University of North Carolina Athletics
Florida State Game Guide
October 22, 2009 | Football
Oct. 22, 2009
By Lauren Brownlow
Every Thursday, check TarHeelBlue.com for the latest edition of the Game Guide, which provides all the information you need to get ready for gameday.
The Basics
After a bye week, Carolina (4-2, 0-2) will host Florida State (2-4, 0-3) for the first Thursday night football game in Carolina's history. Carolina has a 4-2 record on Thursday night football; Florida State is 5-4 (4-4 on the road). Both teams will be seeking their first ACC wins; Florida State is coming off of a 49-44 loss at home to Georgia Tech on October 10th. Carolina beat Georgia Southern 42-12 earlier that same day. This will be the first meeting between these two teams since a 38-16 FSU win in Tallahassee in 2004. Carolina will play Florida State in 2010 and then not again until 2014. Florida State holds a 14-1-1 lead in the series; Carolina's only win came the last time Florida State was in Chapel Hill and the Tar Heels won 41-9. At that time, it was the highest ranked opponent Carolina had beaten as the Seminoles were No. 6. Florida State has outscored Carolina by an average of 18.9 points in the 16 previous meetings.
Game Time: Florida State at North Carolina, 8:00 PM, ESPN Carolina's game notes can be found here and Florida State's official football site is here.
Last Time: Carolina lost to Florida State in Tallahassee 38-16 on October 2, 2004. Carolina was hanging in early with just a 7-3 deficit, but Florida State scored touchdowns on its first two drives while Carolina was limited to field goals and the Seminoles led 14-6 early. Finally, it was a Darian Durant interception at the Carolina 30 that led to a Florida State touchdown before halftime to make it 21-6. Florida State tacked on a field goal early in the third but Carolina scored on a Durant-Jarwarski Pollock touchdown connection to make it 24-13. Carolina couldn't capitalize on a Lionel Green interception at the Carolina 37 and Florida State scored late in the third to go up 31-13. Connor Barth added another field goal to cut it to 31-16 early in the fourth but Florida State scored yet again with 6:53 to go for the final margin.
Durant completed 18-of-30 passes for 254 yards, one touchdown and one interception. Matt Baker completed 2-of-2 passes for nine yards. Jacque Lewis led Carolina in rushing with 67 yards on 13 carries. Jarwarski Pollock had eight catches for 100 yards and a touchdown. Connor Barth accounted for nine of Carolina's 16 points, hitting all three of his field goal tries. Fred Sparkman led Carolina with ten tackles while Tommy Davis added three tackles for loss. Florida State's Wyatt Sexton completed 20-of-31 passes for 193 yards, three touchdowns and one interception in his first start. Leon Washington (now of the New York Jets) rushed ten times for 153 yards and a touchdown. Lorenzo Booker added 84 yards and a touchdown on 13 carries. Chris Stovall had seven catches for 78 yards and two touchdowns. Ernie Sims had ten tackles.
Gameday Weather: Check the local weather forecast before heading for the game.
Radio Coverage: Tar Heel Sports Network coverage begins at 7:00 PM. The radio broadcast is also available on XM Channel 191/Sirius 212 at 8:00 PM. Since it's a home game, the Tar Heel Sports Network broadcast can be heard on XM.
TV Coverage: The game will be the shown as the ESPN Thursday Night game.
Game week TV/radio coverage: "Butch Davis Live", Coach Davis' weekly radio show, will be broadcast live from the Top of the Hill restaurant on Franklin Street every Wednesday at 7:00. Inside Carolina Football with Butch Davis airs Saturday morning at 9 a.m. on FOX Sports South. Inside Carolina Football with Butch Davis will air on Sunday at 11:30 a.m. on WTVD ABC 11 in the Triangle and will review Saturday's game. The show will also be available On Demand on Time Warner Cable channel 1234 for free. The Tar Heel Football Review show featuring highlights of the previous week's games will air Tuesday's at 7 p.m. and Thursday's at 8 p.m. in the Triangle and Fayetteville on the local Time Warner Cable station.
