University of North Carolina Athletics
Pace: Put '97 Heels Under Scope for Perspective
November 4, 2002 | Football
Nov. 4, 2002
The following is an excerpt from Lee Pace's latest edition of Extra Points. To read more about the Maryland game, click here.
By Lee Pace
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Solving the problem in the long term is a recruiting issue, pure and simple. There's not a whole lot of difference in what's going on with the Tar Heels right now and what Mack Brown faced in the late-1980s.
To understand how a quality team comes together, you only have to examine the bricks and mortar of those outstanding 10-2 and 11-1 teams of 1996-97. If you study the recruiting classes of 1992 and 1993, you'll see what an incredibly good job Brown and his staff did evaluating and signing quality players.
Those two signing classes were assembled when the Tar Heels were starting to win under Brown and, in the case of the 1993 class, came together following the Tar Heels' Peach Bowl win over Mississippi State. They are listed below. Players in italics played all four years (or five in the case of red-shirts) and were productive. Those in bold italics also went on to professional football.
1992 -- Darrin Ashford, Perez Boulware, Marcus Brinkley, James Hamilton, Brian Honeycutt, Leon Johnson, Freddie Jones, Marcus Jones, Maurice McGregor, Marc Montoro, Andre Purvis, Michael Ramseur, Rick Terry, Byron Thomas, Marcus Wall, Chris Watson.
That's 16 players, 13 of whom were productive and six of whom played in the NFL.
1993 -- Octavus Barnes, Mike Baxter, Terry Billups, Omar Brown, Shawn Crouthamel, Nolen Duncan, Clay Eddie, Greg Ellis, Mike Geter, Jamez Griffin, Mike Hobgood, Nate Hobgood-Chittick, Ryan Hoffman, Jon Linton, Kivuusama Mays, Kris Moyer, Toby Patton, Jeff Saturday, Brian Simmons, Kevin Taybron, Todd Weeks.
That's 21 players, 13 of whom played and contributed throughout their careers and nine of whom played in the NFL.
Over two years, that's 37 signees. Twenty-six of them -- an amazing 70 percent -- were productive and 15 played professionally.
Last week I dug out a story I wrote for the Carolina Alumni Review during the fall of 1997 chronicling the development of that 1993 class, which produced 10 starters for a team that finished No. 4 in the nation. Three more players were quality reserves. That year's senior class also included Chris Keldorf, a junior-college transfer who entered in 1996. Of the 13 recruits in 1993 who were fifth-year seniors in 1997, all of them were expected to graduate the following spring. Unsavory off-the-field incidents were essentially non-existent.
Brown and his assistant coaches were remarkably efficient in getting good athletes who brought solid character to the program. "Character's as important as athletic ability with this group," assistant coach Tim Brewster said of the 1997 seniors. Added defensive coordinator Carl Torbush, "This is a very special group of young men and a very athletic group."
The challenge to Bunting and staff is to land several signing classes back-to-back of similar athletic ability and, just as importantly, sign players with enough wherewithal to progress toward graduation, stay out of trouble and be committed toward winning. There have simply been too many recruiting decisions over the last half-dozen years or so that did not pan out as hoped -- for any of a number of reasons.
Last year's defense was good because it had quality senior linebackers who could blitz the stuffing out of a quarterback and two linemen -- Julius Peppers and Ryan Sims -- who were drafted in the top six of the NFL's first round last spring.
Lots of people want to making the ebbing and flowing of college sports programs more complicated than it really is. I had fun writing in 1996-97 about the West Coast offense installed by Greg Davis and the press defense instituted by Torbush and defensive backs coach Ron Case. The Xs-and-Os are fascinating and make great bar talk for fans.
But success or failure always comes back to personnel and recruiting. Let's hope John Bunting and staff are doing right now what Mack Brown & Co. did 10 years ago.
