University of North Carolina Athletics
Extra Points Thursday
September 6, 2001 | Football
Sept. 6, 2001
What is it like to be driving around Chapel Hill with two thousand books about a football coach who just got a fat lip from the Maryland Terrapins?
Sort of like buying cattle futures just before the onslaught of mad cow disease.
Or jumping on the dot.com bandwagon in February, 2000.
Or refinancing just before Alan Greenspan slices interest rates again.
Timing isn't everything. It's the only thing. Did Vince Lombardi say that?
I took copies of the just-minted paperback, Born & Bred-John Bunting Takes Dead Aim On His Dream Job At Carolina, around to a number of Chapel Hill book, gift and souvenir stores this week. Typical was the reaction of one merchant on Franklin Street, who flipped through the book, then looked over his eyeglasses at me.
"Been nice if they'd won Saturday," he said.
I gave him a nice song and dance about how better days are to come, confident I'd cajoled him into ordering two hundred books.
"Give me a dozen," he said.
That's okay. I have a track record of getting into suspect publishing ventures around losing football coaches. And things seem to work out in the end, no matter how curious the timing.
Back in the summer of 1990, Mack Brown was digging out of a 2-20 start as Carolina's football coach. Jokes were rife around Chapel Hill: Hear about the guy who broke into a car on Franklin Street and deposited four Tar Heel football tickets on the dashboard? That kind of stuff. But those close to the program knew that good times were on the way.
It wasn't hard to figure.
One, you knew Carolina could be successful in football. It had been before. It was the state's flagship university. It had terrific facilities, a great campus and nationally ranked academics.
Two, you know Carolina wanted to be successful in football. The athletic department and booster club were run by former football players. Many of the people with big money were old enough to remember the matchless days of the Charlie Justice era of the late-1940s.
And three, when Brown looked you in the eye and told you Carolina would be very good one day soon, you believed him. And you knew prospective Tar Heel football players and their parents would believe him as well.
So it really wasn't that big a risk to climb on the Brown bandwagon before he'd even beaten Wake Forest, for criminy's sake. A newsletter named Extra Points was my idea to tell Carolina fans the inside story of the growth of the program.
It's still around 12 seasons later, I'm happy to say. What you're reading right now is an Internet offspring of that same publication.
Which brings me to John Bunting.
I think only a small cadre of Carolina people really knew what this institution was getting back in December when Dick Baddour announced the hiring of the former Tar Heel linebacker as its new football coach. Those were the guys he played with, the ones who understood his toughness, his intelligence, his drive, guys like Flip Ray, a defensive end in the late 1960s and early '70s.
"John was so fierce," says Ray. "He would take or deliver the hardest hit you can imagine, then get right back up. His jaw would tighten, his eyes would burn with intensity.
"He wouldn't have to say anything. Just seeing him stare out from behind that facemask was all anyone else needed for motivation."
Look Bunting in the eye today and you know he means business.
That's why I'll get rid of these books, sooner or later. Bunting will fashion the Tar Heel program in his own image and it will win and win a lot.
Actually, the Tar Heels' 23-7 loss Saturday at Maryland makes the timing of the release of the Bunting story precipitous in this regard: If you doubt where the program's headed, the leader's life and times will set you straight.
Enough with the shameless commercials. If you've read the stories on Bunting that appeared on TarHeelBlue.com last spring, this book provides a permanent lockbox for them as well as an array of new material. Of some 35,000 words of text, approximately 15,000 of them have not been published outside of this book.
You can find the book in assorted retail establishments around Chapel Hill, including UNC Student Stores, Johnny T-Shirt, Carolina Sportswear, The Shrunken Head and Sutton's Drug Store. You can call 800/55-GO-UNC (554-6862). And you can purchase it at Kenan Stadium during Tar Heel home games. Cost is $10.
Carolina's lone touchdown at Maryland Saturday was made possible by good blocking (particularly by a wide receiver) and a great read by tailback Willie Parker prior to
setting off on a 77-yard scamper.
The play was a lead draw, with fullback Richard Moore (43) providing the lead block. Figure 1 shows how the play set up and the initial blocks of each Tar Heel. Moore did a good job blocking the Terrapin linebacker who moved up to fill the hole, but in doing so there wasn't any room for Parker to slip through the hole to the left of center.
Meanwhile, Terp strong safety Tony Jackson read Parker's initial steps toward the line of scrimmage and anticipated colliding with Parker amid all the garbage of humanity around the line.
The key move for Parker was to be disciplined enough to get close the line of scrimmage before making a decision on whether to hit the original hole, cut back to the inside or bounce the play to the outside (Figure 2). In doing so, he lured Jackson into traffic, and when Parker bounced the run to the outside, Jackson couldn't work his way back to make a tackle. If Parker had bounced outside two steps earlier, Jackson would have been in far better position to react and get to the outside and make the tackle.
Another important element was the block of flanker Kory Bailey. Running plays inside the tackle and tight end can gain from one to six yards usually on the blocking of the interior linemen, the tight end and the fullback. But for running plays to hit big yards, the downfield blocking and the act of securing the corner by the wide receiver is paramount to success. The difference in a five-yard gain and a big-hitter is the neutralization of the cornerback or free safety involved in run support. Bailey occupied Terrapin cornerback Tony Okanlawon just long enough for Parker to cut inside and be gone by the time Okanlawon could get free.