Storylines
Carolina's defense against Florida State's passing offense: Carolina has the No. 1 pass defense in the nation, allowing 125.2 yards per game. To put that number in perspective, however, the four FBS teams Carolina has faced have an average passing offense ranking nationally of 90. The highest-ranked passing offense Carolina has faced was East Carolina at No. 79. Even the FCS teams Carolina has faced, Georgia Southern and the Citadel, are ranked No. 68 and 81 in passing offense, respectively. Florida State is the No. 13 passing offense in the nation, averaging 297.5 yards per game.
To put it simply: Carolina has not faced a passing attack this, nor likely will they, all season long. The best comparison many players made was to Notre Dame, with Jimmy Clausen able to find Golden Tate, Michael Floyd and company seemingly at will two years ago, even though Carolina held on for the win. But Ponder can also scramble and run if he needs to, and the Seminoles - as usual - have quite a few big-play athletes at wide receiver. Five healthy Seminoles have caught at least ten passes and of those, the fewest yards per catch among them is 11.3. Four average 13 or more per catch.
Florida State has 29 pass plays of 20 yards or more; in the last two games alone, the Seminoles have gained 298 yards on 11 such plays. Those big plays have, obviously, accounted for 40% or more of Florida State's passing offense in five of its six games. South Florida, one of the teams to beat the Seminoles, did the best job in shutting down the big plays, allowing only three for 78 yards and none over 30 yards; in four of six games this season, Florida State has at least one over 30-yard pass play. But while Florida State had six pass plays of 20 or more yards in their last game alone against Georgia Tech, Carolina has allowed just five all season long and none in the last two games. All it takes is one person losing his assignment or one missed tackle for Florida State to potentially have a big play, possibly even a touchdown. If this defense gets too comfortable or over-pursues, it could be a disaster. They need to keep Florida State in front of them at all times.
Butch Davis compared Ponder's ability to scramble and make plays to Brett Favre (in his younger days), meaning that while both buy time for their receivers to get open, it is crucial that the DBs stay right on their man in coverage."That posses an awful lot of discipline and an awful lot of pressure on the guys in the back end of your secondary to make sure that they stay in coverage, even though he may scramble and he may make some yards," Davis said. Kendric Burney, one of the four Tar Heels responsible for staying with the Seminoles in coverage, has been impressed with what he's seen on film. "He rolled to his left and he was going pretty much out of bounds and he threw it about 60 yards on the run," Burney said. "So you've got to stay on your coverage until the whistle blows and a little bit after that because you never know what happens. We know he's going to be the best quarterback that we've faced all year, probably since I've been here. So we're definitely looking forward to the challenge."
Turnovers: Carolina had one of the best turnover margins in the nation last year and during a three-game stretch against Miami, Connecticut and Notre Dame, it was 10-1 (+3.0 per game). Carolina ended the season with 23 turnovers lost to 29 gained, +0.46 per game. But a big part of that was that Carolina's offense was not turning the ball over. This season, Carolina has forced 13 turnovers while committing 16 (-0.50 per game). Against FBS opponents only, that margin actually slips drastically to nine lost to just three gained (-1.5 per game). Carolina has yet to force a turnover in an ACC game this year despite three fumbles on the ground and more than one pass bouncing off of a DB's hands. But Carolina scooped up both Georgia Southern fumbles and picked off four passes, something that the defense hopes will build on itself. Carolina's first string committed no turnovers.
But Carolina's offense has begun 47 drives (of more than one play) versus FBS teams and has scored just nine times (six touchdowns), ending 23 drives with a punt, eight in a turnover, one in a turnover on downs and three in missed field goals. Of the 50 drives begun by Carolina's FBS opponents, 13 have resulted in scores (seven touchdowns) but 25 have ended in punts, two in turnovers on downs and three in missed field goals, getting Carolina the ball back 30 times. But just three have ended in actual turnovers, two fumbles and only one interception. And when Davis and his staff self-scouted the team during the off-week, one thing was glaringly obvious. "All the things that hurt you as a football team, those are pretty self-evident. If you turn the ball over, you really hurt your offense's opportunity to find out what might work," Davis said. "If you're going three-and-out and turning the ball over and not having success, you don't get a chance to go out there and experiment and find a play that works and then get the chance to call it again.
