University of North Carolina Athletics
Extra Points: Postgame Pearls
October 3, 2005 | Football
Oct. 3, 2005
By Lee Pace
Approximately 10 minutes after the final gun at a college football game, the media relations staffs from the participating teams make available to the working press those players requested for post-game interviews. The players, anywhere from four or five to as many as 15 or more depending on the magnitude of the game, the time of day or night, and the level of heroics in the game, file into a designated area for 15 to 20 minutes of Q&A. Then they depart and the head coach takes the podium for another 10 to 15 minutes.
Sometimes the questions are mindless and the answers cliché ridden.
Sometimes a player would rather have a sharp stick in his eye rather than have to explain why he dropped the football at a crucial moment.
Sometimes disaster strikes -- like you realize the battery in your tape recorder is dead.
It's always painful after losses. The news media, by and large, doesn't care who wins or loses, but it's more productive to land good quotes after a win, and the season certainly speeds along if your beat features a winning team.
Saturday in the aftermath of the Tar Heels' 31-17 win over Utah, the mood among a dozen or Tar Heels was understandably upbeat. But I found the mining of insightful comments more productive than usual.
"The offense before did not have confidence in the defense like we have this year. We know our defense will keep us in the game, not let it get out of hand."
That is a major step for the Tar Heels. There has been no overt offense-defense divisiveness among the players or staff over the last three years, but successive seasons of yielding 35, 38 and 32 points a game put more than a fair share of pressure on the offense. No lead was ever safe. Thirty-one points could not beat Arizona State, 47 weren't enough for Syracuse, 27 still lost by a 10-spot to Virginia. It affected the play calls by coordinator Gary Tranquill and tried the patience of QB Darian Durant.
Now that the defense is more talented, is older and more mature, it's carrying its share of the load. Through four games, the Tar Heels are 46th in the nation in total defense at 357 yards and 41st in scoring defense at 20.5 - each a significant improvement over 2002-04. They have 14 sacks in four games (against 20 for all of last year) and are allowing 117 yards of rushing a game.
"We're changing the culture around here. Hopefully you guys will start giving us a little respect."
The Heels are deserving of more respect from a number of quarters, beginning with their very own fans. Saturday's announced attendance was 50,000; the top corners of the upper decks and the end zones were sparsely populated. A perfect day in October ... fresh off a win over an arch-rival ... and the stadium is less than full? Carolina will never be a consistent national power until it starts acting like it -- on the field and off.
Holley was speaking to the news media, of course, which is beginning to lick its collective thumb, stick it in the air and ordain from where the wind is coming from. All the Tar Heels can do, of course, is try to keep winning more games.
"We had something on our shoulders. We went out there last year and they had almost 700 yards. We had that in the back of our heads. Through spring ball and training camp, our seniors have really made us focus. Our team motto is, `Building a champion.' Every day in practice we are trying to do that."
Pride can be a powerful source of motivational fuel. The Tar Heels were embarrassed by the 669 yards and 46 points they allowed in Salt Lake City last October. Admittedly, Utah lacked QB Alex Smith Saturday from its undefeated Fiesta Bowl team; but Utes did not lack for a talented QB in Brian Johnson, a veteran line and a sophisticated attack.
For the Carolina defense to allow Utah only 378 yards, limit the Utes to four three-and-out possessions in the first half and gain four turnovers in the second half showed significant improvement. This is a well-balanced team with experienced leaders like Baker and linebacker Tommy Richardson and sophomores just coming into their own like Taylor, Khalif Mitchell, Kyndraus Guy and Kentwan Balmer.
"We did a great job being disciplined with our eyes and as well as being more aggressive. We had a little luck, too. But I like to believe that luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity. We were prepared to be lucky."
Last year's defense was too young, too raw and not sharp enough mentally to handle the Utah offense. The Heels were impatient and bit on fakes; they got lost following the maze of Smith's bobbing and weaving. Melik Brown, Lionel Green and Guy left the game with injury. Leading tackler Fred Sparkman had been banished from the team for disciplinary reasons.
This year, defensive coordinator Marvin Sanders had more bodies and sharper and older minds with which to work. He took practice time last week to rehearse his unit against a scout-team offense running plays without the ball. Following the ball against an offense built on deception only gets you in trouble; you tend to lose track of your dive, QB, pitch and cut-back assignments. Carolina played the infinite components of Utah's scheme about as well as it could. The Utes confused the Heels with an unbalanced set in the first half, then hit them with it once in the second half, despite the fact the issue had been discussed and hopefully solved on the halftime chalkboard.
The Heels were aggressive and fast; one Utah fumble was caused by a vicious hit by Larry Edwards, another by Taylor chasing Johnson down from behind. One deflected pass landed in Cedric Holt's hands. Those kind of plays were available against Georgia Tech and Wisconsin, but the Tar Heels couldn't quite convert.
"Last year was a growing phase. I looked at myself and assessed what I must do. I had to stay in the weight room, stay in the film room, do things right in order to help this team. I needed to ask of myself in order to help this team."
Do things right.
Edwards is one of the Tar Heels' most-improved players, and significant in his evolution has been his commitment to do things right. Bunting's signing class from February 2003 included a number of potential luminaries, among them Edwards, Mitchell, Sparkman, Adarius Bowman, Isaiah Thomas and Terry Hunter. The latter four are no longer in the program for various behavioral or personal issues, a.k.a. the refusal to "do things right." The Tar Heels still aren't perfect in that category, of course, as it's difficult to take a hundred choirboys and ask them to perpetrate organized mayhem, but the track record is getting better and the demands from the coaching staff are consistent and lofty. It helps when you get the right people doing the right things, on the field and off. Edwards is one of them and he has plenty of company at the moment.
"I am looking forward to going home and relaxing for a couple of hours. I am really looking forward to enjoying this win. I am going to thoroughly enjoy it."
Bunting has had some big victories in four-plus seasons at Carolina -- Florida State, Clemson and Auburn in 2001, Miami in 2004, three times over N.C. State. But I have not seem him relish one to quite the degree he did this one. What's often remarkable about his composure and control is that there's not a major demeanor shift whether he's lost to Maryland by 35 or beaten State by seven. He knows the former won't last forever and the latter can be fleeting if you don't, to use one of his favorite expressions, "keep sawing wood."
But this one was particularly satisfying because its bookend game in 2004, that 46-16 loss at Utah, was the absolute low of 2004. Saturday's win was the Tar Heels' first back-to-back set of wins in four years, and the victories came over quality opponents.
After the final gun Saturday, I walked onto the field to see if anything of interest might occur between the players and coaches. I was milling around when Bunting emerged from a cluster of players near midfield and said, unprompted, "I liked that."
He repeated it. "I really liked that."
He offered it once more. "Did I say I really liked that?"
And with good reason. More and more, there are interesting things to talk about where Carolina football is concerned.
Send your questions about Tar Heel football to Lee Pace at leepace@nc.rr.com . Please include your first and last names and hometown. . Individual replies are not possible because of volume of mail received, , and names of recruiting prospects and commitments cannot be published on a school-sponsored site until the national signing day in February. The Q&A column will appear each Friday during the season.
