University of North Carolina Athletics
Extra Points: Bottoms Up
December 28, 2014 | Football, Featured Writers, Lee Pace
by Lee Pace, GoHeels.com
DETROIT—The introductory press conference for Larry Fedora back in December 2011 was less than five minutes old when the new Tar Heel football coach invoked the words of General George Patton: “Instead of waiting to see what might develop, attack, constantly, vigorously and viciously, never let up, never stop, always attack.”
It's fair to say in watching 38 games since then that Fedora lives by those words, his offense when synched up running at warp speed, throwing the ball horizontally, vertically and every angle in between, having receivers throw passes to quarterbacks and pounding out the occasional “thunder” package for short-yardage situations. He'll run a fake punt from any yard line if the numbers and set-up work, and though you'd hardly know it watching three years of underwhelming defense at Carolina, his hallmark unit at Southern Miss in 2011 set an NCAA record with eight passes intercepted for touchdowns. Fedora's steely jaw and piercing eyes as the opening kick sails speak to nothing if not raiding and plundering.
So in the aftermath of the Tar Heels' 40-21 loss to Rutgers in the Quick Lane Bowl Saturday at Ford Field and a one-two haymaker punch of a combined 75-28 deficit going back to the season-finale versus NC State, it's perhaps appropriate to draw on the master of the European Theater once again:
“I don't measure a man's success by how high he climbs but how high he bounces when he hits bottom,” Patton said.
The Tar Heels' 6-7 ledger in 2014 could certainly and most hopefully will qualify as a bottom. The season was marked by an offense that ripped off 510 yards at Notre Dame and slogged to 207 against NC State; a defense that yielded 120 combined points back in September to East Carolina and Clemson but forced three turnovers at Duke and made enough plays one-on-one to limit Georgia Tech's potent offense and help hand the Yellow Jackets one of only three losses for the year; and a kicking game that featured the powder-keg leg of Nick Weiler and a nasty kick-off coverage unit but was woefully inept in field goal execution. Defensive coordinator Vic Koenning has left the program and the Tar Heels bid adieu to a senior class of five starters that among them could muster only one honorable mention for All-ACC.
Fold in the incessant bashing and seeds-of-doubt planting from rival recruiters over the never ending NCAA imbroglio .... the scholarship limits that whittled depth .... and the loss of three potential contributors on defense to academic issues back in August ... and you have the recipe for a noxious cocktail that the Tar Heels and their legions of fans were forced to choke down at times the last two years.
Mack Brown had it easy in building what would become the high-water mark of Carolina football in modern times, those back-to-back Top 10 seasons in 1996-97—he bottomed out on defense in year one in 1988 and on offense the next fall. There was nowhere to go but up. And he had the luxury of doing so before the World Wide Web, Twitter and a dozen channels from ESPN had given all God's creatures a forum and made the concept of privacy obsolete.
“I think the future is very bright,” Fedora said at his post-game news conference when asked about the positives of the program. “I think we have a lot of young talent that is just going to grow and mature. As you look across college football, there aren't a ton of freshmen that are making big plays out there on the field, and even sophomores really. If you realize how many of them are playing for us as they develop and as they grow and they get bigger and faster and stronger and more mature, I think the future is very bright for us.”
Fedora stood up for all his players in the depths of the 1-5 start to the 2013 season, saying there was no line of demarcation between the players he inherited and those his staff recruited—“They are all my guys,” he said. But human nature and the nuances of recruiting to a specific mindset dictate that the players evaluated, cultivated and landed by Fedora have to be the foundation of the new era. Toward that end, the sophomores and freshmen met during the December lull before bowl practices started to reiterate their vision of the program and commitment to see it evolve.
“I've lost more games my two years here than in any sport ever, total,” sophomore receiver Ryan Switzer said of two seasons of a combined 13-13 record. “It was a waste of a season for me, a waste of an offseason. It's definitely disappointing, especially given how much I care about football and the work I put in, the work these guys put in. It's disheartening, it really is.”
Switzer was asked if his classmates share that passion and drive.
“Yeah, they do,” he said. “We met as a class and with the younger guys and talked. A lot of guys could have gone anywhere in the country, could have gone to programs that were already established. But we wanted to come here. We knew the challenge when we came here. We knew what it was going to take. Coach Fedora was honest with us. He told us our class would be the foundation for what he was trying to do here. We knew we were going to take some hits. We just have to keep fighting. We came here for a reason, we came to turn this program around. It hasn't happened yet. But I one hundred percent believe in what Coach Fedora is doing here that's why I'm here.”
Two players who will be seniors in 2015 and key leaders spoke in similar terms.
“We have to find a way to be more competitive,” linebacker Jeff Schoettmer said. “That's the one thing I'd say in the offseason we have to work on. Whatever drill it is, seven-on-seven, a sprint, weight room, whatever, we have to compete in everything we do. I think that hurt us at times. We didn't compete as hard as we should. We have some of the most competitive guys. In pickup basketball games, we'll have guys punching each other over points. But on the football field, sometimes that doesn't show up. It's tough to watch.”
“The grind cannot stop,” quarterback Marquise Williams added. “Everybody's got to buy in, everybody's got to want it. The whole team has to be on the same page, that's when things happen. It's not just guys on their own path, thinking about their own future.”
There will be a new defensive coordinator and perhaps a new schematic approach in 2015. A half dozen or so fresh recruits are scheduled to enroll in two weeks for the spring semester. As Fedora said Saturday evening, one season ended on the turf at Ford Field and another one began. It seems the Tar Heels have hit bottom. Now it's time to bounce.
Chapel Hill writer Lee Pace (leepace7@gmail.com) is in 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.