Consistency and continuity is something that we've talked a lot about offensively." So leading up to the Georgia Southern game and even during the bye week, Carolina has worked tirelessly on trying to create turnovers. The defense seems to understand that the offense is doing the best that it can to get better and all it can do is get them opportunities, as many as possible, to find a rhythm. So the defense forced a season-high six turnovers against Georgia Southern after having forced three in the previous four games combined. "I feel like a lot of times, if we had given our offense the ball back more and created more turnovers, they could have gotten into more of a rhythm. So we really wanted to focus on that and try to help our offense as much as we could because they were struggling," E.J. Wilson said. "I feel like some of our turnovers kind of got them in a groove, got them excited. During the whole bye week, we were doing strip drills, fumble recovery drills. There was a big emphasis on making plays on the ball and I think that really paid off."
Florida State, oddly enough, has just one interception but has lost 11 fumbles; only two other teams in the nation have lost more. Ponder leads the team in that category, fumbling six times and losing four of them. He has lost three fumbles in the last three games after losing one fumble in the first three games. Part of Ponder's propensity to fumble is what makes him so good - he doesn't pay attention to the rush and keeps his eyes downfield. Carolina's defensive line sees opportunities to make plays. "Quarterbacks are taught not to pay attention to the rush. But when guys are getting there, guys are just swatting at the ball and he's not really paying attention," Wilson said. "We have a lot of opportunities to strip the ball out. We're going to try to get a lot of interceptions like we always do, go out there and force turnovers, but a fumble is just as good as an interception."
The field position game: Carolina's offense has not had good starts in any game this season with the exception of the Georgia Southern game. But the Tar Heels were able to overcome bad starts in some games because it slowly and steadily changed the field position throughout the course of the game. Carolina's average field position against FBS opponents has improved from the 21.5-yard-line in the first quarter to the 36.3-yard-line in the fourth, a big reason why Carolina has scored just seven first-quarter points in those four games and 26 fourth-quarter points. When Carolina's offense continues to go three-and-out, however, both Carolina's defense and punter Grant Shallock have had to step up and get the team out of some tough situations, and both have done that for the most part.
Against East Carolina, the Tar Heels started three of their first five drives inside its 20-yard line, gaining 24 yards on 11 plays. After that, Carolina started five of its final eight drives outside its 27-yard line, scoring two touchdowns and making 1-of-2 field goals. It ran 30 plays on those aforementioned drives for a total of 252 yards. It doesn't always work that way - Carolina has begun seven drives at its own 35-yard-line or better in two ACC games and has just one touchdown to show for it, missing a field goal and throwing three interceptions. But against Georgia Tech, those four drives accounted for 142 yards and 24 plays while the remaining six drives made up just 21 plays for 27 yards. Against Virginia, Carolina's longest drives began at its own 20-yard line (15 plays, 58 yards) but the three that began at the 35-yard line or better ended with an interception and two punts, just ten plays for 18 yards. Carolina's average starting field position has been past the 30-yard line only twice and both against FCS teams. Its opponents, however, have averaged a starting position of their own 33-yard line or more in every game this season. Carolina has started drives, on average, at its own 29-yard line while opponents have had a six-yard edge, starting at their own 35.
Carolina has started just two drives this season against inside the territory of an FBS opponent. Of the other 45 FBS drives, Carolina has started 16 past its 30-yard line and 34 past the 20. Just 11 have begun inside the Carolina 20 and of those, Carolina has scored twice but has no turnovers. But Carolina has begun 16 drives between its 30 and 49-yard-line and it has scored on just three, missing three field goals and adding five turnovers. Carolina's struggling offense absolutely has to capitalize on any chances it gets like that. Florida State is 2-1 when its opponents' average starting field position is behind their own 30-yard line. The Seminoles' average starting field position has been at least its own 30 yard line every game this season and has been at the 35-yard line or better in three of the last four games. Florida State has begun 14 of its 72 drives inside its opponents' territory and 42 drives at its own 30 yard-line or better.
