University of North Carolina Athletics
LEE PACE'S EXTRA POINTS: Good & Bad Of The Grate State Of Texas.
September 10, 2001 | Football
out across the goal line for a second-quarter score. |
Sept. 10, 2001
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AUSTIN, Texas -- John Swofford added Texas to the Tar Heel football schedule in the mid-1990s to give their non-conference plank a little more pizzazz. Mack Brown added Texas to his resum? to improve his bank account and list of challenges conquered. Two thousand Tar Heel fans put it on their fall travel agenda to witness in the flesh all the fuss at a football school.
How big is the deal? Will the dog hunt? Any meat on this bone? Here's one observer's view of the proceedings this weekend in the state capital of Texas as the Tar Heels dropped a 44-14 decision to the Longhorns.
The Good: Bevo, the 1,800-pound Longhorn steer who munches alfalfa and watches in the sun in the south end zone. He ranks with other great live animal mascots in college football such as our own Rameses, Reveille (a collie) at Texas A&M, Uga (a bulldog) at Georgia and Ralphie (a buffalo) at Colorado.
Bad: The Eyes of Texas. This musical number is overrated and besides that is melodic rip-off of I've Been Working on the Railroad. So, too, now that you mention it, is Boomer Sooner, which we heard 1,243 times two weeks ago, it's a theft from Yale University's Boola Boola. (There's nothing in the land to compare with the piece de resistance, the Aggie War Hymn, played two hours east of here in College Station.)
Good: The cannon that's fired by dudes in jeans, chaps and bandanas every time the Longhorns score a point. It's loud and it pops and you can even feel a slight tremor in the press box.
Bad: Burnt orange. A color from the bottom bins at Goodwill. What do you wear it with? Dirt? Any color that wants to be a relative of that exciting hue known as brown is in for trouble.
Good: I'll give the Texans credit-they wear their bad color en masse. Even the deep pockets watching from air-conditioned luxury boxes wear a dress shirt or golf shirt in their school color.
Bad: Come Early, Be Loud, Stay Late. Yep, that's one's made its way thirteen hundred miles west, directly from our own sweet Chapel Hill to a school with three national football titles. Just win, baby, and the emotion will follow.
Good: The Longhorns' uniform design, which overcomes its putrid color with wonderful simplicity. The white helmet with its lonesome orange Longhorn logo has looked like that since before Davie Crockett showed up at The Alamo. Texas coach Mack Brown once hinted to legend-in-residence Darrell Royal that he was considering tweaking the suits. Royal advised, "I'd sleep on it." The uniforms stood pat. Among Brown's good qualities is that he is very smart.
Bad: The perception that the media takes football infinitely more seriously here than it does back home. Rubbish. Saturday morning's Austin American-Statesman had no more coverage of the game than a typical Saturday morning Durham Herald-Sun would have. There were five TV stations covering the game, Carolina issues 12 to 15 TV credentials per game. There were 13 papers from Texas covering the game, 11 from North Carolina.
Good: The university tower that's bathed in orange whenever a Longhorn team wins a conference championship. Trying to think of ways to improve the overall football experience at Carolina in the mid-1990s, Mack and Sally Brown had the idea of illuminating the Bell Tower in baby blue following Tar Heel football wins, but the idea never muddled its way successfully through campus politics. Now the Browns live where their idea originated, and another Texan, N.C. State Chancellor Marye Anne Fox, has dibs on the concept in the Triangle, illuminating the Memorial Bell Tower in red after Wolfpack wins.
Bad: DOWN IN FRONT!!! For all their passion for football, Longhorn fans can be a wee bit wine-and-cheesey and argue with their stadium neighbors over the protocol of standing and yelling or sitting and snoozing. The Tar Heels, in fact, got eighty thousand of them sitting on their hands with a comeback Saturday that tied the game at 14-14 late in the first half.
Good: Jammer. What a name for the superb Longhorn cornerback, Quentin Jammer, a fifth-year player who had five solo tackles, one interception and two pass deflections against Carolina. "He showed some nasty about him," one NFL scout told the local paper. "He'll stick his face mask in there and leave some bruises."
Bad: Texans' high opinion of themselves. We Are Texas. What the hell does that mean? They're definitely highfalutin, ergo the archrival Aggies' nickname for them, "Teasips." The Grate State of Texas can do just that. Austin is a neat city, no argument there, but outside of that the place is fine if you like flat and hot. "It's like Oklahoma," Tar Heel coach John Bunting says. "All you've got is hot weather and football. They turn on the TV to find out how hot it's going to be and what's up with the football team."
Good: Dusty Mangum. Another great name for a Texas football player. This one is a freshman walk-on who nailed Carolina with three field goals, two from midfield with plenty of leg to spare.
Bad: Carolina's kick coverage, particularly the play of the gunners on the punt cover unit. The gunners are the players split 12 yards out whose job it is to race downfield and hopefully cream the return man just as he's catching the ball, if not, at least pin him inside amid all the onrushing traffic. Texas at times double-teamed the gunners, totally neutralizing them and leaving the fleet Nathan Vasher with green space to the perimeter. Vasher set Texas records with eight punt returns for 153 yards. He scored one TD and set up another.
