Extra Points: A Smoldering Rivalry Rekindled

November 9, 2009 | Football, Featured Writers, Lee Pace

By: UNC Athletic Communications

Nov. 9, 2009

by Lee Pace

I remember my first Carolina-Duke football game like it was yesterday, my sophomore year in 1976 sitting with Mike Voight's parents in section 121 to glean their perspective on their son's performance for a Daily Tar Heel missive. Voight, nicknamed "The Space Cowboy" for an early 1970s song from the Steve Miller Band, was otherworldly that gray and chilly afternoon, carrying the football 47 times for 261 yards as the Tar Heels nudged past Duke, 39-38.

Since then, I've seen the Amos Lawrence draw-play in 1978, the Amos-Kelvin rush-fest in 1980, the Ole Ball Coach Trick Play Debauchery in 1989, the Thomas-to-Barnes thunderbolt in 1994. After that, however, it all fades into a blob of bluish goo--an obligatory season finale against a last-place Duke squad and a Tar Heel team that might be really good (circa 1995-97 or 2001), might be mediocre (2000 or 2005), or might be flat-out lousy (2002-03). No matter, Carolina had won 18 of the last 19 and a proud old rivalry--once one of the fiercest in the South, with coaches named Wade and Snavely destined for the College Football Hall of Fame--was running on fumes and routinely not even picked up on the ACC's regional TV package.

Last week was different. The game was moved by the ACC administration from its long-standing third-week-of-November anchor for no particular reason, and both teams came into the game with winning records (5-3) and legitimate chances for bowl bids. A version of the venerable old Beat Dook Parade was rekindled in the form of a Homecoming cavalcade down Franklin Street Saturday morning--complete with the Marching Tar Heels, Rameses, the "Heelraiser" hearse and a stray dog or two. Tickets were selling for face value outside Kenan Stadium, and every corner of the stadium was occupied by kick-off. And both teams were led by head coaches with big-time football pedigrees--Carolina's Butch Davis for his years on the defensive staff of the Super Bowl Cowboys and resurrecting an outlaw Miami program to respectability and accountability, and Duke's David Cutcliffe for tutoring the quarterbacking Manning brothers and winning at Ole Miss, one of the SEC's more challenging outposts.

"I sensed something a little different last week, there was something added to it," said Tar Heel running backs coach Kenny Browning, who's coached at Carolina since 1994 and followed the Carolina-Duke series since his 1950s Durham boyhood. "I felt all week it would be an advantage for us compared to some years where it was the last game and Duke had not had that good a season. The fact they had won four of five games definitely had our guys' attention."

Of course, the proceedings couldn't escape the obligatory basketball connections, whether it was the ESPN Game Day crew talking about the Carolina-Duke game Saturday morning and one of the wags saying, "I think Duke out-rebounds them," or Tar Heel receiver Jay Boyd celebrating his fourth-quarter touchdown by "shooting" the football jump-shot style amid the fireworks in the east end zone.

All in all, it was quite a lot of fun if you enjoy college football--especially if you pull for the Tar Heels and revel in outstanding defense and the suspense of watching an offense scrape and claw to find something that's working and sticking with it, a la Ryan Houston in a performance that Mike Voight himself would have been proud of. Houston, getting top-billing with an early game injury to starter Shaun Draughn, carried the ball 37 times for 164 yards, and the defense held the prolific Duke offense to essentially squat as the Heels collected a 19-6 victory.

"This game is always going to be a bar fight, but tonight it meant more to both teams," offensive tackle Kyle Jolly said.

"The atmosphere was awesome," quarterback T.J. Yates added. "I can't remember any Duke-Carolina game this energetic and exciting. The crowd was really into it."

The Tar Heel partisans were rocking and rolling no more so than when the Carolina defense was having its way against Blue Devil QB Thad Lewis and his talented corps of receivers. Duke came into the game averaging 440 yards offense during its three-game win streak over N.C. State, Maryland and Virginia, and its passing offense was first in the ACC and fifth nationally. That the Carolina defense was seventh nationally, yielding 265 yards, gave the game all the flavor of the consummate irresistible force-immovable object grudge match.

In putting together his game plan last weekend, Carolina defensive coordinator Everett Withers noted that the Tar Heels had success against Duke in last year's 28-20 win when they eschewed their staple Cover 2 zone scheme in favor of more man-to-man coverage. He noted that Kansas beat Duke by 28 points in September by putting the heat on Lewis with a heavy dose of pressure upfront and man coverage in the back and saying, "Beat us deep if you dare." He also drew the comparisons in Duke's offense to that of the Indianapolis Colts and cited the success New England has often had versus Indy because of the Patriots' aggressive mindset in the secondary.

"We've got to bang their receivers, re-route them, put our hands on them," Withers said. "This type offense doesn't like you putting your hands on them. This offense is based on timing, receivers getting to spots and Lewis hitting them on rhythm. If we re-route them and bump them, it throws their timing off."