The difference in wins and losses is that the Seminoles are not capitalizing on good field position. In four losses, Florida State has had ten possessions that began in its opponents' territory and has ended them without scoring six times, missing three field goals, losing two fumbles and running out of time against Miami. The Seminoles have three touchdowns and one field goal. In wins, Florida State has begun five possessions in opponents' territory and scored three times, missing just one field goal. Even on drives that began at its own 40 or better in wins ended in a score six of nine times and resulted in a fumble lost just once.
In Florida State's two wins, the Seminoles forced opponents to start at their own 30-yard line or less on 18 of 25 drives and of those, opponents scored just five times (four touchdowns), punted seven times and turned it over five times. But in FSU's four losses, even though 30 of 50 opponent drives began at the 30-yard line or further back, ten of those resulted in touchdowns. The defense still forced 13 punts, and four turnovers. Of the 15 drives opponents have begun behind their own 20-yard line, including wins, they have scored three times and just two touchdowns, turning it over three times and punting eight times.
Carolina is 24th in the nation in both punt returns (13.1 yards) and net punting (37.7 yards). Carolina is 100th in kickoff returns, averaging just 19.3 yards per return. Florida State is 22nd in net punting (38 yards) and 47th in punt returns (9.7 yards). The Seminoles, like the Tar Heels, are struggling with kickoff returns and are averaging just 18.3 yards, 109th in the nation. But the Seminoles are fourth in the league in kickoff coverage (43.2 net yards per kickoff). Their kicker is averaging a league-high 65.1 yards per kickoff and his 12 touchbacks (2.0 per game) are far more than any other ACC kicker (Virginia Tech's kicker has nine touchbacks in seven games). So while their defense may be struggling and Carolina's offense may be struggling, the Seminoles have been able to do more to change field position so far with their special teams. If Grant Shallock continues to improve and Carolina's return game can get going, that could change.
At The Game
Listening to the Tar Heel Sports Network at the game: WCHL 1360 is the local affiliate.
Parking/construction update: There are quite a few gameday changes to the times that parking lots both on and off campus open and traffic flow information available. For the comprehensive guide on everything, click here.
Pregame activities: Tar Heel Town will open at 5:30 PM on Thursday and the Countdown to Kickoff radio show will broadcast live there beginning at 6:00 PM. The Old Well Walk will be at approximately 5:45 PM and then the Marching Tar Heels will perform on the steps of Wilson Library at 7:00 PM before heading to the stadium. Then at 7:15 or earlier (the gates open at 6:30 PM), start making your way to Kenan Stadium and make sure you're in your seats early. For the Thursday night FAQ, click here.
Postgame activities: See the Gameday Central on TarHeelBlue.com for the latest information on postgame parking and activities.
Watching At Home
Turn down the sound: If you're watching at home while listening to the radio or over the computer via Carolina All-Access, there will inevitably be some delay. For the reason - and a possible solution - click here.
A full list of THSN affiliates can be found here.
ESPN coverage: The game will be the Thursday Night Primetime football game on ESPN. Chris Fowler will have the play-by-play, Craig James and Jesse Palmer will be the analysts and Erin Andrews will be the sideline reporter.
Names To Know
T.J. Yates: The junior quarterback has not had a lot of time to throw and he certainly does not have the receivers he did last year. But there have been times when he does have time to throw, he has been a little off. Part of the Connecticut game and most of the Georgia Tech game saw Yates making throws that seemed to be a hair too strong or behind his receivers. Obviously, part of that is route running. But it does seem that when Yates is under siege early in a game and Carolina can't quite find a rhythm offensively, it affects Yates negatively. It would affect anyone, but it just seems that if Yates can complete his first few passes in a game, he can find rhythm and confidence early. Yates began the game completing three of his first four passes on Carolina's game-opening touchdown drive and finished completing 14-of-20 for 118 yards.
