University of North Carolina Athletics
Friday Practice Notes
August 24, 2007 | Football
Aug. 24, 2007
By Adam Lucas
It's always surprising how fast training camp ends. It kind of pokes along through the first couple weeks. Even earlier this week, it still seemed like months remained until the first game. Now all of a sudden it's Friday, almost game week, and Butch Davis is preparing to put his team through their final scrimmage on Saturday.
"We'll simulate our version of a preseason game," Davis said. "We will go through a pregame routine as if it was an actual game. Then we'll go out and have a 90-play mock scrimmage as if it was a game situation, covering as many of the unusual game situations that might come up as we possibly can." Stats will not be kept at the scrimmage and neither Davis nor the players will address the media Saturday night...
A sure sign it's close to game week--there were five different players wearing number-14 jerseys at Friday's practice. One of them, Ben Johnson, has worn the 14 throughout training camp. But the others were mostly intended to mirror James Madison senior tailback Eugene Holloman, who rushed for 1,085 yards last year for the Dukes...The move toward game week also meant less work matching the first-team defense with the first-team offense. Instead, the first-team more often went against the scout defense...There's a new sign on the practice field. The newest addition, which matches the other three, reads "Focus"...
After much shuffling, the linebacker competition appears to be drawing to a close. "Coach has been trying to mix it up and find the three best," senior Durell Mapp said. "We're getting there, and I believe we have a stable linebacker corps as of right now." That stable corps includes Mapp at WILL, Wesley Flagg at MIKE, and Bruce Carter at SAM. If the season started tomorrow, Mapp would likely be one of just five seniors out of the 22 starting offensive and defensive players...
The band practiced Friday afternoon in their new location on top of the tunnel where the Tar Heels enter the field. To this untrained ear, they sounded great. If their instruments look a little shinier this year, it's because the athletic department spent $100,000 to buy all-new instruments. In addition to simply looking better, the new instruments will also sound approximately a third louder than the old ones...The loss of Ben Lemming and Wyatt Hicks to injury leaves the Tar Heels with a thin second string on the offensive line. Davis has said previously he'd like to get the second five a series or two in the season opener. It's possible, depending on how the depth chart falls, that four of those five could have never taken a snap in a college game...
Today marks the final installment of practice notes. If you haven't already, check out the Training Camp Central page. At some point this weekend, it's likely to pass the 100-story mark since August 1. That's 100 stories in less than four weeks thanks to the hard-working group that includes Kevin Best, Joe Bray, Lauren Brownlow, John Martin, Dave Schmidt, and Turner Walston. Why is that significant? Well, check out sites of some of the best teams in the country to see the difference.
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 September 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.
