Extra Points: Snapshots from Camp

August 3, 2014 | Football

By: UNC Athletic Communications

By Lee Pace, GoHeels.com

Random snapshots and observations from Saturday's Carolina football practice, the team's second of preseason camp:

* You can bet the players love the cloudy, 70-degree temperatures and the somewhat drizzly conditions and that coach Larry Fedora does not.

"It's been great-a lot of energy, guys flying around, hopefully you'll see that energy when day 16 comes around," receiver/punt returner Ryan Switzer says. "I think it's great weather. It's not hot, and I'll take a little sprinkle."

Fedora wants heat-lots of it. He wants to push his team and he knows some toasty game times are coming in September.

"You want to be able to work them as hard as you can mentally," Fedora says. "You try to create as much adversity for them as you can in camp. The hotter the better. Hopefully we'll get some next week."

* Quarterback Marquise Williams is throwing a tighter ball with more zip and more precision. He attended George Whitfield's camp in the spring and the Manning Passing Academy in July to augment the directives from first-year Tar Heel QB coach Keith Heckendorf-notably to drive the ball with his arm and body, stand on his toes, move his left shoulder through properly.

But perhaps most significantly, Williams got a nice vote of confidence from Denver Broncos QB Peyton Manning at the Manning family training camp in Louisiana.

"He heard I did not have a great arm and my feet were all over the place," Williams relates. "I got out there, worked with him and he said, 'I do not see one problem.' That gave me confidence coming from Peyton Manning, who's won a Super Bowl and will be a Hall of Fame quarterback. His message was to just keep delivering the ball and don't get lazy."

* The contrasts in Switzer from tentative rookie a year ago to smiling, juking and jiving playmaker today are remarkable. There were times in training camp and during the Tar Heels' 1-5 start in 2013 when Switzer questioned if he'd made the right decision, coming from West Virginia all the way to Chapel Hill. But as soon he gained some ballast and tasted some success, his abilities blossomed and the success built on itself-all the way to a his record-tying five punts returned for touchdowns.

Ask today what his goals are, and one he'll tell you is to win a Heisman Trophy.

"Last year I was just trying to survive," he says. "This year, my body is more mature, I can handle the pounding a lot better. I can handle a lot more reps. I'm a lot stronger. I did 300 on the power clean, which means I'm more explosive. I dropped my body fat a whole point, down to four percent."

* The Tar Heels are on their way to building an O-line juggernaut like the 2012 unit led by Jonathan Cooper-but it's unlikely to happen this year.

Junior guard Landon Turner is the anchor on a unit that lost James Hurst and Russell Bodine to the NFL. Caleb Peterson is back at left guard after missing the spring with surgery, and Fedora said right tackle Jon Heck had the best off-season in building his physique and improving his mobility. Three promising freshmen have joined the program in Bentley Spain, Caleb Samuel and Jared Cohen, and the staff has commitments from four excellent prospects for 2015. Fedora said he likes the look of the O-line better now than he did at the end of spring practice.

"These guys have done a great job in the off-season," Fedora says. "I'm not going to say we're there yet and that we're ready to play, because we're not. But I'm very confident Coach Kap (O-line coach Chris Kapilovic) will have a group that's ready to go on the 30th."

* It's time to learn to pronounce the name of Junior Gnonkonde. Repeat three times: non-KON-day, non-KON-day, non-KON-day.

Gnonkonde is running first team at defensive end in the spot vacated by Kareem Martin. He red-shirted in 2012 and played sparingly last fall, but the native of Africa's Ivory Coast by way of Lanier County High in Georgia has the opportunity of a lifetime this fall. Learning American football, to speak English as easily as he can read it and fitting into American college life have been the hurdles for Gnonkonde.

"He's a good-looking player," defensive coordinator Vic Koenning says of the 6-4, 250-pound Gnonkonde. "The Carolina Panthers might have one that looks as good as him, but I'm not sure who else does."

"He's a beast, and he wants really badly to be the starter and to be successful," says linebacker Jeff Schoettmer. "He's a real strong kid, and he's come a long way since his freshman year. His upper body strength is off the charts."

* Introducing also Justin Thomason, playing early in training camp as the Tar Heels' starting nose tackle, and Jesse Rogers, the starting 3-technique tackle. The Tar Heels have suffered two major personnel losses on the defensive line recently with the departure of Shawn Underwood and Greg Webb.

The good news is that Thomason and Rogers are significantly stronger and bigger than they were as freshmen playing way too early in 2012. Thomason, for example, weighed 250 pounds playing nearly every snap against Georgia Tech that year and couldn't bench press much more weight than that. Today he's nearly 290 pounds and benches 50 percent more weight than two years ago.

"It's next man up," Koenning says of losing players due to graduation and other issues. "I think we'll okay up there. We're a lot faster and quicker up there than we were. To a man, we're faster-by a lot."

* Freshman place-kicker Freeman Jones is wearing the decidedly un-kicker-like No. 98, but he's not an afterthought during competition for the PAT/FG and kick-off jobs. Senior Tommy Hibbard is entrenched as the starting punter, but Thomas Moore and Nick Weiler will have to earn their jobs as PAT/FG and kick-off specialists.

"I told them coming out of spring it's a wide-open competition," Fedora says.

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.