University of North Carolina Athletics
Extra Points: Defense Mechanisms
October 26, 2015 | Football, Featured Writers, Lee Pace
by Lee Pace
CHAPEL HILL—It was early in the third quarter of Saturday's game against Virginia that Tar Heel defensive coordinator Gene Chizik had separate conversations with senior linebackers Jeff Schoettmer and Shakeel Rashad. Chizik and the defensive staff had outlined several plays that Virginia had squirted on the Tar Heels during a 13-13 halftime deadlock and felt good that the Tar Heels had successfully assimilated that halftime grease board crash course.
“It looks up here as if you guys are seeing things well,” Chizik said via his headset from the coaching booth in the south side press box.
Schoettmer and Rashad each responded in the affirmative.
“Okay, I'm calling a simple game from here on out,” Chizik told them. “It will be situational, but it will be simple stuff.”
The Tar Heel defense erected a fence across the goal line, surrendered zero points and forced five turnovers in the second half, supplying the catalyst in Carolina's 26-13 win over the Cavaliers, their sixth straight since 2010 against their ancient rival.
“I've always believed that if a team is seeing it good, you call a very simple game,” Chizik said afterward. “Don't complicate matters. Our guys are truthful when we talk to them on the sideline or at halftime. They'll tell you if they are discombobulated, and usually I can see it upstairs. At halftime I told them, 'There are three things, here's what's happening, you've got see it and you've got to know it. You have to have some anticipation and awareness, if you do that, there's nothing more they have.' Usually people show what they have in the first half. They may have one or two more little tricks here and there, but basically by half you know what you have to deal with.
“It was gratifying in the second half to see the game slowing down for them. They let it come to them instead of straining and stressing.”
Consider that through seven games in 2014, the Tar Heels were allowing 43 points and 522 yards a game. This year, that unit has surrendered but 17 points and 350 yards a game.
Last year they were yielding 50 percent third-down conversions. This year that total has shrunk to 41 percent.
Last year opponents were knocking off 4.8 yards a run and 14.6 yards a pass and hitting 60 percent of their passing attempts. Today Carolina is a modestly improved 4.6 yards allowed on the ground and a gargantuan betterment to 5.4 yards on passes.
In 2014, the defense had allowed runs of 84 yards by East Carolina and 75 by Georgia Tech and a total of 19 runs of 15 yards or more. This season only 11 times has an opponent nailed Carolina for 15 or more.
In 2014, Clemson's Deshaun Watson hit a 74-yard pass and together opposing QBs had struck for 32 completions of 20 yards or more. This year, the longest has been a 40-yard dart by Georgia Tech and only 11 “catastrophic” passes for 20 or more.
And in the second halves of games this fall as Carolina has posted a 6-1 record, the Tar Heels have allowed seven, 14, seven, seven, 10, zero and zero points. Compare that to, well, let's not even go there. Saturday that performance was impressive and imperative given that the Carolina offense committed five penalties that wiped big plays off or stymied promising drives and lost two possessions via turnover.
“It's fun, obviously the past couple of years it's been the other way around with the offense holding us up,” Schoettmer said.
“Our defense did a heckuva job in the second half,” Tar Heel coach Larry Fedora said. “They did a great job. Offensively, we kept shooting ourselves in the foot the entire night. We just couldn't get locked in. I am really, really proud of the way the defense played in the second half.”
Illinois marched smartly down the field its first possession before being stoned at the goal line back in mid-September. Delaware jolted the Tar Heels with a 72-yard scoring run on the game's second play. Georgia Tech was up 21-0 in the blink of an eye. The Tar Heels spent all of Wake Forest week running dummy plays against what they'd seen from the Deacons on tape and then had to reorganize to a fresh new play list in dodging a 7-0 first-quarter jab.
The common denominator in each game was the ability of the veteran Tar Heels—Schoettmer, Rashad, cornerback Des Lawrence and safety Donnie Miles among them—to relay to their respective position coaches what they were seeing on the ground and for Chizik from upstairs to match the players' perceptions with the reality of what needed to happen.
“We draw it up for them on the sideline and the coaches know how to make the quick fix,” Rashad said after practice last Wednesday. “It's like we have defensive coordinators all over the sideline. We trust every one of them. It's really cool the way it all works.”
Saturday in the Tar Heel bench area, they calmly dissected Daniel Hamm's 53-yard cutback run out of a bunch set, the production of tight end Charlie Hopkins in the throwing game and the running and receiving acumen of tailback Taquan Mizzell, who's adroitly nicknamed “Smoke” for the heat left in his wake. Rarely do these coaches yell or scream or huff and puff. They can be stern but mostly are direct and in control.
“It seems like the more I get into college football, it's more of a chess game,” said Rashad, who led Carolina in tackles with 10 and had a tackle-for-loss and an interception as well. “I'll take our defensive staff against anyone. They are geniuses and they understand what they're doing. When it gets to moving pieces around and figuring things out, they can get people in the right places.”
The last three games have been a nice referendum on the state of Tar Heel football: Three wins in the ACC Coastal Division, one against a long-time nemesis in Atlanta. One monster rally. The offense striking with white heat vs. Wake Forest and the defense dealing snake eyes in the second half vs. Virginia. Even Corbin Daly partially atoning for the Tar Heels' gruesome punting efforts this year with a 49-yard kick that hung in the air, turned over ever so perfectly and left the fans in Kenan Stadium standing and cheering and Daly running off the field with a jaunty skip and clenched fist.
Next up is a prime-time crusade Thursday on the banks of the Ohio River against fellow 6-1 Coastal rival Pittsburgh. Your move, Panthers. The Tar Heels still have their king, a rook and two bishops and are poised for another checkmate.
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.
