University of North Carolina Athletics
Extra Points: Reversal of Fortunes
November 10, 2003 | Football
Nov. 10, 2003
Complete Extra Points in PDF Format
Download Free Acrobat Reader
by Lee Pace
Carolina's beleaguered football program achieved a much-needed victory Saturday. The Tar Heels bolted to a 35-13 lead over Wake Forest after three quarters, then held on in the late stages for a 42-34 win that quenches a parched throat for a few drops of success. The Heels at 2-8 are not a quality team yet, but they showed some physical prowess and emotional strength not visible in recent memory.
"It's awesome, I'm kind of speechless," cornerback Michael Waddell said. "It's been a long time coming."
"This win clears a big, dark cloud out of here," offensive guard Jeb Terry said.
"We kind of buckled down and finally made the plays we needed to make," defensive end Chase Page added.
The elements of victory were many, but none more important than these five:
* Pride.
Head coach John Bunting was a man on the warpath last week on the practice field and in the meeting rooms, wielding the embarrassing specter of last week's implosion at Maryland and last year's 31-0 steamrolling courtesy the Demon Deacons in Winston-Salem as motivational fodder. He demanded 11 defenders closing on the ball on every snap and sent anyone guilty of a lapse into a personal session with strength and conditioning coach Jeff Connors. He gathered with the defensive ends in their meeting room and scoffed at the notion that any could have professional aspirations. "You better hit someone in the mouth this week," he told them. Bunting pointed fingers at several players in one pre-practice address and said, "You got your tail whipped last year. You gonna let it happen again?"
"Coach definitely appealed to our pride," Page said. "He was in our faces. It's what you need to hear sometimes. Hey, you gotta just 'man-up' sometimes. He got his message across."
* A running game.
Lord, what a thing of beauty--an offensive line of experience and bulk and heart clearing the way and a talented tailback like freshman Ronnie McGill operating from behind. McGill ran for 244 yards and three touchdowns and broke two tackles at the line of scrimmage to fight for a game-saving first down in the final minute. Not since Natrone Means ran for 249 yards against Maryland in 1992 has a Tar Heel been so frisky running the ball. McGill broke tackles, spun off tackles, shot through holes, outran cornerbacks, high-stepped, stutter-stepped and, if needed, lowered his head and pounded a weary Deacon defense.
 |
|
This is beginning to resemble a man-sized running game, something not seen in Chapel Hill since, well, Natrone Means himself a decade ago.
"I've been committed since taking over this program to improve our offensive line and our ability to run the football," Bunting said. "We're starting to show signs of that. You can win a lot of football games if you can run the ball like we did today."
* Turnovers.
The giveaway/takeaway battle has been like an oozing scab for the Tar Heels this season. It looks bad and feels bad. The Tar Heels through nine games were No. 113 in NCAA Division I-A in turnover margin, netting seven and handing out 20. Ball-handling errors had proven painful in losses to Arizona State and Clemson, and a Tar Heel fumble at Wisconsin gave the Badgers a three-yard field. One offensive assistant coach last week noted, "If we'd cut our turnovers by 50 percent, we could have four more wins." Meanwhile, the Carolina defense had but two interceptions, both by safety Mahlon Carey, and not one interception by a cornerback. The Deacons, meanwhile, were No. 9 nationally and first in the ACC with 25 additions of ball possession and 12 subtractions.
Those numbers turned the Tar Heels' way Saturday as they benefited from a plus-two advantage in turnovers, and all three of their fumble recoveries led to touchdowns. Two of them came in Wake Forest territory and were covered at the Deacon 22 yard-line. Two were results of jarring hits and the other was a misplayed kick by a Deacon return specialist.
"Turnovers are always a factor in any game," Bunting said. "Obviously today they hurt Wake Forest and helped us."
* Special teams.
The Tar Heels blocked two Wake Forest field-goal tries and one extra point, turning the latter into two Carolina points when Lionell Green scooped the ball up and ran to the opposite goal. Waddell came off the edge to block two kicks and Jonas Seawright elevated up the middle to swat another. Special teams coordinator James Webster believed Wake Forest's protection for place-kicks was vulnerable. While most teams step inside and punch with their hands on the snap of the ball, the Deacons brace to the next inside man without punching. Webster believed that would give inside players like Page, Seawright, Madison Hedgecock and Isaac Mooring an opportunity to break down the interior of the blocking wall. The Deacons' two wing players also move their outside leg inward a hair as they block to the inside, making the corner a little shorter for an outside rusher. Dexter Reid was aggressive at the gap between the wing and tackle, making the wing defender focus on him and giving Waddell a little more air to the outside. Waddell got a great jump twice and timed his leap perfectly.
