University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: Line Shuffles, Expectations Remain
September 14, 2004 | Football
Sept. 14, 2004
By Adam Lucas
During the next three days of Carolina football practice, offensive line coach Hal Hunter faces a vexing problem.
He lost one lineman--Skip Seagraves--to a season-ending foot injury against Virginia. But it's going to take two linemen, not one, to replace the fifth-year senior. Seagraves took snaps at both tackle and guard in Carolina's o-line rotation and had already seen action at both positions in 2004.
"We had a guy who was playing 50 percent of the time at tackle and 50 percent of the time at guard," Hunter says. "So I have to get another guard ready and another tackle ready."
The guard expected to see his contributions increase is Steven Bell, while Ben Lemming will move from the third-string right tackle behind Willie McNeill and Seagraves to the third overall tackle. Bell will share snaps with Charlston Gray and Kyle Ralph at guard, while Lemming will spell McNeill and Brian Chacos.
That's not Bell's only role. He'll also continue to take snaps at center, where he played most of the fourth quarter in Charlottesville, as a backup to Jason Brown. Hunter considers the guard/center combination to be slightly easier than the guard/tackle combo, because anyone playing center already has to know what the guards on either side of him are doing on every play.
"At center, you've got a 320-pound guy six inches to a foot off your head," Bell says. "At guard, they're another two or three feet away, so you have a different mindset. When you're closer to them sometimes you have to step back to get leverage on them."
The Tar Heels are talented enough along the line that the techniques will eventually be honed. What can't be replicated as easily, however, is the communication and camaraderie necessary to build a solid line. More than any other position group on the field, linemen have to work as a functioning unit, which is why they're almost always hanging around together in the Kenan Football Center and off the field.
After preseason training camp, they'd reached a comfort level with the rotation--McNeill and Ralph usually worked as the tackle/guard pair on the left side, and slid as a unit to the right side when Chacos rotated in at left tackle--but now some of those combinations will be changed.
"When you get out of that mix, it's different because now you're working with a different guy," Hunter says. "You're not zoning and twisting with the same guy and you're not communicating with the same guy. What you had established over the last two months is now different. You can't think the communication will be as good as it has been, because it's not going to be. We'll have to simplify a few things."
The line endured another bit of adversity when Charlston Gray's grandfather passed away on Saturday. He returned home on Monday, attended the funeral Tuesday, and is expected to return to practice Wednesday afternoon. His participation on Saturday against Georgia Tech depends on how quickly he picks up the gameplan for the Yellow Jackets.
In his absence, the rest of the linemen have gotten more snaps, including Arthur Smith, who is finally free from the restrictive cast on his hand he practiced with over the past month and enjoying the benefits of being injury-free in his foot as well after a nearly 18-month struggle with an unusual foot problem.
As the Heels build more depth in the trenches, the short term result will be an increase in snaps for the established veterans.
"Chacos and Willie might have been playing 45 or 50 snaps per game," Hunter says. "Now they may have to play 75 snaps per game until one of the younger guys gets ready. Everyone has to pull more of the load."
But then the square-jawed Hunter is afraid he may have left you with the impression that he's lowering his rigid standards because of his player shuffles. Before that thought can take hold, he's quick to make one additional note.
"It takes years to replace the experience we lost with Skip. Steven or Charlston or Ben can't bring us the game experience of having lined up against Texas or Florida State. We may have to simplify some things. But I will be very disappointed--very disappointed--if our productivity goes down."
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.
