Extra Points: Warp Speed

October 18, 2015 | Football, Featured Writers, Lee Pace

By: UNC Athletic Communications

by Lee Pace

CHAPEL HILL—Just what can you do in eight minutes and 24 seconds? Run a mile at a middling speed. Drive from Franklin Street east to the I-40 intersection. Grill a steak at high heat to medium rare or boil an egg. Score seven touchdowns. Listen to Bruce Springsteen's Jungleland. Wait for light to reach Earth from the sun.

Whoa. Score seven touchdowns? Maybe in practice, seven-on-seven with no tackling, right?

Not these Tar Heels. This is real time, real life, real tackle football.

Larry Fedora warned the day he was hired as the Tar Heels' new head coach in December 2011 that if you vacated your seat to buy a hot dog, you were liable to miss some fireworks. Truer words ...

Carolina pounded Wake Forest 50-14 Saturday night in Kenan Stadium, and its seven touchdowns were ripped off in 8:24 total possession time. All four of the Tar Heels' first-half drives took less than two minutes—0:52, 1:36, 0:21, 1:47—and they played offense 23 minutes to the Deacons' 37 and ran just 59 plays to the Deacons' 73.

“We knew they weren't stopping us, we were stopping ourselves,” quarterback Marquise Williams said of two first-quarter interceptions, one a bad read and one pure bad luck on a tipped ball at the line of scrimmage. “We knew if we could get the first first-down, we could tempo those guys. It was a great feeling.”

“You get one good run and hit them again with the same thing before they can correct it and, boom, you pop one,” tailback Elijah Hood added. “We play so fast we keep them from being able to make adjustments. A thousand miles an hour, that's the Fedora way—smart, fast and physical.”

A wry grin creased the face of the architect of the pyrotechnic mindset.

“They love it, they love scoring quick,” Fedora said. “It makes it tougher on the defense because they're out there for 37 minutes tonight if you're scoring that quick. But I don't think the defense is too upset by it.”

We got a glimpse in 2012 with a veteran offensive line, a sharp quarterback in Bryn Renner and a ball-carrying eminence in Giovani Bernard what Fedora's template could generate—40 points and 485 yards offense a game with two yards on the ground for every three in the air. The unit showed sparks of brilliance the next two years but often stumbled as the blocking front had to be re-tooled and Williams and runners Hood and T.J. Logan assimilated into the operation.

Now all the Tar Heels lack on offense is depth on the line. They have speed, dexterity, age and diversity everywhere else, witness Mack Hollins' ability to outrun everyone shy of Usain Bolt and catch balls bouncing off opponents' helmets and Hood's rare blend of power and pace.

Just look at some of their numbers through a 5-1 start: They are 10th nationally in scoring offense with 40.5 a game and 20th in total offense with 482 yards; fourth in third-down conversions at 50.8 percent; eighth in fewest penalty yards with under 40 a game and second in fumbles lost with just one.

And quite curiously, they are 125th of 127 teams in time of possession with just under 25 minutes a game, with their opponents on offense just over 35 minutes. Interestingly, of the last four teams on the FBS list (Carolina, Mississippi, Mississippi State and Hawaii), three have no worse than a 5-2 record. It just proves you can toss convention to the wind in figuring out how to win college football games in 2015.

“Going into this game, we really wanted to stress the tempo,” offensive line coach Chris Kapilovic said. “To be honest, the first four or five games of the season, other than a few spots when we were going fast, we were doing more things slowing down and checking than we had in the past. Against this team, playing fast was going to be important.”

The win paired with their 38-31 triumph in Atlanta two weeks ago puts the Tar Heels in the fight for the ACC Coastal Division lead with a 2-0 league record. It's the first time since 1997 that Carolina has won its first two ACC games, which is beyond comprehension if you think about it. The Ronald Curry/Julius Peppers team lost at Maryland early in 2001; the Matt Baker/Tommy Richardson team that advanced to a Charlotte bowl game in 2005 lost its opener at Georgia Tech; Butch Davis was always tripped up by one of the Techs (Georgia or Virginia) in September; and even that 8-4 team in 2012 lost to these same Deacons on the road in Fedora's second game.

What still could derail this team and season is depth along both lines. Carolina was without three defensive tackles Saturday, with freshman Aaron Crawford out for the year and junior Nazair Jones and sophomore Tyler Powell in street clothes. Three of its four tackles on the depth chart were red-shirt freshmen (Robert Dinkins and Jeremiah Clarke) or a true freshman (Jalen Dalton). And on offense, Kapilovic was restricted in subbing his starting unit late in the game to inserting only Brad Henson and R.J. Prince. Every other recruited, scholarship player is a freshman he's trying to red-shirt or is out temporarily or for the year with injury.

But for the moment, the Tar Heels will set their sights on procuring win No. 6 in a row against Virginia and figuring out how to score more points in fewer snaps. Defense: Buckle your chin strips.

“We know we can go faster,” Hollins said. “I don't think there's any team that can keep up with us if we keep rolling.”

“I guess it's the coach in me, but while there were some really good things there, I still don't think we played as physical and aggressive as we could have,” Kapilovic said. “I know when you play a team that blitzes and stunts as much as Wake Forest does, it causes you to play hesitant. That's always an issue, and I probably need to take that into consideration. I just want us to keep getting better each week.”

When it was over, Fedora spoke of the good chemistry and confidence emanating from the Tar Heel locker room, of the affection and respect the players have from one player to the next, one position group to another.

“It's fun to coach this team,” he said.

And a fun one to follow as well. Just don't blink. And don't try hitting the pause button; it doesn't work.

Chapel Hill writer Lee Pace (leepace7@gmail.com) is in his 26th year writing “Extra Points” and 12th reporting from the sidelines for the Tar Heel Sports Network. His unique look at Tar Heel football will appear regularly throughout the year. Follow him on Twitter @LeePaceTweet.