University of North Carolina Athletics
Thursday Practice Notes
September 1, 2005 | Football
Sept. 1, 2005
By Adam Lucas
It's time to retire the much-loved Camp Tracker. Wednesday night's scrimmage marked the end of the training camp phase of preseason practice. The Tar Heels broke into scout teams and began focusing on Georgia Tech during Thursday afternoon's practice. "We went to scout teams today and I am sure some of them were very disappointed," John Bunting said. "We had a team meeting to discuss that. Those are dues freshmen will normally have to pay as this program continues to grow. We're not going to play 25 freshmen." The head coach said there's a simple explanation for freshmen who might be sent to the scouts: "We tell them we do everything we can possibly do for the program first and the individual second. We don't have a star system here."...
Bunting spent 10 months in New Orleans and has been powerfully affected by the saga of the hurricane-ravaged city. He and wife Dawn Bunting kicked off Carolina's fund-raising efforts Thursday night by writing a personal check to the Red Cross. Dawn Bunting will donate all the proceeds from her usual ladies luncheon next Friday to the Red Cross, and Bunting and Dick Baddour are in talks for the athletic department to sponsor a relief effort at the home opener on Sept. 17. As usual, the disaster has a local impact. Melik Brown's brother, Preston, is a wide receiver at Tulane, a school with significant hurdles to clear before they can think about playing football again...
Barrington Edwards remains the tailback starter and Cooter Arnold is a strong #2 at that position. The third back on the depth chart is walk-on Justin Warren. "He knows what to do and he doesn't make mistakes," Bunting said. "That's very important to us, especially with pass protection and route running. Our offense is very precise."...Bunting reviewed the film of Wednesday night's scrimmage and found some positives and negatives. "I was pleased with the intensity between the 1's and the 2's," he said. "I was excited about the way our coverage units looked on special teams...A lot of the execution was good. The only thing really disappointing to me was the penalties."...Doug Justice was in an unusual hurry after Thursday's practice. His younger brother, Steven, is an offensive lineman at Wake Forest and Justice planned to make the drive to Winston-Salem to watch the Deacons' game against Vanderbilt...Many Tar Heels will spend the weekend watching Georgia Tech tackle Auburn on Saturday night. "In a way it's an advantage for us to be off this weekend and in a way it isn't," Charlston Gray said. "Everybody has their first-game jitters and they'll get theirs out this weekend. But our advantage is we can watch them play against a big-name team. What they do against them they'll do against us, so we should gain some things by watching them."...The John Bunting TV show begins this weekend. This year's edition of the show features several new fan-friendly segments, including a piece in which Matt Baker wore a wireless microphone throughout a practice...Today's notes mark the final edition of practice notes, but TarHeelBlue.com will have plenty of football content throughout the week leading up to the Tech game, beginning with a camp wrapup tomorrow morning and continuing next week with features, player and coach quotes, and Lee Pace's weekly mailbag on Friday.
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.
