University of North Carolina Athletics
LEE PACE'S EXTRA POINTS: Tough Guys Turn Mushy Over Peach Invite.
December 5, 2001 | Football
Dec. 3, 2001
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By Lee Pace
smiles after Carolina's 19-10 win on Saturday. |
All the while, Bunting-the-tough-guy bit his lower lip.
The tough-guy who, in his high school days in Maryland, was once deposited on his front yard by the team bus following a road game because coaches feared he was too beat up to walk the quarter mile from the school to his house.
The tough-guy who played football in the NFL with a sawed-off rubber ball taped inside his inner thigh to protect a groin pull.
The tough-guy who tore into his new Tar Heel team in his first days in Chapel Hill, eliciting comments from his players like "He screams intensity," "This man is serious," and "He looks like Dick Butkus."
The tough-guy who didn't flinch when his team fell to 0-3 out of the 2001 gate, steadied the ship and won seven of the following nine.
Indeed, there's a soft underbelly to this beast.
"That's the way I am," Bunting says. "Every week I get off that bus, see the Old Well and walk down to Kenan Stadium. I've got to fight back the emotion. I love this place."
Five hours later, Bunting stood on a small stand hastily imported to the playing field at Kenan Stadium, surrounded by his boss, Dick Baddour, and a cluster of gentlemen from the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl in Atlanta. His white Carolina coaching shirt was soaked through with Gatorade, thanks to a shower administered in the waning seconds of Carolina's 19-10 victory over Southern Methodist University. Over it he wore a navy sweater vest with a bowl logo he'd donned just a minute earlier. Around him on the playing field were jubilant teammates-Ronald Curry rolling around the ground with his cousin, Julius Peppers holding his helmet to the heavens.
Bunting looked around in the stands, at thousands of fans yelling "Peach Bowl ... Peach Bowl ... Peach Bowl."
"Thank you," he said.
"Thank you.
"Thank you."
It matched the celebration and was actually more concentrated than the one 11 weeks earlier, when the Tar Heels pummeled Florida State 41-9.
"It was almost surreal," senior receiver Kory Bailey said. "We'd finally made it. We'd finally earned a little respect. It was tremendous. It's a great feeling."
Take Respect.
That's a motto adopted by the seniors on this year's squad, the players who were recruited under the Top 10 banner of Mack Brown's heyday, players who endured the
transition to Carl Torbush and the slide to .500 mediocrity of the last three years. Now the Tar Heels are 7-5 and headed to the Peach Bowl to face a team to be named from the tradition-rich Southeastern Conference on New Year's Eve. Odds appear strong that Auburn will be the opponent.
"I'm thrilled for this program, I'm thrilled for the University of North Carolina." Bunting said.
The Tar Heels were chosen for four reasons in front of arch-rival N.C. State, which lobbied for the invitation following its strong November that included a victory at Florida State and a near-win over ACC titleist Maryland.
* The Heels beat N.C. State head-to-head-17-9, back on Sept. 29.
* They had a better conference record than the Wolfpack-5-3 to 4-4.
* They will bring plenty of fans-the school has been allotted 20,000 tickets and expects to sell every one.
* And they played a very difficult schedule. NCAA rankings had Carolina's schedule
Bunting officially accepts bowl bid from Gary Stokan. |
"Carolina won seven of its last nine, and of the two losses, one was against a Georgia Tech team that played arguably its best game of the year, and the other was by one point," Peach Bowl president Gary Stokan said.
The Tar Heels came into the week knowing they had to win in order to qualify for a bowl. NCAA rules require a team have six victories over Division 1-A teams in an 11-game schedule to go to a bowl, if you add a 12th game, as Bunting did in playing Oklahoma in August, you must win seven games. "There was monumental pressure on Carolina," Stokan said. "Either you go to a great bowl like ours or you don't go bowling. That's a lot of pressure on these kids."
The Mustangs of SMU had incentive as well-send coach Mike Cavan, fired three weeks earlier, out on a winning note.
"We played well against a tough opponent," Bunting said. "You may not believe it, but this was a tough football team. They played very, very hard. Looking at them on film this week, I couldn't understand why they'd fired the coach."
With the bowl bid come all of the trappings the Carolina program became accustomed to under the seven-year run of consecutive bowl bids from 1992-98. They get an extra month of practice. High school prospects who couldn't drive to Chapel Hill during their own seasons can make unofficial visits in December. And, where the Peach Bowl is concerned, an entire nation will watch on ESPN on New Year's Eve-with no other games opposing it.
