Forest team and the team of officials," he said.
Dooley apologized three days later at his weekly press conference for criticizing the officials and acknowledged there were any number of plays better executed by the Tar Heels that would have prevented a loss.
The rematch in 1971 of coach Cal Stoll's team and the Tar Heels was big enough to warrant one of the rare regional TV appearances of the day. The game was moved from Carolina's standard 1:30 kick-off to 1:50 p.m. to accommodate TV, and all 44,000 seats in Kenan Stadium were sold.
Dooley's program had come under assault during the previous five weeks following the death of offensive lineman Bill Arnold to heat stroke in mid-September. As a show of support for Dooley and his staff, approximately one-third of the Tar Heels shaved their heads early that week.
It was a gray, rainy Saturday in Chapel Hill, and Carolina's touchdown on its first possession of the game was all it needed offensively in a 7-3 victory. The Tar Heel defense, however, twice had to stop the Deacons near the goal in the fourth quarter. The Tar Heels ran the table from that game, finished 6-0 in the ACC, 9-2 overall and earned a berth against Georgia in the Gator Bowl.
"The Wake Forest game was huge in my day," says Bunting. "I'm not approaching it any differently 30 years later."
From the e-mail bag:
Jesse Abrams of Greenville, S.C., wants to know about future Tar Heel football schedules. Here are the games officially set so far:
2002--at Syracuse and Arizona State, at home against Texas and Miami (Ohio).
2003--at Wisconsin and East Carolina, at home against Syracuse and Arizona State.
2004--at Utah, at home against Virginia Tech and Louisville.
2005--at Louisville, at home against Wisconsin and Utah.
2006--at Notre Dame, at home against Rutgers and Connecticut.
2007--at Virginia Tech, at home against Colorado.
2008--at Colorado and Rutgers, at home against Notre Dame.
2009--at Connecticut, at home against Michigan.
2010--at Michigan.
Another home-and-home series with East Carolina has been tentatively set for 2010 and 2011, but final contracts have not been signed so the deal is not yet official.
Nicholas Lentz of Concord writes to inquire about the ill-fated pooch punt the Tar Heels used late in the first half at Georgia Tech.
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But Georgia Tech did, not convinced that a field-goal attempt was coming. It sent return specialist Kelley Rhino deep to the 10 yard-line.
At that point, Bunting says, he and his staff should have seen Rhino deep and called a time out and called the play off. Bunting criticized himself for not having Reed well-schooled enough on the play for Reed himself to recognize Rhino was deep and do not kick the pooch punt.
But Reed did in fact take a direct snap from center and loft a lazy punt that was intended to die near the goal or go out of bounds near the goal. But Rhino was in place to catch it and return it 50 yards to set up a late Tech field goal, making the halftime score 13-7, Tech.
The problem was that Carolina had four offensive linemen on its field-goal team--four of the slowest players on the team--and that is exactly who you do not want covering a punt. Deep snapper Greg Warren missed an initial shot at Rhino at the 15 yard-line, then recovered and sped from behind to catch Rhino at the Carolina 38.
Tar Heel fans can forgive Bunting his oversight. What was refreshing was the way he came forward after the game and admitted it was a "stupid" coaching mistake.
Previous installments of Extra Points Thursday:
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