University of North Carolina Athletics
Extra Points: Never Land
November 30, 2015 | Football, Featured Writers, Lee Pace
by Lee Pace
Seventy-two football players and several dozen assistant coaches, managers, support staff and miscellaneous personnel clustered around Larry Fedora in the Tar Heel locker room under the northwest stands at Carter-Finley Stadium early Saturday evening. Fedora is becoming quite the expert at this, these impromptu speeches to his team after another historical victory in an historical season.
In the books: an 11-1 regular season, never before since Carolina began playing football in 1888 that it's logged that many victories (sans a bowl) and that many consecutively. Never an 8-0 ACC regular season. Never is a long time.
Fedora held up his hand and asked for quiet.
“You won 11 straight games, which is the first time in the history of this school that has ever happened,” he said. “You guys are special. You've done something that's never been done, never at this university. Talk about a legacy for you seniors. Wow. Wow. It's everything you ever dreamed about.”
Never. The much revered and ballyhooed “Choo Choo” Justice teams of the post-World War II years won only nine games in 1948 before stumbling in the Sugar Bowl against Oklahoma.
Never. Those tailback-centric offenses and salty defenses of Bill Dooley and Dick Crum had the misfortune of playing only 11 regular-season games and being tripped up by someone like Ohio State or Oklahoma before posting 10-1 regular seasons and winning ACC championships.
Never. The apex of the Mack Brown juggernaut featured the program's finest two-year run of defense from 1996-97, but Virginia the first year and Florida State the second penciled the asterisks that limited the longest win streak at eight games.
Never. The six years of the John Bunting regime and the five of Butch Davis? Nothing even close.
The Tar Heels steamrolled N.C. State 35-7 after one quarter Saturday and from there managed the lead well enough to emerge with a 45-34 win that sends them into the ACC title game this week in Charlotte against top-ranked Clemson.
“This silences a lot of doubters,” said receiver Mack Hollins. “Last year, it was over for the UNC football program. But the same guys are winning games. It's not like it's four years later and you've got a whole new set of guys. Guys have bought in and are willing to do the work this year.”
“We've got 72 guys in that locker room who are really tight,” Fedora added. “They do things for each other. They do things for something greater than themselves. It's amazing the power when everyone's pulling in the same direction.”
The storyline all week and the consensus before kick-off was that the game would be a referendum in the moat where it's dark and stormy and things go bump in the night. Could the Tar Heels' O-line redeem itself for being horsewhipped a year ago in State's 35-7 win in Kenan Stadium, for being part of a 207-yard offensive output that was the lowest ever for a Fedora-coached team? Never mind that quarterback Marquise Williams, tailback Elijah Hood and center Lucas Crowley were healthy and full speed this year (none were a year ago). Never mind the Tar Heels had done things offensively this year never dreamed possible under the I-formation, option, West Coast and pro-style offenses of the last four decades.
No, there was still work to do to place a proper cherry on top of this season. It was incumbent upon the O-line to open the holes for Hood and fellow tailback T.J. Logan and give Williams time to find that vast array of talented receivers open downfield.
O-line coach Chris Kapilovic threw the gauntlet down as soon as the ink was dry on the Tar Heels' overtime win at Virginia Tech the Saturday before: “This game will be won or lost by us, period, there's no doubt about that,” Kapilovic said. “We embarrassed ourselves last year. They called us out for being soft. This is a 'man-up game.' If we're who we think we are, we're going to man-up and put this team on our shoulders.
“This is not a game for a day, this is a game for a year,” Kapilovic continued. “You either feel good about yourself for a year, or you don't. I hate to say it, but everything we've accomplished all year up to now doesn't mean anything if we don't finish it off. To feel really good about some of the stuff we've done to this point, we need to finish them off.”
The Tar Heels' plan was to mix tempo, going to their fastest of five available speeds after successful first downs. They wanted to run the Wolfpack's defensive line from left to right, hopefully wear them down. If State jet-rushed its ends upfield to limit the Tar Heels' power-read plays on the perimeter, they'd outfox them with the zone-read inside the tackles. They'd max-protect if they smelled a blitz coming in order to protect Williams and give him time to find Quinshad Davis open over the middle or Hollins outrunning a slower Wolfpack defensive back downfield.
It worked in the first quarter to absolute perfection. Five possessions, five touchdowns, 7:18 time of possession, big plays of 53 yards through the air to Hollins, 42 and 40 on the ground by Logan for touchdowns, 39 by Hood to set up another score. Totals of 308 yards total offense, 214 on the ground.
“We got in a good rhythm, we got the running game going and were able to gash them with the run,” offensive coordinator Seth Littrell said.
“You had a sense the kids wanted to go out and prove a point,” Kapilovic added. “They had a sense of purpose. They really wanted to make an exclamation point.”
Senior guard Landon Turner eschewed the idea of turning pro one year ago in part because he and his teammates had unfinished business, had too much of a sour taste from last year's 6-7 season and consecutive losses to State and Rutgers in the bowl game.
“We were really clicking in the first quarter,” Turner said. “We came out with a mission to execute, and I think we accomplished that from the first play. We wanted to establish the tempo and put stress on the defense, keep them from being able to sub or dial anything up. We knew as an O-line this was about our manhood, about having to step up. It was nice to see us do that.”
The 35-7 tally after 15 minutes did not go lost on the Tar Heels. Linebacker Jeff Schoettmer wrote those numbers on a calendar beside his bed one year ago and lived with their meaning for 365 days.
“That game has been bugging me for a year,” said Schoettmer, who chased down running plays for losses in the red zone after second-half turnovers. “That score was a good metaphor, I guess you could say, for how we wanted to come out and make a statement to them, that we're not the same team we were a year ago. They kept saying we were just the same team. We knew we were not.”
Indeed, the Tar Heels are not the same team. Actually, there's never been one quite like this before.
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 fall. Follow him on Twitter @LeePaceTweet.
