University of North Carolina Athletics
Coach Tranquill On The Offense: Part II
May 23, 2001 | Football
By: Joe Bray
TarHeelBlue: You've coached a lot of quarterbacks over the years, both college and pro. What type of quarterback do you need in college football today?
Coach Tranquill: "The game has changed to the point where you better have a quarterback who can create and make plays a little bit. That doesn't mean you have to be able to run the ball extremely well, but you have to have the sense and feel that you can move around in the pocket or out of the pocket, wherever you have to go to make plays.
"There are guys who are very fast and quick who can't do that, then there are guys who are slow-footed that still have that natural ability to move around and find a throwing lane and make a play. The game has gotten to the point, with all the blitzing and zone blitzing that you're seeing, that you can't block them all all the time. So, you have to have a quarterback who can make them miss him and create and make the play.
"That's the way the game's going. That's why you're seeing more and more people use quarterbacks with athleticism and that kind of ability. Sometimes those guys don't throw the ball as well as you'd like, but they throw it well enough.
"Quarterback is a funny position. Take guys like Bobby Layne and Billy Kilmer, guys who didn't throw that tight spiral, yet had the wherewithal, the judgement, the feel, to get the job done. I don't think it's anything that you can coach.
"I've been around guys who could throw the ball seventy yards on a rope, yet when the ball is snapped they don't see what they're supposed to see. They can't make that judgement, that decision. They can't anticipate.
"Then you get some guy like Joe Montana at the end of his career. Average arm at best, but he always threw it to the right place at the right time. Quarterbacks come in all kinds of shapes and sizes."
TarHeelBlue: Coach Bunting has stressed that we've got to do a better job of protecting the quarterback. Do you think we made much progress in that area?
Coach Tranquill: "I think we did. We experimented with a lot of different things in the spring, but I know we can't do all those things, so we're going to have to cut back on some things so we can solidify assignments and work more on the individual techniques that those guys have to do to pass protect.
"Pass protection isn't just the offensive line, it's a total thing. It's receivers getting open. The quarterback needs judgement and decision-making skills. Sometimes sacks occur and they're not offensive line problems. Sometimes the quarterback holds the ball too long.
"Most sacks you see are usually one of two things. Usually, somebody messes up up front and doesn't get his job done. The second most common thing is the quarterback holds the ball too long.
"If the quarterback truly understands and he's functioning on all cylinders and he throws the ball on time, you take a lot of pressure off those offensive linemen. They don't have to sustain those blocks forever."
TarHeelBlue: Ronald's a great athlete and can make the spectacular play. Do you think this sometimes causes him not to go ahead and throw the ball away?
Coach Tranquill: "I think that's another ingredient, being able to throw the ball away intelligently and not take sacks. Being able to anticipate and make the throw prior to the receiver being "open" is very important.
"Sometimes the quarterback will wait until the guy's open, but the higher the level you go in football, the less "more open" they are. You've got to be able to fit the ball in tinier spaces, but if you don't have the right anticipation to do that, those couple extra fractions of a second you hold the ball is when the sacks occur. Make the throw before the guy makes his cut, not after.
"I never exactly know what to call it. It's judgement, it's anticipation, it's sense, it's feel, call it what you will, but some guys have it and some guys don't, regardless of their athletic ability.
"Whenever you get a guy with physical ability to go with that innate ability, then you've got a heck of a guy at quarterback."
TarHeelBlue: Did you feel comfortable with the progress the team made in picking up new terminology?
Coach Tranquill: "Yea, I think they did a good job.
"Football's a funny game, because nobody really does anything differently, but they call it something different. What they learned last year that was called apples, this year we're calling it oranges. Sometimes that takes a while for them to say, 'Oh, apples are oranges', but if they make the effort it comes in time and begins to flow easily.
"I know you could even see those young quarterbacks, as we went through the spring, get more comfortable spitting out the language in the huddle. You could just see that they were getting comfortable with it. They could do it without thinking too much about what they were saying."
TarHeelBlue: How is your talent level?
Coach Tranquill: "I think it's OK. I don't think it's outstanding.
"Everybody has problems. Sometimes when you feel you're really good, you have shortcomings in certain areas, but those really good players are able to pick the other guys up by their boot straps or perform at a level where they can overcome the not-so-good players.
"Sometimes skill position people can do that. They can sometimes overcome other areas where you're a little bit deficient. But if you have too many deficient areas, one or two guys can't overcome then.
"I've never coached anywhere that I thought we had everybody we needed to have. You're never where you'd like to be overall.