"You've got to have a good clicker and pop between four games on New Year's Day," said Stokan. "I think people will be cocooning that night and watching us."
LSU coach Nick Saban, whose team beat Georgia Tech in last year's Peach Bowl, credits the living-room exposure from the game as helping land a stellar recruiting class. South Carolina coach Lou Holtz told Stokan he'd prefer to play in the Peach Bowl if only for that recruiting exposure, though it looks as if the Gamecocks are targeted for the Citrus Bowl in Orlando.
And former Tar Heel coach Mack Brown lauded the Peach Bowl for the very same reason back when the 1992 team defeated Mississippi State on Jan. 2, 1993. "We had an in-home visit with every prospect in the nation," he said.
One season does not a career make, of course, and Bunting knows quite well that a remarkable 2001 campaign is simply a down payment on the future. While the Carolina offense looks to be in good shape for 2002, only Michael Waddell and Dexter Reid return on defense, the 2002 season could bring a bunch of scores in the 30s and 40s-for both sides. Bunting is still working on the "culture," as he terms it, in
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Through the ups and downs of 2001, though, Bunting knows the consistency of demands from him and his staff made an impression on the players.
"We stayed the course," Bunting said. "We wanted to do things our way. We've been very demanding and disciplined. A lot of players couldn't meet our standards and aren't here. A lot of players had to change their ways of doing things. They had to make the right choices, do the right things or suffer the consequences."
Seniors Adam Metts and Bailey played their last games in Kenan on Saturday. These two and their classmates began the bond with Bunting when the coach told them he thought they should go play the defending national champions to open the season. From there it's been a gradual construction of mutual trust and respect.
"I see a lot of good things in the future," Metts said. "I think coach Bunting can be the next Dean Smith, but for football. He knows the game, and he also knows how to relate it to players. He's a great motivator. This whole team was concentrated and so much more consumed by the game of football this year. A lot of it I attribute to coach Bunting and his staff and how they prepared us."
Both reveled in the double-shots of emotion Saturday-the frolic of the walk from the Old Well and the calamity of the bowl-invitation celebration.
"The Old Well Walk is a great idea," Bailey says. "You get goose bumps from all the people. I think it's a tradition that will stick around here for a long time. It hasn't sunk it yet, but when it does I'm sure I'll feel sad that I've made my last one."
But John Bunting has not. Give this tough guy his way and he'll still be making it in 2021, a cane in one hand and a hanky in the other.
NOTE: Readers are encouraged to view this week's Extra Points in the convenient PDF Format. PDF Format contains all material seen below, as well as additional content that is only available through PDF, including The Inner Game. Download Free Acrobat Reader
Many Tar Heel fans enjoyed Lee Pace's six-part series chronicling the playing and coaching careers of coach John Bunting that appeared at TarHeelBlue.com last spring. Now those same stories are available with new material in a book that promises to be a collector's item in the future.
Born & Bred is now available. It is on sale at a variety of venues around campus and Chapel Hill, as well as in the TarHeelBlue.com FANStore and by mail order.
New chapters cover Bunting's coaching staff, his visit in May to Tar Heel legend Charlie "Choo Choo" Justice, and efforts to improve the game-day experience in Kenan Stadium. In addition, there are sidebars on the 1980 Carolina championship team, led by Kelvin Bryant, and Bunting's key role in the 1982 NFL players' strike. Contact Lee Pace today at leepace@earthlink.net for ordering information.
Extra Points, now in its 12th year, is published 15 times a year, once following all Carolina football games as well as at the beginning of the season, the end of the season and at the end of recruiting and spring practice. Subscriptions $30 per year, payable by check or MC/Visa to:
Extra Points Publishing Co.
101-A Aberdeen St.
Chapel Hill, NC 27516
Lee Pace, Editor & Publisher
919/933-2082, leepace@earthlink.net
Join The Foundation
Help sponsor the educations of Tar Heel football players--for as little as $100 a year. Membership to the Educational Foundation includes: Opportunity to purchase season football tickets and mini-season basketball ticket packages, access to the Ram's Room in Kenan Fieldhouse, tickets to annual Super Saturday lunch featuring John Bunting and Matt Doherty, invitations to annual functions featuring Carolina coaches, RamPage newsletter, donor card, car decals, much more!
For more information, call the Educational Foundation offices at 919/945-2000.
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