"And I almost got there again," he said. "I could feel the wind on my fingers a couple other times when I didn't get the block." Those plays erased a potential seven points for the Deacons and put two on the board for Carolina--a total of one point more than the final spread--but more importantly gave Carolina an emotional boost in the first half.
"We've been preaching since last spring the importance of the kicking game, how big plays can turn momentum," Webster said. "You could see the impact those plays were having. Our players got more and more excited with every big play and became more confident as the game went along."
* Defensive discipline.
The Tar Heels' much maligned defense yielded another sizeable chunk of real estate (562 yards), but Carolina was hit with only two big plays-a pair of 52-yard completions, one against Green for a TD and one against Waddell to set up a TD. Those were the only gains over 20 yards. Otherwise the Deacons churned out gains of eight, six, four, nine and other single-digits without hitting the home-run ball. The Tar Heels were competent for the most part in minding their assignments, which can be maddeningly difficult against Wake Forest's slight-of-hand offense. Simply forcing those first-half field goal attempts that were eventually blocked were victories; in September they would have been sure TDs.
"Watching them on tape, in every single quarter of every single game, I saw Chris Barclay breaking the 20, 25, 35-yard run," Bunting said. "He didn't have those against us. That was huge. I think we did as well against them stopping the run as anyone has done all year, which is kind of surprising."
Not to mention the victory being a shock to lots of folks as well. I mused to a number of people last week that here we are, the University of North Carolina, desperate for a win over Wake Forest. And then I heard a whisper Saturday before kick-off from a knowledgeable Wake Forest source that the Deacons might be a wee bit cocky, might be taking the Tar Heels for granted. And afterward a smattering of Carolina students made a poor effort at tearing down a goal post and a Deacon was quoted in the newspaper saying his team "embarrassed" their university.
None of that computes in my baby-blue brain, but the sweet feel of victory registers after a long dry spell.
SQUIB-KICKS -
It was an interesting sight at one point in the post-game interview area. Surrounded by reporters were QB Darian Durant (Florence, S.C.), TB Ronnie McGill (Clover), DL Chase Page (Mt. Pleasant) and DT Jonas Seawright (Orangeburg). Never in recent memory have the Tar Heels gotten so much recruiting fuel out of the Palmetto State.
* Tailback Chad Scott suffered a sprained neck on a jarring first-quarter tackle but was termed "sore but otherwise fine" after the game. Other injuries to be monitored this week: DE Alden Blizzard with a sprained knee; TE Bobby Blizzard with a strained calf, TE John Dunn and OT Drew Hunter with neck strains, OT Brian Chacos with a sprained knee, and WR Mike Mason with a quad contusion.
* Carolina has started a different lineup on defense in every game for two years now. Last week's changes included Page moving to end to get more consistency and experience there after neither Tommy Davis nor Alden Blizzard had provided enough productivity. Waddell also started at cornerback after Chris Hawkins' struggles at Maryland last week. True freshmen Isiah Thomas and Shelton Bynum started at defensive tackle and played well, Bunting said. Page will remain at end for the last two games.
* In case you were wondering, the Tar Heels' mass substitutions on defense depending on down and distance is not the preferred course of action. Carolina has a personnel group on defense known as "Rabbits" that attempts to get faster players on the field on passing downs. The "Sam" linebacker (or strongside linebacker) will come out, to be replaced by another defensive back; right now D.J. Walker is that back, although Derrick Johnson and Jacoby Watkins have played that spot as well. Middle linebacker Devllen Bullard comes out and Doug Justice comes in. Jocques Dumas enters at tackle. Blizzard will be one of the ends. Hedgecock, whose strength is defending the run, exits and Victor Worsley enters. "Playing this style is not our first choice," defensive coordinator Dave Huxtable says. "You would prefer not to have to make wholesale substitutions. You'd like to bring in a nickel back, take out a linebacker and leave it at that on passing downs. The simpler, the better. But we think this gives our kids the best chance to be successful."
