University of North Carolina Athletics
Extra Points: Belk Bulwark
December 30, 2013 | Football, Featured Writers, Lee Pace
by Lee Pace, GoHeels.com
CHARLOTTE — For all of the teeth-gnashing and hand-wringing among the masses over the departure of offensive coordinator Blake Anderson to the head coaching job at Arkansas State 10 days before the Belk Bowl, for all the commiserating on who would run the offense and how the coaching staff dominoes would fall over the coming weeks, the real story of this face-off with the University of Cincinnati was on the opposite side of the ball.
The bowl matchups were announced the night of Sunday, Dec. 8, giving defensive coordinator Vic Koenning a few hours to prep up on the 9-3 Bearcats and senior QB Brendon Kay before boarding a plane to Atlanta the next morning on a recruiting trip. Koenning knew that starting linebacker Jeff Schoettmer had suffered a shoulder injury against Duke the last game of the season and the prognosis for a quick return was dim. He knew that fellow linebacker Travis Hughes might play the run well, but his limitations in the throwing game had been there all year and were particularly exposed on one Duke touchdown. He knew that senior safety Tre Boston was playing a step slow due to a groin injury and that cornerback Tim Scott was going to get at least a trial in Boston's safety position come spring practice. He knew that Bandit Darius Lipford would not play due to a violation of team rules. He knew that Jack Tabb, a tight end who'd lent a hand at linebacker earlier in the year, had been committed to offense-only the last month. And he knew that freshman Brian Walker had improved the last month at cornerback and could hold up more responsibility there.
Koenning looked at the Bearcats and Kay's lofty numbers of 69 percent pass completions and 260 yards a game through the air and could at least be thankful that Cincinnati was not a smash-mouth team with a bruising tailback a la Boston College and Andre Williams from late October.
"I knew we had to shake it up for the bowl game," Koenning said. "I knew we couldn't go with the guys we had. We had to generate more pressure. We essentially would have no 'base' defense for this game. We would have one linebacker and move Tre into a hybrid linebacker/nickel spot. I would sell him on the idea that he'd be like Troy Polamalu—he'd be everywhere. We'd move Tim to safety and try to hide the gaps."
When Koenning got off the plane, he'd listed the personnel groups and substitution packages and drawn up a handful of new blitzes the Tar Heels hadn't shown before. And when he returned to Chapel Hill after a week of recruiting and found Schoettmer still unable to go full speed when bowl practice commenced and then watched as Hughes was carried off with a knee injury, he knew his plan was even more set in cement.
"We've essentially had to re-tool everything," he said. "It's disconcerting, no one wants to go to these extremes this late in the year. But it is what it is."
Linebackers and Bandits coach Ron West now was schooling Boston as bowl preparations wound down as well as defensive backs Brandon Ellerbee and Ryan Mangum, who would essentially move into linebackers' roles on passing situations. The starting back-seven would feature Nathan Staub and Boston at linebacker, Jabari Price and Walker at corner, Malik Simmons at the Ram safety and Dominique Green and Scott at safety.
"If they stick to 10 and 11 personnel, I think we can hang in there," West said before the game, referring to Cincinnati's customary no-back or one-back offensive packages. "If they go two-back, bunch it up and try to run it inside, we might be in trouble. I don't know if we can hold up."
On Cincinnati's fifth offensive snap Saturday in the Belk Bowl in Charlotte's Bank of America Stadium, Staub and Boston blew through the middle of the Cincinnati line and Staub nailed Kay for an 18-yard loss. On third-and-four on the Bearcats' next possession, Scott feigned pass coverage on a slot receiver, rushed the quarterback, sidestepped the offensive tackle and stuck Kay for a seven-yard loss.
And on the Bearcats' third possession, Ellerbee and Kareem Martin combined on a lethal twist move to combo-sack Kay in the end zone for a safety. By now the score was 9-0 Carolina and the gauntlet was thrown dead at the Bearcats' feet.
"Those sacks created momentum and created a snowball effect," Price said. "Tim and Tre gave it up for the team. Tim played free safety today and Tre went to the nickel because we know about their spread and we were short-handed at linebacker. We ended up putting more speed on the field and it helped shut them down on crucial situations."
"Those plays set the tone," Martin added. "They were the difference in the game. We knew we had to get to the quarterback and get to him early. We had to get him rattled a little bit, make him throw some balls he didn't really want to throw. Those early plays set us up for the rest of the game."
Carolina held Cincinnati to 134 yards offense and three points in the first half. The offense did its part—it dominated up front and had 105 yards on the ground at intermission, already surpassing the Bearcats' average per game allowance. Special teams chipped in as they have so well this season—punter Tommy Hibbard nailed Cincinnati to its six yard-line to set up the safety and T.J. Logan returned the ensuing kick 78 yards for a touchdown. The result was a 23-3 halftime lead and all the Tar Heels needed to do was maintain their edge and avoid a repeat of their second-half implosion at Pittsburgh in November, when they yielded a 21-point lead and hung on to win by seven.
"We remembered the Pittsburgh game," Price said. "We talked about it at halftime. We didn't want smiles on anyone's faces. It was strictly business."
The Bearcats made a stab at competitiveness by going to a Wildcat formation and running the ball between the tackles to open the third quarter—the very tactic the defensive staff had feared before the game—and found enough success to score two second-half touchdowns. But Ryan Switzer added his fifth punt return of the year for a touchdown and the offense controlled the ball well enough that the Tar Heels dusted off the Bearcats, 39-17.
"I wouldn't say we played our best game, but we just kept fighting and making plays," Tar Heel coach Larry Fedora said. "We made game-changing plays on special teams. Our defense got after them really hard in the first half and put a whole lot of pressure on the quarterback. The offense sputtered around some, but it was good enough to get the job done."
Now that Cincinnati has been dispatched, now that the Heels put the wraps on a 7-6 season and now with two weeks of the mid-year recruiting "dead period" in effect, Fedora will turn his attention to replacing Anderson and tight ends coach/recruiting coordinator Walt Bell and graduate assistant Luke Paschall, who are expected to follow Anderson to Jonesboro, Ark. Fedora has options both within the current staff and from an avalanche of inquiries he had received less than a week after Anderson's departure.
Whatever and whoever evolves, though, will never move the Tar Heel attack off the needle it's been on since Fedora developed this offense nearly two decades ago at Middle Tennessee and honed and refined it at Florida, Oklahoma State and Southern Mississippi.
"Not to take anything away from anyone, but this offense is more of a collaborative effort than many," offensive line coach Chris Kapilovic said after the Belk Bowl. "We put our game plan and our play sheet together as a staff. Being a play-caller for us is more of a group effort than it is in lot of places."
"There's not going to be any real change in how this game is called than any other," Fedora said before the bowl. "Blake and I have been on the same page for six years and there's a lot of continuity in this offense. I don't see that changing. After the bowl, we'll decide on the best fit for our program and our staff."
So while the offensive staff is parsed to a fair-the-well on the message boards and Ryan Switzer beep-beeps to yet another Youtube and Sports Center highlight reel, the staff and players on defense will take a quiet but very well-deserved bow.
Chapel Hill writer Lee Pace (leepace7@gmail.com) is now in his 24th year writing "Extra Points" and 10th reporting from the sidelines for the Tar Heel Sports Network. His unique look at Tar Heel football will appear weekly throughout the fall. Follow him on Twitter @LeePaceTweet.
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