University of North Carolina Athletics
Extra Points Wednesday
November 23, 2005 | Football
Nov. 23, 2005
By Lee Pace
Every element of this weekend's season finale at Virginia Tech stirs the passions of Tar Heel coach John Bunting. The Hokies have more talent, top to bottom. They've known how to win consistently for one whole decade. They're in their element when the November cold comes to the mountains of western Virginia (predicted low for Saturday: 19 degrees). They'll be performing within the comforting cauldron of noise and energy in Lane Stadium. The oddsmakers say Virginia Tech by 23 points. Lou Holtz says on ESPN, "I'd hate to be a North Carolina player going to Blacksburg Saturday night."
To all of which Bunting stares out from his steely eyes and merely says, "Hrumph." Or something of the sort.
"There is nothing I like more than the kind of challenge we have this weekend," he says.
Any number of elements conspire to make this game a different kettle of fish from any the Tar Heels have faced this season.
One, of course, is the holiday weekend.
With college football teams allowed to play 12 games beginning in 2006, most ACC teams will henceforth be scheduled annually to play the Saturday following Thanksgiving. Florida State and Georgia Tech traditionally play in-state rival games against non-ACC teams on Thanksgiving weekend, but this season those two teams and six others are in action the last weekend of November.
"It'll be fun," linebacker Tommy Richardson says. "Other people have to work on holidays. We're working this holiday."
The campus in Chapel Hill will clear out after lunch on Wednesday for the Thanksgiving holiday, and those Tar Heels who don't live in apartments will move from their dormitories to an off-campus hotel. The team will practice Thursday morning, have meetings midday, and then a caravan of five busses will depart Kenan Football Center at 3:30 on Thursday.
In planning the trip to Blacksburg, Bunting drew on his experiences coaching at Glassboro State (now Rowan University) in the early 1990s. The Professors were playing in the Division III playoffs and were scheduled to make a long bus ride the day after Thanksgiving in 1992 to upstate New York. Bunting offered his team the choice of traveling together on Thanksgiving and sharing the holiday as a team, or disbanding for a day and those within a short drive of campus going home for Thanksgiving.
"Almost to a man they wanted to spend Thanksgiving with their teammates," Bunting said.
He arranged for his team to stop in Pennsylvania during its 11-hour bus ride to Buffalo on Thanksgiving Day for a holiday dinner, and the fellowship and camaraderie of the affair, Bunting said, resulted in "one of the greatest experiences of my life."
So the Tar Heels will travel to Greensboro, where they'll have a feast at George K's restaurant. Owner George Kourtsounis and his staff will build a spread around some 20 turkeys, 20 slabs of prime rib and 10 Virginia baked hams. They'll supplement those with baked salmon, roast leg of lamb and spanakopita (a Greek spinach pie). Plus side dishes from sweet potatoes to garlic mashed potatoes to corn and green beans. For dessert, George will have up to 40 pies - apple, pumpkin, pecan - plus carrot cake and cheese cake.
"Everything's prepared in our kitchen, from scratch," says Kourtsounis, who came to Greensboro from Greece 18 years ago. "These boys will have a big appetite, but we'll have plenty of food for them."
Then they'll crawl back onto the busses for the hundred miles up U.S. Hwy. 220 to Roanoke, where they'll stay Thursday and Friday nights. On Friday afternoon, they'll take the half-hour drive to Blacksburg for a light workout in Lane Stadium.
"I think it's a great idea to spend Thanksgiving together," senior guard Kyle Ralph says. "This team has always stressed being a family, being brothers. We're spending the day with one family while being away from our real family."
Carolina has played Virginia Tech 27 times in football, and all but two of those came before Carolina joined a newly formed league named the Atlantic Coast Conference in 1953. The Tar Heels haven't played in Blacksburg since 1930, so none of the players and only a few of the coaches have any experience with the atmosphere. Offensive coordinator Gary Tranquill was on Frank Beamer's staff for one year in 1994, but that was before Tech completed its 2001 south end zone stadium expansion, adding 11,120 seats and buttoning down the stadium into an acoustic nightmare for visiting teams.
"It's loud, it's windy and it's cold," Tranquill says. "The fans are right on top of you. Noise will be a factor. We'll just have to do a good job adjusting to the elements."
Bunting has told his players stories this week about the Philadelphia Eagles' proud tradition of being an excellent cold-weather team from his days as a linebacker in the 1970s. The Tar Heels practiced in shorts Tuesday on a 40-degree afternoon and had crowd noise piped into Kenan Stadium. They'll do so again Wednesday afternoon and Thanksgiving morning, trying as best they can to get a feel for Saturday's reality.
"I love cold-weather games," Bunting says. "If you play in cold weather frequently, it's always great to get a team you consider a warm-weather team, someone like the Dallas Cowboys, into your place in cold weather. You feel like you have a real advantage. I'm sure Virginia Tech feels the same way."
Of course, none of those factors are as important as the quality of athletes the Hokies possess. Marcus Vick is a dangerous quarterback with his running and throwing abilities. Mike Imoh, who clobbered the Heels with 243 yards rushing in 2004, returns and shares the No. 1 tailback job with Cedric Humes. Jimmy Williams is one of three finalists for the Jim Thorpe Award, given to the nation's top defensive back, and is also a finalist for the Bronko Nagurski Award as the top overall defensive player. Defensive end Darryl Tapp has seven QB sacks and is a returning All-ACC selection and pre-season All-American.
The Tech defense has allowed only five rushing touchdowns this year and is second in the ACC in total defense with 241 yards allowed and is tied with Miami for first in scoring defense with 11.4 points allowed. The Hokies have a plus-eight edge in turnover margin (Carolina is minus-two), and they are the least-penalized team in the ACC with 39 yards a game in flags. They've always been potent in blocking punts and no doubt have noted the Tar Heels' errors in center-punter connection this season.
It adds up to quite a test for Bunting and the Tar Heels.
"You have to have some real mental and physical stamina, you have to be really mentally tough," Bunting said this week, addressing the formidable task for the weekend. "I think we have a lot of players like that, and we have a lot still learning a little about that. Sometimes I talk a lot about how to thrive in that environment and how much fun it was for me and some of the teams I played on. But you have to remember, I'm talking about pro teams opposed to college. I have to sometimes take a second and think about these kids being 18 to 20 years old instead of professionals at 24 to 30 years old. There's a lot of mental toughness that goes into winning a game like this on the road."
Eight years ago, the Tar Heels were the established program when Carolina and Virginia Tech met in the Gator Bowl. Carolina was in the process of having gone to six straight bowls and was tying up a 21-3 run over 1996-97 under head coach Mack Brown. Tech, meanwhile, had tread water for six years under Frank Beamer from 1987-92 before beginning to build a head of steam with a 9-3 bowl team in 1993. The Tar Heels hammered Tech 42-3, but by then Brown had left for Texas and the Carolina program was set for a half decade of instability and turmoil. Tech and Beamer remained rock solid and have ridden the "success begets success" truism to new highs.
The Tar Heels played an excellent game against Virginia Tech a year ago, falling 27-24 in the comforting environment of Kenan Stadium. Now comes the return trip. This game will be a good litmus test for Bunting and the Tar Heels.
"Going up there and playing with these guys for four quarters, for 60 minutes, is going to be important for our football program," Bunting says.
Send your questions about Tar Heel football to Lee Pace at leepace@nc.rr.com . Questions may be used either in Friday's TarHeelBlue.com mailbag or in a special pregame segment on the Tar Heel Sports Network on Saturday. 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.
