Extra Points: Find A Way

October 5, 2009 | Football, Featured Writers, Lee Pace

By: UNC Athletic Communications

Oct. 5, 2009

by Lee Pace

Shaun Draughn kneeled at the far end of the bench area, one hand supported by his helmet on the ground and his head hung low. T.J. Yates walked slowly off the field, his head covered by a damp towel, while a few feet away, Kyle Jolly limped into the locker room, his right ankle gimpy and now heavily taped after a late game mishap.

On a crystalline October afternoon before a near capacity crowd in a stadium with an exciting new set of expansion blue prints, the seas around Carolina football had turned dark and foreboding. A season that had begun with a 3-0 start and Top 25 ranking had been turned on its ear in the course of two games, the first a 24-7 smacking at Georgia Tech a week ago and now a 16-3 cuffing at the hands of old foe Virginia.

"This is hard," safety Deunta Williams said. "I was really emotional after the game. When you work so hard in the off-season for something and it's not going as well you'd hoped, it's tough times. But you have to stay focused. In tough times, you don't want to point fingers and give up on each other."

Added receiver Greg Little: "We have to stay upbeat, don't point any fingers, don't get down on ourselves. We're in a pit, you just have to fight your way out."

Toward that important end of maintaining team unification--this after two weeks of the Tar Heel offense generating only one touchdown and an average of 3.2 yards on 103 snaps--head coach Butch Davis told the team about the 2000 Baltimore Ravens squad. That team went the entire month of October--five straight games--without scoring an offensive touchdown. Matt Stover kicked 14 field goals to account for the Ravens' only points in the entirety of October and they even won two games, by a 12-0 margin over Cleveland and 15-10 tally over Jacksonville.

Davis also added the little fact that the Ravens eventually won the Super Bowl that year.

"I admire that," Davis said in his post-game media address. "Sometimes you just have to find a way to win ugly. Sometimes the shoe is on the other foot from a team perspective. There were times last year when we'd score 45 and 38 points and it was not enough. It's a team game."

Two weeks earlier, Davis had stood on the very same spot in the media room of the new fifth floor of the Kenan Football Center and talked about that afternoon's win over East Carolina. He was happy to have won and he was delighted that his program was showing some tangible signs of progress in his third year as the Tar Heels' head coach. But he cautioned anyone from taking more from the game or the '09 start than was due--this was still a team ravaged by graduation, NFL defections, attrition and injury at receiver and offensive line and there would certainly be debts to pay on that balance before the year was out.

"We are a work in progress," Davis said, reigning in a reporter whose finger was up in the air, detecting the wind direction and running with it. "Let's not make any mistakes about it. We're going to have challenges, have adversity. We have been challenged more with injuries maybe more than any team I've been around in 35 years. But our kids believe in each other, our coaches believe in the kids."

Now that the Tar Heels have gotten into ACC play against a good team, Tech, and a team certainly not as bad as its 0-3 start would indicate, Virginia, the Tar Heels' personnel woes on offense have become quite apparent. This is not about schemes, motivation, character or manhood. It's about having a deep enough reservoir of players who are talented enough, old enough and healthy enough to post a consistent threat to quality defenses. This offense was fun to watch in 2007 and '08 with three receivers who today are in the NFL and with a veteran offensive line. It's been inept this season when its two weakest positions--receiver and O-line--have been further rocked by bad luck. Consider this: Carolina's offensive line brought a history of 41 career starts into the game, three players with three starts each; Virginia had 79 combined starts on its offensive front.

One snapshot along the Tar Heel sideline late in the game was worth a thousand words: tight ends Zack Pianalto and Ryan Taylor, center Lowell Dyer and tackle Carl Gaskins were sitting together on the bench in their navy blue shorts and Carolina blue game jerseys--sans helmets and pads. Nearby also in street clothes were receiver Josh Adams, his shoulder dinged, and guard Jonathan Cooper, fully dressed for action but still idle for the 10th straight quarter with a sprained ankle. Defensive back and special teams crackerjack Matt Merletti was in the group as well.

Not a bad sandlot football team, those guys.

"We're missing some guys," Davis said. "We'd love to have Jonathan Cooper, we'd love to have Zack Pianalto, we'd love to have some of those other guys back. Maybe we will before the season is over. But there is no smoke and mirrors, no magic pill. This is a young, inexperienced offensive football team, and we knew that from August 1."

Quality football programs, the ones perennially along the nation's 10 best, are rarely ravaged at any one position and, when they are, the program has had enough coaching stability and game-time success that there is an inventory of players ready to move up. There is every indication that Davis and his staff have recruited quite well at receiver and along the offensive line, but to have to play so many young receivers and even think of playing a freshman lineman is hardly the M.O. at Florida, USC or Texas.

Playing young blockers is particularly heretical; nowhere on the field do you need the physical bulk and playbook savvy as you do on the O-line. It was silly having to play Pianalto as a true freshman tight end in 2007 at 225 pounds; he smiled ruefully at the thought a year later after adding 25 pounds to his frame and dozens more to his power clean. Back when the Tar Heels were really, really good along the offensive line (roughly two decades ago), a line coach said without batting an eye, "I don't even know their names until they've been here three years." He was exaggerating, certainly, but you get the point.

Of course, that doesn't answer the question of what do the Tar Heels do now--until they can get Pianalto, Dyer, Cooper et al back in the lineup? The problem is that bad offensive football is far more painful to watch than bad defense; that truism runs throughout sports. Keen indeed is the baseball fan who enjoys a 1-0 pitcher's duel. Carolina was abysmal on defense in 2003, but at least the boards lit up as the Heels were losing to Arizona State 33-31 or beating Wake Forest 42-34. The Heels were rancid on defense as well in 1988, but at least the casual fan found some entertainment in a 41-38 loss to Maryland or 27-24 defeat against Virginia.

But scoring just three points against Virginia ... getting your quarterback's bell rung several times and watching him throw a wounded-duck interception under duress in the fourth quarter ... losing the time of possession battle and putting your defense on the field over and over and over again ... it all wears on the team and the good citizens in Carolina blue wanting desperately to enjoy some consistent football success.

No doubt Davis, coordinator John Shoop and the rest of the offensive staff will rack their collective brains this week and consider any and all options--from more A.J. Blue in the "Diesel" formation at quarterback to more Ryan Houston at tailback; from more of the quick-hitting passes that worked well in the third-quarter against Virginia to more of the naked roll-outs by Yates that diced UConn's defense three games ago. And they'll keep hoping that what hasn't been working well will start to function--with improved execution.

"I feel like our run blocking on the first level is going really well, but we're not getting to the second level--to the linebackers and safeties--as well as we should," guard Alan Pelc said. "We just have to get our fits better, be more technically sound, do a better job in the second level cutting a guy down."

The Tar Heels' mantra this week and perhaps the rest of the fall, then, will simply be this: Find a way. Just like the Ravens did in their black hole of October 2000 before later hoisting a championship banner.

"Things are not hopeless at all," Williams said. "The offense is going to pick it up. Until then, the defense has to create some momentum. We need to score on defense. We need to score on special teams. We need more turnovers. There were a couple of loose balls today, and I had an interception in my hands. I have to make that play. There are ways to win--we just have to find them."

Lee Pace writes "Extra Points" twice weekly on Tarheelblue.com. He and the broadcast crew for the Tar Heel Sports Network answer reader email on the pre-game show, so send your questions to asktheheels@gmail.com.