Thus the Tar Heel cornerbacks played Duke with press-man coverage throughout the game, jamming and bumping them off the ball and down into the intermediate route lanes they so prefer. Duke had essentially no ability to run the ball--its best runs were keepers by Lewis when he was flushed from the pocket--and a deep Tar Heel defensive line was rotated throughout the game, always leaving a fresh group to hound Lewis. Add a few select blitzes, and the result was total domination by the Tar Heels. Duke failed to score a touchdown, and one of its two field goals was a gift when an assignment snafu allowed Duke a blocked punt. Lewis completed 16-of-33 passes for 113 yards, was sacked three times and hurried on 14 pass attempts.

"It was the best defense we've faced so far," Lewis said. "Those guys up front did a great job for them. They came in with a tenacious attitude and played the best game I've seen from watching film of those guys."

"Bottom line is, they whipped us," Cutcliffe added.

The defensive poster boy was cornerback Charles Brown, who yielded the big touchdown play two weeks ago against Florida State but made nice atonement Saturday. For the third week running, Yates threw a second-half interception that could have had ominous consequences. The game knotted at 6-6 late in the third quarter, Yates forced one high over the middle to Greg Little, the ball bounced off Little's hands and was plucked away by Leon Wright, who returned it to the Tar Heel 37.

But three snaps later, Brown was hounding receiver Conner Vernon on a slant route just as he'd been taught all week in practice--contact off the ball, press him inside and give him no air to breathe. Brown slid under Vernon as the ball arrived, reeled it in and took off 54 yards to the Duke 20. That set up the third of four Casey Barth field goals, and the Tar Heels would never trail again.

"All week the coaches told us to be physical with those guys, they don't like a lot of contact," Brown said. "They are good route-runners and they are disciplined. The way to defend them is to be physical."

That same mindset worked on offense in the person of Ryan Houston, the wickedly robust tailback whose game was reminiscent not only of Voight's vs. Duke from '76 but also that of Ronnie McGill against Wake Forest in 2003. McGill, a freshman that year, carried 29 times for 244 yards and single-handedly bloodied and bruised and buried the Deacons as the game wore on. By the fourth quarter, Duke simply lacked the gumption to stop Houston, and the jumbo-sized tailback carried the ball on 10 of 11 snaps during a 70-yard drive as the clock wound down.

"They weren't hitting nearly as hard in the fourth quarter," said Houston, who had his helmet knocked off by one vicious collision in the second quarter. "The most physical team won the game."

"He wore them down, there's no doubt about that, and that's what a good back does," Browning noted. "Ryan's in really good condition, so he's still got a burst late in the game. In the fourth quarter, he can wear down a defense. Our line, our tight ends and Devon Ramsay were really physical blocking, so that got Ryan into the second level quite a bit. The smaller guys back there can't get him on the ground quite as easily."

Houston and the Tar Heels powered down to the three yard-line midway through the final period, with the Heels still leading by 9-6 and needing a knockout punch. They called time out to give the offense--its line cobbled together once again with an illness to Lowell Dyer and shoulder nick to Cam Holland that had Alan Pelc playing center--a couple of minutes for a breather.

Just as a stadium full of fans and a Blue Devil defense expected Don McCauley to get the ball on fourth-and-1 in 1970 (instead QB Paul Miller bootlegged it around right end) ... just as a stadium full and a Blue Devil defense expected Voight's number to be called in the fourth quarter in 1976 (instead QB Matt Kupec passed to fullback Billy Johnson) ... so too did everyone Saturday night figure that Houston would pile-drive over from three yards out.

The coaches discussed four or five options during the time out--runs and passes both--but they didn't want to do anything too risky and squander the chance for at least a field goal. In the end, coordinator John Shoop gave the ball to Boyd on a play from the "Jet" package, with the speedy receiver going in motion from left to right, taking a hand-off from Yates and sprinting around right end. Houston led the way for Boyd and blocked out Duke safety Matt Daniels. Browning was quick to greet Houston on the sideline and salute not only his runs with the ball but his block without it as well.

"I'm sure in one way Ryan was disappointed," Browning said. "He wanted the ball, he thought he could get it in there. But we didn't give it to him, and for him to come back and throw a block that sprung the touchdown, I told him that was big, that was being a great player, a team player."

All that was left was for the Tar Heel defense to apply the coup de grace to win No. 19 over Duke in an even two decades. The Blue Devils gained only 11 yards on 10 final snaps, Lewis being sacked twice by Robert Quinn and limping off the field before a substitute took the Devils' final snap of the game. E.J. Wilson and Brown took a giddy ride on The Victory Bell as Cam Thomas pulled it across the field, and the Tar Heels jauntily repaired to the dressing room, now with solid wins back-to-back tucked under their belts--on the road at Virginia Tech, at home to a feisty ancient rival. No wonder the home folks seemed quite giddy indeed banging out another stanza of Don't Give A Damn About Dook University.

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.