University of North Carolina Athletics
Turner's Take: Classic Switzer
December 29, 2013 | Football, Featured Writers, Turner Walston
Ryan Switzer got frustrated in training camp. The freshman found himself third on the punt return depth chart behind T.J Logan and T.J. Thorpe. There were a lot of questions surrounding that role on the team back in August. Well, one question: who was going to replace the dynamic Giovani Bernard, whose brilliant return to beat N.C. State is embedded into the brains of Tar Heel fans everywhere? Who could possibly step into those shoes?
Enter Switzer. Well, not right away. It was Thorpe who was back returning punts during the season opener against South Carolina. A week later, Switzer's first chance at a return was fielded for a fair catch against Middle Tennessee. Later that day he took one back nine yards. We saw a flash of his burst in Atlanta, when he took a Bryn Renner pass 82 yards for a touchdown only to have it called back due to a holding penalty. Oh, but we got that glimpse.
Against Virginia Tech in game five, we got another glimpse on an 81-yard touchdown return - this one again called back due to holding. At some point, Switzer and the punt return team were going to get on the same page. That happened in November. “Nothing really changed, other than my attitude,” Switzer said. “I kind of was beating myself up, because this coaching staff trusted me enough to bring me here to be a playmaker, and I wasn't holding up my end of the bargain. So I just tried to go out there and have fun and thankfully the ball started bouncing my way.”
Did it ever. Switzer had a touchdown return against Virginia. Then two at Pitt. The next week against Old Dominion, he scored three touchdowns - two on receptions and another on a punt return. Not only was he making plays on special teams, but the Tar Heel coaching staff was finding any and every way to get the ball in his hands. He was rushing the ball, he was passing the ball (a 59-yard touchdown toss to Quinshad Davis at N.C. State), he was receiving and he was returning. He was a weapon that had to be accounted for.
Larry Fedora knew that Cincinnati would account for Switzer. What they didn't account for was Switzer and Thorpe in to return punts at the same time early in the Belk Bowl. The different look made things difficult for the Bearcat staff. Punt the ball to Switzer, knowing what he can do, or to the also-dangerous Thorpe, with only one coverage team member on his side of the field? Switzer's resumé spoke for itself; the simple threat of Switzer changed the game.
Entering the Belk Bowl, Cincinnati had the edge numbers-wise in most of the offensive category. Strength of schedule aside, it's tough to ignore a 9-3 team that was putting up top-20 total offense numbers. But Fedora places special teams right next to offense and defense in terms of importance. That's why you see offensive and defensive starters returning punts or making tackles in the kicking game; with rare exception, if you want to start on offense or defense, you're going to have to earn a starting spot on special teams. So, perhaps Fedora saw that he'd have an advantage in that key area of the game and exploited it.
It wasn't just Switzer on Saturday; the special teams for the Tar Heels were tremendous. They keyed a nine-point swing on back-to-back plays in the first quarter that dealt a serious blow to any hopes Cincinnati had of repeating as Belk Bowl champions.
Tommy Hibbard pinned the Bearcats deep all day, averaging better than 44 yards per kick. When Cincinnati's Anthony McClung (who'd muffed a return already) stepped out of the way of the ball, Mack Hollins was there to down it at the Bearcat six.
“Creating a long field is the best feeling ever as a defense,” cornerback Jabari Price said. “We love that. We know the chance of them scoring is slim to none. Anytime we can create a long field, we want it.”
On third down of the ensuing series, Kareem Martin and Brandon Ellerbe gave their team two points with a sack of Brendon Kay in the end zone. But the Tar Heels weren't done scoring in unusual ways. T.J. Logan took the free kick 78 yards for a touchdown. A 7-0 lead became 16-0 in a matter of seconds.
“It was tough, you know?” Cincinnati coach Tommy Tuberville said of the nine points on two plays. “It was real tough.”
And it wasn't just those two plays. Excepting a Thorpe fumble on a return, Cincinnati's average starting field position was their own 21. By contrast (taking out starting at their own four after a Tre Boston interception), Carolina began at the 26, and that doesn't include the big returns from Logan and Switzer.
Oh, Switzer. (Can we say 'Classic Switzer' yet? After all, he's just a freshman.) It was on Cincinnati's first punt of the second half that Classic Switzer showed up. While the Bearcat returners had been inexplicably opting to let the ball hit the ground, Switzer would do no such thing. But let the coverage team think that. As the ball drifted toward him, he began yelling, “Peter! Peter!,” the universal football call that tells members of the return team to get away from the football lest it hit them and result in a turnover. The Bearcats bought it, either expecting Switzer to get away from the ball or at the very least call for a fair catch. But he didn't. “I was yelling 'Peter,' and I was shaking my head, so I don't know whether they thought I fair caught it or not, but as soon as I was able to catch it, man, I hit it. I don't think they expected it.” They may not have been expecting it, but they had to be shaking their head. Surely Cincinnati had studied film of Switzer's returns, vowing that he wasn't going to do to them what he'd done to Pitt, Virginia and Old Dominion.
But he did. Eighty-six yards later, Switzer had tied the NCAA single-season mark with his fifth punt return touchdown of the year and forever etched his name onto the hearts of Tar Heel fans. “It should be six, if my VT one didn't get called back,” he said. “ But like I said, I can't run them back by myself. Those ten guys in front of me do a great job and they block for me. You look at the film, and I only have to make a couple guys miss because those guys are on them man for man so I appreciate those guys a lot.”
The 2013 Tar Heels began the season 1-5, but they finished it 7-6 and with a bowl win that will carry momentum into the spring and beyond. The coaching staff and upperclassmen led the team to a 6-1 finish to the regular season, and young players stepped into new roles and took the ball - literally - and ran with it. Those players, many of them freshmen, are having fun and challenging each other. “When I returned mine, I told Switz he has to get one,” T.J. Logan said. “He said, 'Alright, I'll get one,' and that's exactly what he did, so I'm proud of him.”
The final log on the 2013 season will say 7-6, but the second half of the year showed the potential of Carolina football. Now, it's up to Fedora, his staff and his returning players to build on that foundation. At least one in particular seems up to the task.
“Oh, and by the way this is Ryan Switzer,” Larry Fedora said in the middle of his postgame press conference after the 39-17 Tar Heel win, with the freshman flanking him. “In case y'all didn't know who this was.”
“Hi,” the Jerry Richardson Belk Bowl MVP said, smiling and waving.
We know who he is, Coach. We know. Classic Switzer.