Of his 14 completions, three were to tight ends and six to running backs for a total of 92 yards on those nine completions. His wide receivers caught four passes for 26 yards. Against ECU, seven catches for 27 yards combined by tight ends and running backs might not sound like a lot but some of those successful screen plays helped open up things downfield, allowing the wideouts to catch 13 passes for 251 yards (19.3 per catch). Against Connecticut, there was a great balance with 11 catches by tight ends/RBs (nine by Pianalto) for 11.7 yards per catch with the receivers catching 12 passes for 104 yards (8.7).
Robert Quinn: The sophomore first started to get everyone's attention on last year's Thursday night game at Rutgers. His first game action saw him get three tackles (including one for loss) but his presence was felt as he came seemingly a second away from a sack on more than one occasion. The sophomore is now tied for seventh in the country in sacks with seven and is seventh in tackles for loss with 11. He was all over the field against Georgia Southern, forcing a fumble, notching a sack and two quarterback hurries. In the Virginia loss, he nearly changed that game with his four tackles for loss (three sacks) and one quarterback hurry. Jameel Sewell's mobility perhaps most closely mirrors what Carolina will see in Ponder, and Quinn's speed makes him one of Carolina's best options to keep him under control. His three forced fumbles also lead the ACC; Carolina has forced eight as a team. Two of his forced fumbles have come in the last three games. In Carolina's last three games against passing teams (skipping Georgia Tech and starting with ECU), Quinn has six sacks, 7.5 tackles for loss and three quarterback hurries.
Christian Ponder: Many of Ponder's exploits have already been detailed, but they're worth repeating. He is the No. 7 passer in the nation at 296.8 yards per game and No. 24 in pass efficiency. He is 30 yards ahead of the next-closest passer in the ACC. He is No. 6 in the nation in total offense (No. 1 in the ACC) with 317 yards per game. Carolina has yet to face a quarterback who averages over 200 yards passing a game. The highest-nationally ranked player Carolina has faced in total offense is Josh Nesbitt at No. 55. Carolina has faced a QB ranked higher in pass efficiency, Cody Endres of Connecticut at No. 14 - Carolina saw him for a limited amount of time, but in the other four games he has played, he has completed 66-of-97 passes for 906 yards and four touchdowns (13.7 yards per completion). Against Carolina, he completed just 3-of-7 passes for 30 yards (a long of 13) and no touchdowns.
Ponder has passed for a first down on over 60% of his completions. Overall, he has accounted for 86 of Florida State's 130 first downs, 73 passing and 13 rushing, or 66 percent. Against Georgia Tech, he accounted for 20 of Florida State's 26 first downs. In the last three games, Ponder has completed 80-of-115 passes (69.6%) for 968 yards and five touchdowns and no interceptions. He had a 201.82 passing efficiency rating against Georgia Tech. He does not have an interception since throwing one on the final pass of the first half against Miami in Game One. He has 197 straight attempts without an interception, a stat leading the league right now. "The one thing that our players and our coaching staff have noticed about him besides the fact that he's leading the ACC in passing offense, is how athletic he is and the things that he can do to escape," Davis said. "He's very mobile. He's very athletic. He throws extraordinarily well on the run. A lot of guys are classic drop-back, pocket passers and they throw the ball really well but the thing that you see him, he's just about as dangerous when he gets out of the pocket."
Greg Reid: It's rare for a true freshman to have the kind of impact that Reid has had, but he is very talented and even though he's not a starter, he's seemingly always there to make a play. He has two interceptions this season (tied for the team lead) and is tied for third in the ACC with seven passes defended. His returned an interception 63 yards for a touchdown early against BYU to set the tone for that win. Besides being a third defensive back, he is also Florida State's primary return man, ranking eighth in the ACC in kickoff returns (22.8) and seventh in punt returns (11.6). There were no punts against Georgia Tech but he returned five kickoffs for 94 yards, including a long of 29. His season-long is a 51-yarder against Miami. Boston College held him to five kickoff returns for 38 yards (a long of 13) and three punt returns for just ten yards in its win against the Seminoles. Reid has yet to really break out with the exception of that return but he is explosive enough that he could turn the game around with one big play on defense or special teams.
Lauren Brownlow is the executive editor of Tar Heel Monthly.
