University of North Carolina Athletics
Extra Points: Room With A View
November 1, 2015 | Football, Featured Writers, Lee Pace
by Lee Pace
“You can correct mistakes on offense, defense and special teams. You can't correct a locker room. These guys are the ones who have to do that. We have a really good group of leaders on this team.”
Tar Heel Coach Larry Fedora
Larry Fedora looked around that locker room deep in the innards of Heinz Field around 10 p.m. Thursday night. Surrounding him were a sweaty and giddy bunch of 70 players in various stage of undress, those having removed their jerseys and shoulder pads revealing a white T-shirt with the phrase “I've got your back” printed across the front. Fedora told the Tar Heels he was proud of their effort, proud of their focus and preparation, proud they yielded two catastrophic blunders in the kicking game and still emerged with a 26-19 win over Pittsburgh.
He used January 6 as the landmark for this team having set some goals that were still fully in reach, that being the date of the first of a pair of team meetings spread across two days that cut open the program's entrails and surgically addressed issues like leadership, trust, commitment, selfishness and heart.
“Everything is sitting right in front us, guys,” Fedora said. “And it didn't just happen. You guys made it happen.”
Kneeling in front of Fedora was Ian Dibble, a walk-on who plays on special teams and in short-yardage blocking situations. Fedora motioned for Dibble stand, pointed to the words on Dibble's chest and yelled to group as whole, “I've got your back,” then gave way to a chorus of bellows and shrieks from the players.
Fedora held up his arms for quiet. “And you've got each other's backs. Keep doing it men. Keep doing it. Keep doing it. It's all going to be worth it, I promise you.”
With that, the players dispersed to shower and dress for the trip back to Chapel Hill. There in one corner of the locker room was Ryan Switzer, who grew up four hours away in Charleston, W.Va., and participated as a 9- and 10-year-old in Punt, Pass & Kick competitions at halftime of Pittsburgh Steelers games. Switzer ran two punts back for touchdowns against Pitt in this stadium two years ago, and tonight had reeled in a 71-yard pass from Marquise Williams for the Tar Heels' first touchdown. Earlier in the evening, Switzer's dad Michael talked about his son's innate desire to win, to set goals and the steel-tipped blinders he wears to ward off distractions.
“Even as a kid 10 years ago, Ryan wasn't here to 'par-tic-i-pate,'” Switzer said, emphasizing the syllables as if to put them in parenthesis and cow-tow to the crowd believing you hand out 25 ribbons to a 25-kid field and the blazes with gold, silver and bronze medals. “He was here to win. That's all that mattered. He won as a 9-year-old and came in fourth the next year going against older kids. But he was devastated.”
Nearby Switzer were Williams and running back Elijah Hood and tight end Kendrick Singleton, each of whom could write their own scripts for Emmys in passion and obsession. Williams doubled up on his off-season running during the summer to join the offensive linemen and exhort them in 90-degree temperatures to finish their runs. Fedora was astounded recruiting Hood three years ago by his exhaustive workload of school, ball and pursing an Eagle Scout badge, and the biggest worry Hood gives the coaches is hurting himself or his teammates by playing too hard in practice. Singleton grew up on a farm outside Jacksonville, Fla., and says, “Hard work's all I've ever known.”
Each made monster plays in the win over the Panthers—Williams shucking off a defender's assault on his face mask to find Switzer downfield for the TD in the first half and sprinting for his life on a key third down late in the game to spot Singleton downfield for a first down. Hood carried the ball 20 times for an average of five yards a snap; here's hoping the Pitt training staff had plenty of ibuprofen on hand.
The bright smile over there belonged to Mack Hollins, who made a prodigious catch to set up a field goal by spinning 180 degrees to land a ball thrown his outside shoulder, then ho-hummed it afterward by saying he'd done that catch hundreds of times in practice and it was no big deal. This is a guy who, as a freshman walk-on in 2012, caught at least 100 balls a day on the Jugs Machine at various trajectories and aiming points until he learned to catch the ball with his hands instead of cushioning it with his body.
“This win was huge for us,” Hollins said. “Our goal was to win the Coastal Division. That's in reach. Our guys are figuring out maybe this is the season we've been talking about for several years. We believe in each other. We have a bunch of guys who refuse to settle. Now the rest of the nation is recognizing what we're doing.”
On the other side of the locker room where the defense was situated, cornerback Des Lawrence was taking some ribbing from his teammates and coaches about having dropped an interception in the second quarter. “I'm putting you on the Jugs Machine first thing Monday,” secondary coach Charlton Warren said. But all can be forgiven in the wake for four pass break-ups by Lawrence, three more by fellow cornerback M.J. Stewart and the defense's plan to rein in Panther luminary receiver Tyler Boyd and their success on that mission—Boyd had 10 catches for 89 yards and no scores.
Lawrence is affable, gregarious and confident. He walks and talks with a certain air that exudes success. That he's fast and tall at 6-feet-1 doesn't hurt.
“He has great awareness, and I love his length,” said Warren. “If you have length, you don't necessarily have to be hip for hip if you have good timing and awareness. Des is really learning to use leverage. Put that with his length and awareness, he's able to go up and make a play on the ball when it counts. He never gets rattled. He has the confidence to 1-on-1 with any wideout in the country. He's supremely confident in his ability. His confidence drives his competitiveness.”
Making the rounds from player to player for a hug, a high-five and a word of congratulations was defensive coordinator Gene Chizik, who mandated coming into the game that the Tar Heels would not get sliced and diced by Boyd, who as a junior is the Panthers' all-time leading receiver. Carolina often used Stewart on Boyd in nickel coverage, and Chizik was aware that Pitt would likely unveil a new way to get Boyd the ball either in the throwing or running games, and he hoped the Tar Heels would be alert and quick to respond.
“We will have great awareness of where he is and will always have an opportunity to double him,” Chizik said before the game. Afterward, he elaborated: “Some other guys beat us on some stuff, but Boyd wasn't going to beat us. We doubled him some, didn't at others. They weren't really sure when we were or not. But he wasn't going to beat us in the run game or pass game.”
All around the locker room, the Tar Heels reveled in the team's best record through October since the 1997 team's 8-0 start before losing at home to Florida State. The victory marked the second straight year that Carolina has won on Saturday and backed it up with a road win on ESPN Thursday night football.
The Tar Heels took one preparation cue for a five-day turnaround early last November by noticing that the underdog Cleveland Browns hammered Cincinnati on Thursday night, and talk through the NFL was how light the Browns had worked that week and how the Bengals went full bore. Offensive line coach Chris Kapilovic mined his friends on the Browns staff for the specifics, and the Tar Heels used that template coming off their 40-35 win against Pitt on Nov. 15 and eyeing their trip to Duke five days later. The players were off on Sunday, practiced light but in full pads on Monday, then took the pads off Tuesday and had a light walk-through on Wednesday morning.
“Pitt's an incredibly physical team,” Kapilovic said. “They're big up front, they stack the line, they run all these exotic blitzes, and they dare you to beat them in the running game. We knew it was important to be fresh, to not have dead legs. It worked last year against Duke and it worked again this year.”
Within 45 minutes the locker room was empty, the steam from the showers, a stray piece of adhesive tape and a bin of wet and dirty towels the only evidence of the earlier revelry. The Tar Heels were on their way back home and a 4 p.m. team meeting on Friday to begin looking toward next Saturday's Duke game. No doubt yielding a blocked punt to Pitt will have Fedora in an ornery mood when special teams meeting ensue, but at least the big picture allows for a locker room of like-minded Tar Heels and a cadre of strong personalities steering the ship.
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.
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