University of North Carolina Athletics
Turner's Take: Help Yourself
September 10, 2011 | Football
Sept. 10, 2011
Maybe it was a regression to the mean. The Tar Heels played extremely well in defeating James Madison last weekend. They came back toward middling in week two against Rutgers.
Turnovers and penalties are an easy way to lose a football game, and the Tar Heels didn't help themselves on Saturday. On the Tar Heels' opening drive, it looked as though quarterback Bryn Renner picked up right where he left off last week, hitting Dwight Jones for a 66-yard touchdown less than two minutes in. From there, however, the game was a sloppy, undisciplined mess.
Later in the first quarter, Renner threw a ball that sailed past Jheranie Boyd into the waiting arms of the Scarlet Knights' Duron Harmon. Harmon, aware of Boyd, lost the receiver and took off down the sideline. Renner himself prevented a touchdown and stopped Harmon at the Tar Heel two-yard line. "I wanted just to get a little piece of him, make sure I got him down, because I don't like throwing picks and then when I throw a pick [I've] just got to turn into a defensive player, so that's what I tried to do."
The interception set the table for Rutgers to cash in with a score. They had four plays to gain two yards. They gained just one. It might have been the single rushing yard the Tar Heels allowed on the day.
If Rutgers couldn't take advantage of the opportunities before them, neither could Carolina. Renner would throw two more interceptions - one an ill-advised pass, the other a lazy one - and fumbles by Jones and Highsmith short-circuited promising drives.
On the other side of the ball, the Tar Heel defensive front pressured Chas Dodd all afternoon, racking up 10 quarterback hurries and four sacks, but were perhaps too aggressive in the pass rush. Two roughing the passer penalties led to to ten points on separate drives. Everett Withers said he wouldn't worry about such penalties of emotion ("Guys are working their butt off to get to the quarterback," he said).
Still, the tight officiating impacted the players' approach to the game. Kareem Martin said referee Jerry McGinn's crew spoke to the teams about calling roughing the passer early in the contest. "He came and talked to us and said they were going to be calling a lot of it, so it was important that we stayed off the quarterback," Martin said. On one of the final possessions, Martin had it in mind to go after Dodd, but he recalled earlier penalties and though twice. "I was going to hit him, but I remembered we'd had two or three `roughing the passer's so I had to kind of pull up."
Whatever the reasons, the Tar Heels found themselves in a much tighter game than early play suggested. Midway through the fourth quarter, clinging to a two-point lead, the Tar Heels failed to convert on a 3rd and 11 at midfield. Rutgers took over at their own nine-yard line with 5:57 to play. Dodd delivered three straight passes to Mohamed Sanu for 27 yards, but under pressure from Tims Scott and Jackson, his 4th and 7 effort toward Quron Pratt was too long.
With Giovani Bernard carrying the Tar Heel rushing attack in the second half, senior Ryan Houston was patiently waiting, riding an exercise bike on the sideline. But his number was called, and Houston answered the bell. Two minutes and thirty-two seconds. Salt the game away.
A miscommunication on the exchange cost the Tar Heels a yard as Houston fell down to secure the ball on first down. The next play, a toss sweep, went for a loss of two. The Tar Heels faced 3rd and 13. The fleet-footed Bernard had been bouncing to the outside. Houston, the power back, would surely pound it up the middle, right? "They scouted us good," Houston said. "I was thinking, `Alright, if they cram in on this run, I'm just going to bounce it, and I'm going to make sure I stay inbounds.'" He did. Following his fullback and a pulling left guard, Houston picked up 33 yards.
The excitement wasn't over, as Houston had to fall on a poor center-quarterback exchange, but time ran out on the Scarlet Knights.
It wasn't pretty. You won't often find a college football team that wins with a minus-5 turnover differential, but it goes down as a `W.' "Obviously it's good any time you can win games and don't play as well as you are capable, then you have the opportunity to go back and work on things," Withers said. "I would rather win this way than blow somebody out and not know what our problems are."
Saturday, the Tar Heels' problems were turnovers and penalties. They helped Rutgers with 94 penalty yards, and 12 of the Scarlet Knights' 22 points came off of Tar Heel turnovers. Against Virginia next week, they'll need to help themselves.
Turner Walston is the managing editor of Tar Heel Monthly. Turner's weekly Tar Heel football podcast, The Walkthrough, is available on iTunes.
Follow the THM staff on Twitter.
