University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: Now, The Future
October 13, 2007 | Football
Oct. 13, 2007
By Adam Lucas
So this is how it's going to be.
Saturday afternoon any time before 3:30, it was possible to drive down Interstate 40, get off at exit 273, negotiate the traffic on Highway 54, find a parking spot, and walk right into the future.
Saturday, Chapel Hill was a place where men walked down the middle of 54--between lanes of cars--holding a cell phone in one hand and a sign that read "Need Tickets" in the other. It was a place where a hand-printed sign reading, "Need South Carolina Football Tickets," and listing a phone number had been placed on a telephone pole three days ago. It was a place where bands played and tailgaters partied and even students who didn't like football were going to the game because, well, that's what everybody was doing.
Kenan Stadium crackled Saturday afternoon. Heck, the whole town crackled. You couldn't walk down Franklin Street without feeling it.
Remember that feeling. That's what Butch Davis is making Chapel Hill into. No one is saying it has to be that way every day. It doesn't. But it's going to be that way six or seven Saturdays per year.
Steve Spurrier is in his third season at South Carolina. He has three recruiting classes in his program. What we heard this week, what was constantly beaten into our heads, was that he had built South Carolina into big-time football. They are sellout crowds and passion and a top-10 ranking.
Let's accept for a moment that all of those things are true. If they are all true, then where does that leave Carolina?
Answer: one play away.
Forget about all the bad breaks for a minute. Forget about the near interceptions and the missed catches and the untimely turnovers. Those all happen in the game of football, and there will be a game down the line in which Carolina is the beneficiary of all of them. They even out, so forget about them.
Don't forget about this: despite all of the above, Carolina had the ball 31 yards from the end zone with 11 seconds to play and a chance to win the game. They were the ones who controlled the second half. They were the ones who were going to determine the game's victor.
Here is Greg Little. Maybe you didn't notice him until last week, when he had a thunderous run against Miami and suddenly appeared to be a legitimate college football player rather than a high schooler trying to keep up at an advanced level. Against the Gamecocks, he missed a potential huge touchdown catch in the corner of the end zone with six minutes remaining.
"I have to make that play," he said. "I just lost it in the lights."
Butch Davis was the first person to greet him on the sideline.
"Forget about that play," he said. "You're going to win the game for us."
Little very nearly did. On Carolina's very next drive, just two minutes later, Johnny White took a dump pass 33 yards over the middle. As he was going down, the ball was stripped in a posse of Gamecock defenders. Suddenly, there was Little, diving head-first on the ball to preserve a drive and give the Tar Heels a chance to win.
The freshman really had no reason to be there, except that he thought he might have a chance to level a big block and earn White a couple extra yards. Imagine that, a true freshman receiver who wants to block in the game's final minutes.
"I've been coached this year that whatever happens, turn and get a block downfield," Little said. "I was trying to get a block downfield, saw the ball was dropped, and I dove on it."
Two plays later, Carolina scored. All because a freshman believed what his coaches have been telling him this season, believed that he could make a difference and that an extra burst of effort might make something happen.
The young guys have to believe it. That's what keeps them coming to practice every day. Most of them came from winning high school programs and the losses are new.
But there's one of the young guys who already has experience with a winning college program. Cornerback Kendric Burney, who spends most of his Saturdays with his hands in his pockets because opponents rarely throw to his side of the field, played with the Carolina baseball team that finished second in the nation this spring. He wasn't on the postseason roster but made the trip to Omaha just for the postseason experience.
He already sees some of the winning characteristics he saw first-hand at Boshamer Stadium creeping down Stadium Drive to the Kenan Football Center.
"The trust issue is the biggest similarity I've seen us gain," he said. "For a team to win, you have to have trust. And right now we trust each other every single week."
Carolina's older players don't necessarily have to have the same belief. They might be down to their last five college football games. They don't have to believe the same way their younger teammates do, because for them the future is measured in weeks instead of years.
Listen, though, to what they say.
"I'm envious of the younger guys," Kentwan Balmer said. "I'm envious because I'm about to leave and I see what's going to happen. I see the coaches they have and the atmosphere they have."
61,000 people appeared to come to that exact same realization on Saturday. Sometimes a losing Carolina team walks off the field to stony silence. This time, though, they walked off the field to a rousing ovation, to fans staying in their seats for a few extra seconds to slap their hands together one last time for the group of players who had come one play short.
It was as if all 61,000 realized something at the exact same time:
Not too long from now, they're all going to be this way. Excitement and scarce tickets and spine-tingling Saturdays--all of that is coming. It's not here yet, not this year. But it's coming. Every week.
That's not a guarantee that at some point Carolina will acquire the divine right to win all the games like this. There will be more games that come down to that last play, more games that end with players from both teams sprawled in the end zone trying to summon the energy to walk back to the locker room.
There's no predicting how they'll end. Well, maybe that's not right.
They will all end this way: with the exhilaration of a Saturday well spent and the anticipation that comes with the knowledge that Carolina has a chance to win every game they play, no matter the opponent. Not by good fortune, but by those things that make a winning football program--talent, coaching, and recruiting. And, as Burney said, trust.
How long has it been for Carolina football fans since they had the pleasure of going an entire season without even once walking into a stadium thinking, "Boy, we don't have much of a chance in this one"?
That season, that type of competitiveness, is Carolina's future.
And Saturday, the future got a little closer.
Adam Lucas most recently collaborated on a behind-the-scenes look at Carolina Basketball with Wes Miller. The Road To Blue Heaven will be released on October 1. Lucas's other books on Carolina basketball include The Best Game Ever, which chronicles the 1957 national championship season, Going Home Again, which focuses on Roy Williams's return to Carolina, and Led By Their Dreams, a collaboration with Steve Kirschner and Matt Bowers on the 2005 championship team.
