University of North Carolina Athletics
Extra Points: Surprise
October 26, 2014 | Football, Featured Writers, Lee Pace
by Lee Pace, GoHeels.com
CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA.—This wasn't the first time Larry Fedora made a risky call on the campus of the University of Virginia. Three years ago, Fedora's Southern Mississippi team was trailing Virginia 13-7 late in the first quarter when Fedora and his coaches acted on their due diligence that the Cavaliers' punt return unit tended to play soft to one side or the other in rushing the punter if they had a return call on.
Fedora gave punter Danny Hrapmann the green light to run the ball if his pre-snap read was what the coaches thought it might be, and Hrapmann was eight yards deep in the end zone when he executed the fake; he had clear sailing around the right side for a 31-yard gain. Southern Miss soon scored the go-ahead touchdown and never trailed in beating the Cavaliers, 30-24.
"It's obviously a calculated risk," Fedora said. "If you're on your own eight and it doesn't work out, you'd all be calling me a goat right now."
Fedora used nearly the same words Saturday afternoon in the aftermath of the Tar Heels' 28-27 win in Scott Stadium. He'd taken the guidance from assistant coach Ron West from the booth upstairs and graduate assistant Jonathan Rutledge and Tar Heel Mack Hollins on the sideline that a successful onside kick was there for the taking. Fedora pulled the trigger, kicker Nick Weiler kicked the ball perfectly and Hollins recovered it, giving Carolina an extra possession it used to salt the victory away.
"If it doesn't work, you would be crucifying me right now," Fedora said.
Just as the Southern Miss staff had sniffed out a weakness in the Virginia special teams execution three years ago, so too did the Carolina staff this year. The Tar Heels had been practicing an onside kick regularly for more than a month and Rutledge, in his first year with the program and involved mostly with the specialists and kicking game, and West, who coaches linebackers and coordinates the kick-off team, believed this would be an ideal week to implement it.
It's a common tendency—the front wall of the kick return unit, in its haste to drop back to set up a wall for the return, drops too quickly as the kicker approaches the ball and makes contact. Georgia Tech thought it saw the same impatience in the Tar Heels a week ago, but its onside kick in the third quarter was snuffed when Jeff Schoettmer was disciplined and alert enough to smell a rat and scrambled on the ball. Carolina then had a short field en route to an important touchdown in a 48-43 win.
"That was probably the most important play of the entire game," Fedora said. " If they get that ball right there, the way they were playing, that could have been the end. I thought that was probably the biggest play of the game."
Carolina saw the same thing in the Cavaliers and worked hard last week to perfect its execution. Weiler tees the ball up on the left hash, approaches it with the same authority he's used to nail touchbacks on 29 of 51 kicks this year, kisses the ball just above the middle while aiming one yard outside the right hash mark, Hollins uses his breakneck speed to pursue the bounding ball, and his teammates around him hone in on blocking out any opponents trying to make a recovery.
The play is called "Surprise." And it was there from the get-go.
"My job is to watch the front line, and from the first one I knew it was there," says Rutledge. "It was perfect. I said several times on the phones to Coach, 'Surprise is there, it's unbelievable.' Coach West saw the same thing. On the last one, Mack came up to me said, 'Surprise.' I told him to go tell Coach Fedora. It's one thing for a coach to say it, but if the kids have confidence in it, it might mean something more."
It had been a tough day for Weiler in one respect, missing field goals of 39 and 43 yards, but Fedora said he liked the "look in his eyes" when he talked to Weiler after the second miss and had the confidence in Weiler to execute the onside kick and later to attempt a field goal in the final two minutes to potentially extend a one-point lead to four points. Weiler's connection and direction on extra points had been good, and a gusty wind affected one kick and prompted him to make an ill-conceived adjustment on the second.
"Nick's fine," Rutledge said. "He's got too strong a leg to worry about the wind."
"He was struggling, but he's also the same guy that kicked that onside kick," Fedora added. "I had the confidence to [send him out on the onside kick], and that was probably a little more important at that time."
Fedora and the offensive brain trust also had the confidence to send QB Mitch Trubisky onto the field moments earlier when Marquise Williams was mandated to sit out a play because his helmet was ripped off by a marauding Cavalier defensive end. Instead of using a time out that would have allowed Williams to return on the next snap, Fedora heard the play call from coordinator Seth Littrell in the booth, thought Trubisky would have no problem executing it and sent him in.
Sure enough, Trubisky was patient in the face of a Virginia pass rush against an O-line lacking two starters on the play (center Lucas Crowley left with an ankle injury in the first half and right tackle Jon Heck was sidelined with the same helmet issue as Williams), stepped up and nailed T.J. Thorpe, who was wide open on a delayed crossing route over the middle.
"I'm happy with what we've been doing with Mitch," Fedora said of giving the redshirt freshman playing time on roughly every third possession the first five games of the year. "I know a lot of people think that we're idiots, but I think it paid off for him in that situation. He was calm, he knew what he was doing, and he executed the play and threw a touchdown pass. It was good for him and all the work he's put in. It was a great play by him and he executed, he never blinked."
The victory was significant on a number of levels. It evens the Tar Heels' record at 4-4 and gives them a nice jolt of adrenaline entering a final month stretch that Fedora likens to "the playoffs." It is now win No. 5 running over Virginia and No. 3 dating to 2010 in what had been the black hole of Charlottesville. It was a victory on a day that Fedora says his team's performance was on balance "below average, not very good in any phase," yet one in which the Tar Heels made enough plays to win.
And it came amidst all the backwash of Wednesday's release of the Wainstein Report and the attendant media onslaught.
"We have a lot of people getting blasted, there's a lot of negativity out there," Fedora told Jones Angell on the Tar Heel Sports Network's post-game show. "I can assure you our University, our football team, everyone who's a Tar Heel, we'll be much stronger from all of this. We'll overcome it."
Having a few tricks and surprises up your sleeve certainly helps that idea along.
Chapel Hill writer Lee Pace (leepace7@gmail.com) is entering his 25th year writing "Extra Points" and 11th reporting from the sidelines for the Tar Heel Sports Network. His unique look at Tar Heel football will appear regularly throughout the fall. Follow him on Twitter @LeePaceTweet.
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