University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: No Senior Stress for Baker
November 17, 2005 | Football
By Adam Lucas
For four years, Matt Baker watched Darian Durant wobble back into the game when he wasn't supposed to play.
The stocky, record-setting Carolina quarterback would leave the field limping or wincing, Baker would start firing warmup passes, and a few minutes later Durant would sprint back into the game. It happened last season when Durant suffered a sprained shoulder in the first quarter against Duke. He ambled to the locker room, things looked grim, and then one series later, he was back in the game.
In 2002, Baker's redshirt freshman year, Durant returned from a supposedly season-ending thumb injury and directed Carolina to a 23-21 victory over Duke in the season finale.
Durant's frequent returns from the ashes left Baker with just one year to play as the starting quarterback. He'd been patient, he'd held the clipboard, and now he was going to be under center.
No matter what.
So that's why he took multiple shots against Wisconsin--the four Badger sacks were the least of his problems, as he took even harder hits just after releasing the ball and took the last offensive snap of the game while hobbling on a painful ankle that would trouble him for most of the rest of the season--but never considered sitting out the next week against NC State. That's why he spent the week before the Miami game standing on the sidelines at practice with a heavily bandaged right wrist, but then played every meaningful snap at the Orange Bowl.
For the most part, he has suffered in silence. A few teammates knew of his aches and pains. Coaches were aware he was sometimes creaky. But he has never volunteered any injury information about himself to the public. Never mentioned that against Boston College, he couldn't throw a spiral until the second quarter because it took that long for his wrist to get loose. Never mentioned that his 10-of-18 performance at Miami might have been better if his wrist hadn't limited his practice time.
"There were a couple weeks it might have helped me in the long run to take the week off or sit out a game," he says. "There have been plays when I haven't been able to throw the ball as well because of my wrist or my ankle. But if you're going to be out there playing, you can't make excuses. What happens on game day isn't because of any injury. Once you decide you're going to play, that's the end of any excuses."
While everyone else was watching Durant, Baker was quietly building a core of support among the offense. He essentially grew up beside the current offensive line starters, spending endless afternoons on the practice field with Steven Bell and Arthur Smith and Brian Chacos. So his ascension to a leadership position after Durant's graduation wasn't as big a jump as some might have assumed.
When he gathered the offense and implemented additional summer workouts that became known as "WTAs" (Winning Team Activities), the majority of players attended without question.
That rapport with the offensive line has been essential during a season in which both parties could have easily slipped into griping. Baker had the right to complain about a lack of protection during some early-season games when he spent as much time prone as he did upright. The line could have occasionally chirped about their quarterback getting too skittish in the pocket, about feeling a rush when none was present.
Neither has happened. They still kid each other mercilessly, but they're also each other's biggest fans. So it doesn't surprise Chacos that Baker hasn't looked for excuses this season.
"That's not who Matt is," he says. "As much as we give him crap about being hurt all the time, he's not the kind of person who looks for excuses. He's going to fight through it. I know how important this season is to him and to this program and I think he's really taken that to heart."
Of course, with Roger Heinz and Cameron Sexton injured and the rest of the quarterbacks inexperienced, Baker was also important to the program. As the lone player on the roster with a reasonable grasp of Gary Tranquill's complicated offense, he recognized after the Wisconsin game he was taking too many shots.
"I may have thought to myself that I needed to chill out running the ball," he says. "I knew I needed to stop taking on linebackers."
He knew it, but he didn't always act on it. A month later, he had already discarded the "chill out" strategy--his 6-yard scramble on a key third-and-4 against Utah, which he capped with a spinning dive and stretch for the chains, proved to be one of the game's biggest plays.
It's not just on game day when he trots out for the coin toss as the offensive captain that this fall has been a different one for the Rochester Hills, Mich., native. His grandparents have driven down from Michigan for every home game, even taking out a rental home in Durham to spend more time with their grandson during the back-to-back home game weeks. His father, Dan Baker, has been at every game this year, and he'll be there again today to stand with his son for the Senior Day festivities. The entire family plans to journey to Blacksburg next weekend for what could be his final collegiate game.
When they're in Chapel Hill with him, they've noticed a substantial difference in the way he's treated in one of the world's best college towns. In years past, strangers might have known he was a football player but few knew him by name. Now he gets more whispers when he walks into the room, more doubletakes on Franklin Street. It's not an entirely unpleasant situation for a college senior one local newspaper photographer called one of the most photogenic people she'd ever shot, but there are times when a Super Value Meal in peace would be welcome.
A snapshot from earlier this year:
Baker makes a late-night run to Wendy's (don't tell Jeff Connors). He places his order, drives around to the pickup window, hands his money to the attendant, and suddenly is greeted by, "Baaakker!"
The man can't even get a biggie order of fries in peace.
What his teammates appreciate about him--in addition to his peculiar addiction to the weather, a trait that makes him the go-to guy every week when players are trying to figure out that week's gametime temperature--is that he doesn't seem particularly impressed by his relative celebrity. He's not one to try and big-time anyone, whether it's in the drive-thru lane or on the field.
When Jarwarski Pollock dropped what might have been a game-turning touchdown pass earlier this season at Miami, he might have expected a tongue-lashing. Instead, the senior receiver got a few encouraging words. When the Tar Heels got set to begin their next drive, Pollock mistakenly picked up Baker's helmet from the Carolina sidelines.
"What, you drop my pass and then you want to steal my helmet?" Baker said to Carolina's all-time leading receiver.
Both players smiled.
Baker was on the verge of losing that relaxed attitude after the Miami game as he stared down a critical late-game stretch. But a well-timed dinner invitation resulted in a workmanlike performance against Boston College and a a career-best 335-yard showing against Maryland.
"After the Miami game I had him over to my house for dinner and he has regained some confidence," John Bunting says. "He's much more aware. Jesse (Holley) is helping him out a lot but he has distributed the ball around."
Baker has tried to soak up every bit of the college experience, even lending some expertise to his Sigma Chi fraternity brothers as they competed in the very intense UNC intramural flag football tournament. He was on the sidelines when Sigma Chi lost two weeks ago on a fluke ending but says he didn't have time to install any of Gary Tranquill's offense for his brothers.
Last year, however, he did try to put in a few of Tranquill's plays.
The result?
"They won the whole thing," he says with a smile. But then he quickly adds, "I'm sure my plays didn't have anything to do with it."
He looks very much the part of the Chapel Hill fraternity guy. He's got the hat turned backwards, the shirt untucked, the baggy jeans. He's somehow managed to cram school, being the starting quarterback for an ACC football team, and a social life into one mostly blissful year that has been sullied only by a handful of disappointing finishes that could have easily been last-second victories.
It sounds like a busy existence. And it sounds like it might be fun.
"Oh yeah, it's still fun for me," Baker says. "This is my only year to do this so I'm trying to have fun with it. Of course, it's a lot more fun the week after a big win.
"I'm playing football, a game I love. I'm a senior and I'm almost done with school. There's not much in my life I have to get stressed out about."
Adam Lucas is the publisher of Tar Heel Monthly and can be reached at alucas@tarheelmonthly.com. He is the coauthor of the official book of the 2005 championship season, Led By Their Dreams, and his book on Roy Williams's first season at Carolina, Going Home Again, is now available in bookstores. To subscribe to Tar Heel Monthly or learn more about Going Home Again, click here.
