University of North Carolina Athletics
Turner's Take: Drawing a Line
August 15, 2014 | Football, Featured Writers, Turner Walston
By Turner Walston
There are a lot of questions –good questions– on the Tar Heel offense in this fall's training camp. Carolina has a lot of talented options at a lot of important positions. Will it be Williams or Trubisky getting the bulk of the snaps at quarterback? Who's going to carry the ball among a host of talented backs? Out of all the F.R.E.A.K.s, who's going to be demanding tight coverage at wide receiver. The Tar Heels boast a number of playmakers. But there's one question that probably should be answered before we get to any of the above: how is the offensive line?
There are but 12 seniors in camp with the Tar Heels this fall, and none of them offensive linemen. The line is a young group with a mixed bag of experience. Junior Landon Turner has 17 career starts and is the clear veteran leader up front. Kiaro Holts, Eastern Arizona transfer Will Dancy and walk-on Arien Smith are the only other juniors in position coach Chris Kapilovic's group.
Entering the 2013 season, the Tar Heels had to replace left guard Jonathan Cooper, right guard Travis Bond and right tackle Brennan Williams, each of whom had started the bulk of their careers and would join NFL rosters that fall. Right tackle Jon Heck and left guard Caleb Peterson (13 and 12 starts, respectively) saw a lot of action as redshirt freshmen, joining James Hurst, Russell Bodine and Turner to form a group that peaked toward the latter half of the season. True freshman Lucas Crowley played in six games with one start. Now, with Hurst in Baltimore and Bodine a Bengal, new players must again step forward.
The only way to have experience is to get experience, and Kapilovic and head coach Larry Fedora are going about the task of finding the next players ready to contribute. “We don't have enough depth,” Fedora said this week, “but the good thing is that we're getting a lot of learned reps. That means a guy gets out there, and something else happens that he hadn't seen in practice, and then he realizes, 'Ooh.' That's one more chance that he gets before we get to game time. All these kids that haven't been there in a game, we're trying to get them as many reps as possible.”
Luckily for Fedora, Kapilovic and those less-experienced players, the model is right before them (or even beside them) on the line. Peterson, Heck and Crowley were all in their shoes a year ago and are better players for having been in the trenches early. Now, with Turner, they'll be asked to help raise the level of play for their teammates. “Jon (Heck) got to work next to Landon, and Landon's back, so they've got a really good bond, and I got to work next to Russell and James,” Peterson said. “The people that we've been surrounded by, it really helps kind of raise us and get us ready, and I feel like James and Russell are gone, we're going to be able to implement the things that they taught us and kind of take control a little bit.”
As Hurst was twice a first-team All-ACC player and a four-year starter, his graduation certainly leaves a void on the left side of the Tar Heel line. Sophomore John Ferranto entered the fall atop the depth chart at left tackle, with redshirt freshman R.J. Prince and early enrollee Bentley Spain behind him. Ferranto appeared in 10 games a year ago and played in relief of Hurst when the senior was injured in the Belk Bowl. The 6-5, 290-pound Ferranto has been the subject of a lot of excited talk during camp. “John Ferranto really has improved tremendously since we've been here,” Kapilovic said. “He's been consistent. He hasn't been dominant yet, but he's been very consistent so far this camp.”
Peterson and Dancy have gone back and forth on the first team at left guard. Peterson missed the spring and said he had to “knock a little bit of rust off” upon his return. “I had to spend my first two or three days knocking some cobwebs off, but it's funny it's kind of like riding a bike,” he said. “You never really forget how to do it, and once you knock all the cobwebs off, it comes back to you.”
Bodine chose to enter the 2014 NFL Draft after an All-ACC honorable mention junior season and became a fourth round pick by Cincinnati. Crowley appeared in six games and made that one start at Pittsburgh, taking on the Panthers' Aaron Donald, a first-round pick by the Rams at defensive tackle. “You're the quarterback of that offensive line,” Fedora said of his center. “You have to be able to make every single call, you've got to understand the tempo at what we're trying to do things, and then on top of that you have to get the ball back to the quarterback in the perfect position. So, it's just a comfort level of doing it over and over, I think he's finally gotten to so now he can start excelling as a player.”
“I got my confidence up a lot in the Pittsburgh game with my first start, and I know the tempo of a real game,” Crowley said of his freshman season. “So I think it'll help me out a lot, especially since I was coming in as the least-experienced guy. It's helped me out a lot.” Pushing Crowley is Smith, who has made two appearances in two seasons after walking on in 2011.
At 6-4 and 315 pounds, Turner is a rock both on the field and in the meeting room. He knows that though he's just a junior, it's on him to lead this group in 2014. “We've still got a long way to go,” he said this week, though he liked the effort of the unit. “We have high standards for ourselves.” Behind Turner is redshirt freshman Brad Henson, who has the look of a player who could push at either guard position as well as center.
The son of Kansas City Chiefs assistant (and 12-year NFL player) Andy Heck, Jon Heck started every game for the Tar Heels at right tackle in 2013. He spent the off-season in the weight room putting on 15 pounds (he's up to 300 and stands 6-6) and cutting down his body fat. “I just knew that my frame was something that was always going to be an advantage for me,” he said. “So if I could put on muscle and get to where I'm carrying a lot more weight, which I can do, that would help me a lot in the run game and in general.”
This fall, Heck has enhanced his physical tools. Now, Kapilovic would like to see him put that to work on the field. “I'm still not seeing the physicality on him on a consistent basis that I want, so we're going to continue to push that,” the coach said. Holts, who missed all but one game due to injury in 2013, pushes Heck at tackle.
Kapilovic and Fedora are continuing to do the work of rebuilding the offensive line, the group that will truly set the tempo and push the pace for the Tar Heel attack in 2014. There's a lot of youth in the meeting room, but it's youth that will push themselves and each other to succeed. “You look at your two-deep, and we've got seven or eight that are freshmen or sophomores on our two-deep,” Kapilovic said. “They just have to compete and push each other, and that's going to be the whole key.”
As the not-so-grizzled veteran up front, Turner knows there is room for improvement, but he likes what he sees so far. “We can control our effort and our attitude, and our effort is great. I just know that the rest is just going to fall into place by the time August 30th rolls around.”
Players Mentioned