To this week's E-Mailbox:
Chris Cason of Winder, Georgia, writes to ask which of Carolina's 600 wins in football over 113 years might be viewed as the "biggest?"
It's appropriate that the question comes this week, just as the Tar Heels are preparing to travel to Austin to face the University of Texas, because that biggest win probably occurred in 1948 over those same burnt-orange-clad Longhorns.
Carolina and Texas played a home-and-home series just after World War II, with Tar Heel coach Carl Snavely unveiling a team of service-hardened veterans led by Charlie "Choo Choo" Justice. Carolina downed Georgia 14-7 to open the 1947 season, then faced the Longhorns of coach Blair Cherry. Unfortunately, a number of Tar Heels suffered air sickness on their plane ride to Texas and then had to deal with the suffocating Texas heat. They were soundly defeated by Bobby Layne and the Longhorns, 34-0.
The entire off-season of 1948 was devoted to avenging the humiliation suffered in Austin a year earlier as Carolina eyed a Sept. 25 season-opener in Kenan Stadium. The Longhorns were coming off a 10-1 season, Sugar Bowl win over Alabama and No. 5 national ranking. In that day, preseason polls didn't come out until early October, but the Longhorns would certainly have been one of the country's top teams had rankings been provided prior to the season opener.
Kenan Stadium was packed with a record 43,500 fans. The aisles were used for runover. Private planes from Texas filled the runway at Horace Williams Airport. Ticket-takers were offered up to $250 to turn their backs so that boot-wearing, cigar-chomping Texans could sneak into the stadium.
Carolina snuffed the Longhorns' first possession, then scored quickly when Justice passed to Art Weiner for 20 yards and a touchdown with only 3:30 elapsed. Justice returned to the sideline, where he told Snavely, "Relax, Coach, this one won't be a problem."
It certainly wasn't. The Tar Heels romped, 34-7, for their biggest win in history.
Mike Alpert of Arlington, Va., writes: We have seen Michael Waddell, Sam Aiken, and Bosley Allen drop back to return punts this season. When the opposition lines up in punt formation, how do the coaches determine which of those three to send out as the return man?
Through the first two games, Bosley Allen was the Tar Heels No. 1 punt return specialist. But because of a minor injury, he was held out of that role at Oklahoma, and Aiken, the No. 2 return man, dropped back to receive punts. Allen was back to starting at that position at Maryland, but the coaches gave both return men opportunities during the game. Aiken has returned four punts for a 9.3 average and Allen two for a seven-yard average.
When the opponent has the ball near midfield or in Carolina territory and sends its
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Waddell and Kevin Knight are the Heels' top kick-off return specialists, and John Bunting has indicated Waddell might be given additional opportunities to return punts as well. Catching punts is a more challenging proposition than catching kick-offs, as punts are more susceptible to wind influence and because defenders are bearing down on you. So receivers, players used to catching the ball, are preferred for punt-return duty.
Delma Kinlaw of Cary was impressed with Julius Peppers' TD jaunt at Oklahoma after intercepting a pass and wonders if he might not be used on offense as a tight end.
Peppers actually was recruited in 1998 as a tight end/defensive end, and when starting tight end Alge Crumpler went down with a serious knee injury during 1998 spring practice, the coaches were looking at Peppers as a possible immediate contributor. Upon arrival in training camp, however, the staff decided to put him on defense and red-shirt him that fall. Allen Mogridge, meanwhile, started at tight end.
Bunting has in fact given some thought to playing Peppers at tight end, particularly in goal-line situations. But there's nothing specific happening along those lines yet because of the staff's focus on getting Peppers and the defense to fully understand and execute the new system of coordinator Jon Tenuta. "Right now, playing Julius on offense would take time that we simply don't have," Bunting says.
He didn't rule it out for later in the year, however.
Some Tar Heel fans are already blaming the play-calling for the Tar Heels' slow start on offense. That's expected.
The 1995 offense struggled and it was Darrell Moody's fault.
The 1996 and 1997 offenses couldn't move the ball against stout defenses like Virginia and Florida State, and it was Greg Davis's fault.
The woes of the 1998 and '99 attacks were attributed to Steve Marshall.
And the howls were out last fall for Mike O'Cain's head when the offense sputtered.
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Criticism comes with the territory of the offensive coordinator.
I'll share a couple of observations about new coordinator Gary Tranquill from a chapter introducing Bunting's coaching staff in the aforementioned book.
Former Tar Heel running back and assistant coach Ken Mack worked with Tranquill at Virginia in the late-1980s and early-1990s and terms him, simply, "a genius."
Mack urges Tar Heel fans not to draw too many conclusions based on Tranquill's first season.
"This year won't show how much football he knows, because he won't have time to implement everything," says Mack. "Give him some time and let him develop his players. It'll be fun to watch."
Another former Tar Heel, Billy Hite, coached one year with Tranquill at Virginia Tech and told Bunting, "I learned more football in nine months under Gary than I had in 20 years."
Before you critique the play-calling, ask these questions:
When you can answer "very" to the questions above, you'll move the football, no matter who's calling the plays.
Previous installments of Extra Points Thursday:
Send your questions to Lee Pace to answer in Extra Points Thursday at leepace@earthlink.net. Please provide your name and tell us where you live.
Players Mentioned
