University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: Little To Savor From Long Day In Winston
October 26, 2002 | Football
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Oct. 26, 2002
By Adam Lucas
WINSTON-SALEM -- Coming off the field after Saturday's 31-0 whitewashing at the hands of Wake Forest, the stadium security officer escorting John Bunting to the locker room asked the Carolina head coach for the hat Bunting had worn during the game.
With a look of disbelief, the Tar Heel boss handed it over. The hat, along with everything else from the game, wasn't worth saving. That might be the best strategy to deal with the disheartening shutout. Throw out the hats. Throw out the game tape. Throw out the whole day and start anew next week against one of the hottest teams in the Atlantic Coast Conference, Maryland.
For a check on where the program stands right now, look at the game participation stats. Carolina played true freshmen on the two most physically demanding position groups, offensive line (Kyle Ralph) and defensive line (Kendall High). The rookies were everywhere on offense, including receiver (Derrele Mitchell) and running back (Mahlon Carey). Redshirt freshmen Doug Justice and Jeff Longhany started at linebacker, and former fullback Madison Hedgecock saw significant time at defensive end, despite the fact that it is probably his fourth most comfortable position, behind fullback, linebacker and tight end.
"We don't have a lot of players to play on the defensive line, so we had to play Madison Hedgecock out of necessity," Bunting said. "That goes to show you where we're at right now with that front and how much help we need in both numbers and quality."
"They told me they were thinking about moving me to defense earlier this week, and I told them I would be glad to do it, whatever helps the team," Hedgecock said.
What would help this team the most would be 12 months locked in the weight room. Wake runs a deceptive offense that includes plenty of motion and misdirection, but they hurt the Tar Heels just as much by running straight ahead, plowing out yards the way Virginia and NC State did the last two weeks.
It was Carolina's third straight loss, and the most outright depressing of the triumvirate of defeats at the hands of those teams. From the time Dan Orner pushed a field goal wide left in the game's opening minutes, there was never a sense that this was going to be a close contest. The loudest the Tar Heel cheering section got in the second half came early in the fourth quarter, when the assembled fans chased away a rogue group of Demon Deacon band members intent on playing the infernally catchy Wake fight song. (Da, na, na, na, na, na-na-na, Go Deacs!)
Elephant-memoried Tar Heel fans will recall that Wake Forest has a way of vexing new Carolina football coaches. It was after a particularly depressing 17-16 loss to Wake in 1989 that Mack Brown teared up on his postgame radio show, unsure that he would ever be able to get the Carolina program back on track.
Things seemed exactly that bleak Saturday afternoon in Winston-Salem, although Bunting isn't much of the crying type. But it's worth remembering that Brown walloped Wake 31-24 the next season and then began a long streak of dominance over the gold-and-black neighbors.
The long-term challenge for this football program is to return to days of Deacon domination. The short-term challenge is for someone wearing a light blue jersey to seize this team by the collar and shake it until it puts up a fight in the final four football games. "I don't think it's a matter of capability," junior offensive lineman Jeb Terry said, noting the penalties and turnovers that have continuously plagued Carolina. "I think we're very capable. It's a matter of self-discipline and us doing what we're supposed to do."
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Adam Lucas is the publisher of Tar Heel Monthly and can be reached at alucas@tarheelmonthly.com. To subscribe to Tar Heel Monthly, click here.
