Extra Points: Blueprint Blown Up

September 20, 2010 | Football, Featured Writers, Lee Pace

By: UNC Athletic Communications

Sept. 20, 2010

by Lee Pace

The template for beating Georgia Tech's eclectic football team--that of the flexbone offense and 3-4 defense--is to play patiently on offense, nibbling here, nibbling there, then send the howitzer over top. Control the clock. Gift them nothing; the shortage of ball possessions will come back to haunt you the more charitable you are. On defense, play your man--dive, quarterback, pitch, receiver downfield on play-action throws. Take the correct angles of pursuit. Play low and keep an eye out for a chop block between the tackles. It worked like a charm two years ago when the Tar Heels pounded Tech 28-7, one of only two bright spots in the last dozen encounters with the White & Gold.

Through two and a half quarters of football on a luminous Saturday in Kenan Stadium, the Tar Heels were reasonably on schedule. Most importantly, they held the lead, 24-17.

The offense was playing well. Quarterback T.J. Yates had nailed 11-of-13 first-half passes for 158 yards--including a 52-yard strike to Erik Highsmith for a score. Ball exchanges between center Cam Holland, who was awarded the starting assignment after Jonathan Cooper's rough outing against LSU, and Yates were crisp, and Holland was authoritative in putting his offensive line mates into the proper blocking call. The line of Holland, flanked to his left by Cooper and freshman James Hurst and to his right by Alan Pelc and Mike Ingersoll, was giving Yates ample time to throw. And tailback Johnny White was running with a purpose, passion and productivity not seen in his previous three years as a Tar Heel. His helmet was flying off and first tacklers were bouncing off. To open the second half, White ran with smoke in his nostrils on bursts of 19, 24 and four yards for a touchdown. Time of possession was slightly in Carolina's favor.

"We've talked a lot about what this game has to look like," offensive coordinator John Shoop said during practice last week. "We have to play with the lead, stay on the field, go the long, hard way. You've got to have drives of six, eight, 10 plays. You can't have two-and-outs like we had against LSU. You can't have unforced errors. This is not about them. It's about us.,"

And the Carolina defense, suspect out of the gate, was finding its bearings. Playing Tech quarterback Joshua Nesbitt is never easy. Defending an option attack that can spring more trap doors on you than a haunted house is always vexing. Doing so with newcomers on the corners (ends Donte Paige-Moss, Kareem Martin and Tim Jackson) and in the flats (cornerbacks Tre Boston, Mywan Jackson and LaCount Fantroy) is akin to solving a trig problem by ciphering on your fingers. But after yielding two quick scoring drives to open the game (one strike of three plays and another of five), the Tar Heels had tightened the screws a notch. Tech's next three possessions netted a field goal, a fumble and a punt.

"Our guys did a good job upfront, getting pressure on the ball and making the quarterback pitch it quick," safety Matt Merletti said. "It made a difference. They fumbled several times, so we did something right. It was a matter of getting a feel for that offense. It always takes a play or two to get used to it. As the game went on, the young guys developed a feel for what they were doing."

So there you have it: The Tar Heels, still missing six potential starters on defense, a big-play receiver and bruising tailback because of NCAA and institutional probes, have nonetheless taken the lead, the ball and a keg of energy into the middle part of the third quarter.

"Now if you can go down and score and make it more than a one-score ball game, it really enhances your opportunity to make them play kind of left-handed," Tar Heel coach Butch Davis said, suggesting that playing from behind and having to throw the ball is not Tech's cup of tea.

Alas, the Tar Heels whiffed on their strike at the Jackets' jugular. Possession 1: Three-and-out. Possession 2: One-play and fumble by Yates when the ball inadvertently careens off the hip of fullback Devon Ramsay. Possession 3: Three-and-out. Possession 4: Two-play drive and fumble by Zack Pianalto.

"You're going to get two or three possessions less against Georgia Tech than a normal game," Yates said. "So you have to make every single one count. That's why those two turnovers absolutely killed us."

In the interim, Tech has scored to tie the game and the Yellow Jackets have the ball in Tar Heel territory after Pianalto's miscue. By now on an 87-degree day without the cooling balm of a single cloud, fatigue is starting to wear on a defensive unit battered by 10 suspensions total and now as well by illness to reserve lineman Jared McAdoo. The staff had to make the radical in-season move of switching offensive guard Greg Elleby back to defense, where he started his career. Make no mistake: This is a well-conditioned team, but all the running in the world during the summer midday heat and all the preseason camp practices at 1:30 p.m. are not preparation enough for live bullets on a steamy afternoon. It takes Tech 10 plays to roll 45 yards for what proves to be the winning touchdown in a 30-24 victory. From the point the Heels took their 24-17 lead, Tech's offense clipped off some 17 minutes of possession time to eight for Carolina.

"Playing these guys is like going two hours of inside run," a spent linebacker Bruce Carter said, referring to a practice drill that features big boys only going tooth and nail in the trenches. "There are very few passes. It's straight run, run, run."

"It wears you down," Davis adds. "You'd love to be able to play 18, 20, 22 guys on defense. Depth is a major factor."

Two games into the season, the Tar Heels have book-end losses by the identical score to good teams, but teams you'd like to think would have been summarily dispatched had Carolina had its full complement of soldiers. If nothing else, it's heartening to see that the black hole of offensive ineptitude of 2009--who'll ever forget 328 yards and one score over two games against Tech and Virginia--was exactly what it appeared to be: a confluence of personnel issues thanks to graduation and injuries magnified by the attendant hang-dog handicap of failure begetting more failure. This offense is setting up to be pretty good this year and down the road.

Now if the Tar Heels could just get some balance between both sides of the ball in one season under Davis & Co. The 2007 season was about transition. The 2008 season was about good offense and a revolving door of lineups on defense. The 2009 season was about good defense and a revolving door of lineups on offense. Presumably both would have converged in 2010 into one of the nation's elite squads and might well still do exactly that, pending the resolution of the current personnel issues.

"We'll keep fighting, that's our M.O.," Carter said. "We'll keep pushing forward. You play with whatever you've got."

"We can't control who's on the field, who's not on the field," Pianalto says. "All we can do is play one play at a time and move on to the next one."

The next one is the opening kick-off Saturday at Rutgers, 3:30 p.m., Carolina's third straight venture into Big East country for an early season examination. Two years ago, the Tar Heels made a resounding statement on Thursday night TV with a 44-12 victory over the Scarlet Knights. One year ago, keen game management by Yates and a safety courtesy of Robert Quinn's pass rush skills staked the Heels to a 12-10 triumph at UConn. Sometimes there's nothing like going on the road into an enemy camp to crystallize a team's true identity. Of course, that process has a whole new meaning in 2010.

1979 Carolina graduate Lee Pace (leepace7@gmail.com) is in his 21st year writing about Tar Heel football under the "Extra Points" banner. Look for his missives each Monday during the season.