"I do think we have players with big-play capability. Bosley Allen has it, Curry has it. We've got to find a couple more. Maybe one of those running backs will.
"The way the game is played today, it's hard to sustain a 12-play, 80-yard drive for a touchdown. That's hard to do unless somebody makes a big play, somebody makes a 20-yard catch, somebody breaks a tackle, somebody makes a crunching block that springs a play.
"Those are the things you have to do. You can't just pound people five yards at a clip anymore. It's too hard."
TarHeelBlue: Have any of the guys stepped up as leaders?
Coach Tranquill: "I think Metts has. He's taken the bull by the horns a little bit. And I thought Curry showed some leadership. I think they expect leadership from him.
"Some of those other guys, who aren't so sure about what they're doing, it's hard for them to exhibit any leadership when they're kind of new at what they're trying to do.
"Some of those upper classmen have to do it. Guys like Kory Bailey, they have to step up and assume some leadership. They have to do it."
TarHeelBlue: Coach Bunting stresses the value of staff chemistry. How is the chemistry between the offensive coaches?
Coach Tranquill: "It's good. Now there's always going to be some things that come up where we're not all on the same page, but it's usually not because of disagreement. It's usually more of a case of not knowing what the other guy means.
"We have the same problem with terminology that the players do. In fact, it's probably more blatant with coaches than anybody else. You'll go visit with some other staff, and they're calling things differently than you do, and you'll go 'What the heck are they talking about?'. Then pretty soon you'll go 'Oh, I know what he's saying'.
"That's an age-old problem, it's gone on forever."
TarHeelBlue: We're doing something a little different here with the tight ends coach working with the offensive line, yet Coach Browning tells me that is quite common.
Coach Tranquill: "Yes, it is.
"The tight end is an animal that's unlike any other on the team. He's got to be able to block like an offensive lineman, he's got to be able to catch, he's got to be able to run after the catch. They're being stretched all over the practice field. They're the guys everybody's pulling on during practice, they move around.
"When the tight ends were working on pass blocking, Kenny would also be working with the offensive line on pass blocking. When the tight ends were working on pass routes, Kenny would keep the tackles.
"It makes it more productive."
TarHeelBlue: Practices were much more fast paced this spring, there seemed to be no down time. Even the kickers never stopped.
Coach Tranquill: "You've got to have a program for them. You've got to work on all the little things, like practicing taking a bad snap. You never know what's going to happen. If you practice every day picking one off the ground and kicking it, that first time it happens in a game, you scoop it up and kick it.
"It's just like catching the ball, it's just like the quarterback throwing. Quarterbacks have to throw against the air first, with individual routes with receivers, getting a sense or feel for the receiver. Then you plug it into the next thing, which is pass skeleton. Then you plug it into team pass, you plug it into blitz. All those things, you have to do them.
"You can take one pass play and run it against five or six different coverages, it's going to look different every time. You've got to practice it against all those different looks.
"That's how guys get better, lots of little things."
TarHeelBlue: I know you weren't here in the past, but Coach Browning tells me our running game used to be one where the back should hit a very specific spot, but now there's more latitude in where the back may run.
Coach Tranquill: "Call it run to daylight or whatever, but the back has got to be able to see, he's got to use his eyes.
"Some backs don't have good eyes. They have a lot of skill, but they don't have good eyes, they don't make the right cut.
"Then some guys don't have the speed that you want, but they have good eyes and always make the right cut. Vision is probably as important for a running back as anything else.
"Plus, backs need to understand how a particular play is being blocked against a specific defense. For example, if I'm running off tackle to the right, and the guard is covered, it's going to be a little bit different than if the guard's uncovered. It's going to be blocked differently. The back needs to understand that."
TarHeelBlue: Will we see many two tight-end formations?
Coach Tranquill: "I do like two-tight ends with one back, not as a steady diet, but it's a nice change up. I don't know if we'll get in that personnel grouping.
"I like to be able to jump in and out of different personnel groups, but I'm not going to take a pretty good player out of the game and put in a not so good player just to have a different personnel grouping.
"As I said earlier, we may be in more four wideout sets than I'd like to be because that's an area where we have some strength and depth. We'll see.
"We'll try to catch people by surprise, but you can't trick them forever. Football's still blocking and tackling, and it's not going to change."
Coach Tranquill On The Offense: Part I
Up next: Coach Ken Browning, tight ends coach
and recruiting coordinator.
Look for Part I on Friday, May 25, and Part II on
Monday, May 28.
Players Mentioned