Good: Texas barbecue. I visited two staples of the Austin barbecue scene, the Ironworks in downtown and the Salt Lick 20 miles out in the sticks. Neither have air conditioning. Both have picnic tables and lots of paper towels. Sampler platters at each establishment-with ribs, sausage and brisket, slow-cooked over oaken pits-are to die for.
Bad: The neutralization of Tar Heel All-American Julius Peppers. The Longhorns blocked him with a tackle and either a tight end, guard or running back on every snap. It wasn't until the third quarter that Texas offensive coordinator Greg Davis went to his five-receiver set, confident that Peppers could be contained. Peppers had no tackles and one pass deflection.
Good: The composure the Tar Heels-particularly quarterback Ronald Curry-exhibited when they fell behind 14-0 with less than 10 minutes elapsed. An Oklahoma-style meltdown, the result determined in one quarter, looked possible. But Carolina didn't panic, got some offense going and fought back. "We were after them in the first half," Bunting said. "I saw it, you saw it. We had them on the run. I'm real proud of them, real proud. They gave a tremendous effort in a hostile environment."
Bad: That Tar Heel wide receivers couldn't come up with at least one of a half-dozen "jump-ball" passes-throws that weren't perfect and were well-covered, but ones that could have been caught. "Those are the difference-makers," Bunting said. "We've got to start making some of those plays."
Good: The flashes of offense Carolina showed in the first half. Coordinator Gary Tranquill hoped to attack a fast and athletic Longhorn defense with quick-hitting passes out of the shotgun, then work in running plays out of that set after making a few yards throwing the ball and getting Texas thinking "pass." He also hoped to then max-protect and go deep. The Heels were able to do some of all that on a textbook drive of 77 yards on nine plays late in the first half.
Bad: That Carolina ran just seven plays in the third quarter, lost five yards in the process and fell from contention to oblivion with Texas creeping to a 26-14 lead. You could sense the Longhorns and their fans sniffing blood as the fourth-quarter opened. Indeed, this is a powerful assemblage of talent by Mack Brown and it's well-coached. A field goal and Curry sack in the end zone for a safety ignited the fourth-quarter rout.
QB Chris Simms in the fourth quarter. |
Bad: That the Tar Heels are 0-3 entering Saturday's home debut against Southern Methodist. Asked what kind of welcome he expects from Carolina fans, Bunting responded: "I expect a great reception. I expect our people to care about these kids, these young kids who are playing so hard, trying to get it done. Has it been fun? No. But it's been fun a couple of times. It was fun out there today. They competed hard against some of the best players in the country."
Good: That Mack Brown's at Texas. "Orange Jesus" has quite the gig going in Austin, with most of the populace bowing and scraping in his wake. Some, of course, toast him if Texas doesn't win a hundred-to-zip. He wanted a place where the heat to win is intense, and there's no question which sport floats the boat in Texas. It's even in Brown's contract that a basketball coach can never make more than he does, insuring the kind of ill feelings Brown harbored over Bill Guthridge's paycheck will never fester again. (Never mind that much of the money Guthridge got that irked Brown came from Nike, which gives basketball coaches wads more cash than football coaches.) There are 1,200 high schools in Texas, four times the number than North Carolina, and Texas will be a primary option for every good player that comes along.
The place is floating in cash, Brown enjoying the luxury of offering annuities to keep excellent coordinators in Greg Davis and Carl Reese from thinking about going elsewhere. The Longhorns are a fit made in heaven for Brown. I wish him the very best. I'd just prefer he'd left Chapel Hill nearly four years ago having made better recent decisions on signing quarterbacks, tailbacks and blockers. The Tar Heels and their abysmal offenses of the last 37 games are still suffering ill effects. As Mack himself always said, "This is a recruiting business. Forget Xs-and-Os. Personnel, that's the key."
Good: That John Bunting's running the show now in Chapel Hill. He has a difficult job ahead of him-continuing to rebuild the offense left in shambles by Brown and staff and, next year, finding out how well Carl Torbush and staff recruited defensive players. Seven good starters signed/recruited by Brown & Co. will have departed next fall, and we'll see how proficient players like Jonas Seawright, Clarence Gaddy, Jermicus Banks, Donti Coats and others can be. If they turn out to be duds, I'll have to present that at the feet of Torbush, just as I have the offensive recruiting snafus from 1995-97 to Brown.
Bunting's job will be to fashion a program in his own image, with players who love the Carolina experience and the game of football as much as he does. And provided the Carolina administration is pro-active in dealing with his success, and not re-active as it was in the case of Brown getting a job advance from Texas, Bunting's where he wants to be the rest of his career.
Bad: That this year's Carolina-Texas game was a complete personnel mismatch and next year could be worse, given Carolina's losses on defense in 2002. Tar Heel faithful are in for difficult haul. But Mack Brown got his fair shot. John Bunting will as well.
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.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 will be on sale at a variety of venues around campus and Chapel Hill, as well as on TarHeelBlue.com 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
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