University of North Carolina Athletics
Extra Points: Tar Heels Stand Tough
October 15, 2007 | Football
Oct. 15, 2007
by Lee Pace, Extra Points
The white sweat band on quarterback T.J. Yates' left wrist was marked in all caps with the words STAND TOUGH.
The Tar Heels have done just that through a murderous five-week stretch of games against teams with a combined record of 28-6 and three Top 25 postings (South Florida, Virginia Tech and South Carolina).
They did just that Saturday when they were thumped 21-3 through halftime against South Carolina. They continued standing tough on fourth-down gambles, when one of their top receivers was knocked out of the game at halftime, when one potential game-changing play after another came up a wisp short.
Carolina 2007 is indeed standing tough. Unfortunately, the Tar Heels have only a 2-5 record to show for it following Saturday's 21-15 loss to seventh-ranked South Carolina.
"These kids lay it on the line every game," Tar Heel coach Butch Davis said. "There is not one kid who does not leave everything they have on the field."
"We've come close too many times this season," Yates added. "We've just got to get over that hump. We've got to do something that gets us from getting those two-, seven- and six-point games and gets us a win instead."
The loss was the one gloomy aspect of an otherwise idyllic football Saturday in Chapel Hill. The weather was perfect (sunny and mid-70s). The accouterments were interesting, from Alexander Julian himself manning his new Franklin Street haberdashery to live beach music being played in front of Kenan Football Center. The town bristled with excitement as Gamecock fans converged by the car load and Tar Heel faithful could strut ever so slightly following the Heels' upset win over Miami a week earlier. Add all the hoopla surrounding Steve Spurrier's return to Kenan Stadium after his 1989 shenanigans with Duke, and it was all one could do to get a few hours' shut-eye Friday night.
The Tar Heels certainly out-Spurriered the Old Ball Coach when it came to offensive creativity and overall sassiness. Offensive coordinator John Shoop planned to use up to eight personnel groups in the early going to give the Gamecock defensive brain trust a pause or two in their own hyperactive personnel and schematic wheelings and dealings. The Heels employed receiver Greg Little in the quarterback's role in a shotgun alignment three times, and Little picked up 23 yards on one dynamic sweep and gained another six on a draw play out of a similar formation. Joe Dailey, a former quarterback turned receiver, ran for five yards taking a snap in shotgun and later threw an interception, that coming on a poorly executed reverse pass.
Shoop had Yates throwing long, medium and short in every angle in an effort to stay balanced against a defense ranked No. 1 in the country in defending the pass. The Tar Heels threw long over the middle, with Brandon Tate being a smidgen overthrown on the hash mark near the Gamecock goal line in the second quarter. They threw short into the flat, with Little taking in a fourth-quarter chippie from Yates and knifing across the grain and leaping into the end zone for a 22-yard touchdown. And they threw mid-range passes like the corner route to Little from the Gamecock 10; he beat two South Carolina defenders but lost the ball in the lights and it fell through his outstretched arms.
One of the finest play calls and executions of the year (decade?) came on first-and-goal the Gamecock three late in the game. Yates took the snap, feigned a pitch to the right on an apparent sweep by Johnny White, then wheeled around to his right, tucked the ball and scampered untouched into the end zone behind the pulling block of tackle Garrett Reynolds.
The Tar Heels were trailing 21-9 early in the fourth quarter and had fourth-and-2 at their own 36 yard-line when Davis elected to gamble on fourth down. The Gamecocks suspected run and bunched the line of scrimmage, but Yates lofted a soft floater to the left to Nicks, who made the catch and ran for a 27-yard gain.
"Hakeem did an awesome job tonight," Yates said. "On the fourth down, he looked at me as if to say, `Give me a chance, and I'll make it happen.'"
Meanwhile, the Gamecocks are hardly the "Fun & Gun" offense of Spurrier and 1990s Florida vintage, instead relying on the one-two tailback tandem of Cory Boyd and Mike Davis while freshman QB Chris Smelley matures. Once the Tar Heel defense got its bearings following the first quarter, they shut down the Gamecocks on four three-and-outs and one interception in the second half. The Gamecocks were 1-for-12 on third-downs.
"We got to where we were ahead 21-3 and our defense was playing well, so I'm calling that conservative run-run crap," Spurrier said. "But when we tried to throw, we couldn't hit anything, either."
Spurrier spent the week rehashing Duke's 41-0 victory 18 years earlier for the benefit of the news media and afterward was clearly relieved with the win.
"I didn't want to lose up here," he said. "I'm happy for the Dukies and for the South Carolina people. We're all happy. I felt like I was coaching for both of them today.
"There's a lot of people who would love to be 3-0 in this stadium, right?" Spurrier mused. "And I'm the happiest one of them."
Those victories are the fortune of good timing, certainly, with his Duke team winning in 1987 when the Tar Heels had shut it down amid the controversy over Dick Crum's status as the Tar Heel head coach; when the Blue Devils won two years later with a roster full of upperclassmen against a Tar Heel squad still in swaddling clothes under Mack Brown; and then Saturday with a Gamecock program in year three of the Spurrier regime and a Tar Heel program still teething under Davis.
Reflecting on the 1989 Duke team last week, Spurrier hit on what's really important in building a team. It's not as much Xs-and-Os as it is having good players who are mature, smart, tough and healthy.
"I've been fortunate in my years at Duke," Spurrier said. "That was a while back. I don't quite have the offensive team I had that year (in 1989). That team averaged 500 yards a game. That 1989 Duke offensive team was right there with the best teams I've been lucky enough to coach. We had three fifth-year senior offensive linemen. Then we had a fourth-year guy and a third-year guy. They all stayed healthy that year. It was easy calling plays back then."
That's an excellent point for Tar Heel fans to take to heart as Davis tries to bring some ballast to a program that has listed at sea for nine years with two head coaches and a revolving door of assistant coaches. Asked last week about each the "Carolinas'" respective recruiting efforts in the other's back yard (the Gamecocks have 16 North Carolinians on their roster, the Tar Heels three from South Carolina), Davis instead talked about the recruiting process in general.
"One of the biggest things in recruiting is consistency among your assistant coaches," Davis said. "You have to allow a coach time to go into a geographic area and build credibility and establish relationships with the high school coaches and build some trust. That's hard to do with a staff that's had considerable turnover."
Obviously the Tar Heels have some excellent players from the John Bunting regime (Nicks, Reynolds, Tate, Hilee Taylor, Kentwan Balmer and Connor Barth, among them), and Davis and staff have done a good job in their first makeshift recruiting year and in bringing last year's freshmen to the fore (Yates, Little, Deunta Williams, Quan Sturdivant, Bruce Carter, Marvin Austin, Ryan Houston among those).
Now it's a matter of bringing them along and hoping enough guys can make enough plays to turn the close losses into victories. Just Saturday, for example, Carter was free on a punt rush in the second quarter but missed blocking the kick. One fraction less air time on Yates-to-Tate in the second quarter would have been a score. Defensive end E.J. Wilson tipped and then almost intercepted a pass and had acres of clear sailing ahead of him, but he bobbled the ball and it fell to the ground. Quinton Person is normally precise in covering punts downfield, but late in the first half he let Gamecock Captain Munnerlyn slip away at the 22, and the ensuing 38-yard return helped set up a touchdown just before intermission. Barth yanked a 49-yard field goal left, ending his consecutive made streak at 19, and holder Ryan Baucom mishandled an extra point.
"The frustrating part about a loss like this is coming in and watching film the next day and seeing so many things you wish you had over, opportunities that could have dramatically made a difference," Davis said.
Carolina now has a week off before a five-game stretch to end the year. Goal No. 1 is to try to get a number of Tar Heels healthy, including receivers Brooks Foster, Nicks and Tate. Foster returned to action after two weeks with a leg injury, and Nicks rolled an ankle and Tate suffered a head injury Saturday. Scott Lenahan returned to action after three weeks out, and Kentwan Balmer and Cam Thomas played with sore ankles.
"We have 12 to 15 guys playing well below 100 percent," Davis says. "We were kind of held together with bailing wire and Band-Aids. Hopefully we can get mended."
Davis said the staff will do a comprehensive self-evaluation during the off-week. One component will running every offensive and defensive play call through the computers for down-and-distance, personnel group, formation and field position tendencies. A second will be to decide if anything they are doing schematically or with personnel is simply not working and needs to be shelved for the year. And the Tar Heels will begin some preparation for Wake Forest, a team coming off a win over Florida State.
The Tar Heels have begun to coalesce as a team and program since the forgetful trip to South Florida, and their fans are heartened by the effort, witness the ovation the student section gave the team as it exited the field through "The Tar Pit" early Saturday night.
"I am extra proud of our fans," Davis said. "They showed great patience at halftime. Down 21-3, they could have said, `Let's go home.' But not one single soul left. The fans were into the game, they were loud, they did everything they could to create a home field advantage. One of these days, they'll be very proud of this football program."
In the meantime, all the Tar Heels can do is continue to stand tough.
Chapel Hill writer Lee Pace is in his 18th season writing "Extra Points," a colorful and in-depth look at Tar Heel football. He'll answer your questions about the Tar Heels regularly during the season in his "Extra Points Mailbag" column and on the Tar Heel Sports Network's pregame show. Email him your questions (please, no recruiting questions) about the Tar Heels at leepace@nc.rr.com and he'll answer the most interesting ones.
