University of North Carolina Athletics
Extra Points: Hope Springs
February 27, 2015 | Football, Featured Writers, Lee Pace
by Lee Pace, GoHeels.com
CHAPEL HILL—Carolina opens spring football practice Sunday with decidedly different missions in three phases of a team coming off a 6-7 mark in 2014. Offense: Rev up the tempo, get stronger upfront, be more physical. Defense: Start from scratch with a new coaching staff and different scheme. Kicking game: Find a reliable punter and place-kicker and juice a return game that was largely ineffectual in 2014.
And do so against a backdrop of that bitter finish to 2014 with lopsided losses to N.C. State in the regular season finale and to Rutgers in the Detroit bowl game.
“Those losses proved to everyone on the team they are not good enough to have spots solidified when spring comes around,” says receiver Mack Hollins. “No one can quit working. Everyone has to earn his job for next fall. We have to live with that loss to State the whole 365. They got the upper hand and that's something we have to change. We're hungry, that's for sure.”
The Tar Heels will be without quarterback Marquise Williams, who'll miss spring practice with a hip injury but will return full speed in August, and receiver Quinshad Davis, who is rehabbing a leg that was broken in the bowl game.
They return five starters along the offensive line, so ostensibly everyone should be bigger and stronger and clicking as a unit better than last year. But line coach Chris Kapilovic covets competition and is pushing players like Jared Cohen, R.J. Prince, Bentley Spain and freshman William Sweet to established themselves in the pecking order.
“The biggest thing is the competition,” Kapilovic says. “We need competition, we guys to battle for those starting spots. I think we'll have some competition that will be really good. Then it's a matter of getting better technically and playing more physically on every snap. We've got to learn to play lower, play more physical. One thing last year was we played hard, but we did not play with the attitude of finishing every block. That's something we have to do.”
The forward wall is always important on offense. With head coach Larry Fedora's spread offense, tempo is also.
“One of our main goals is to get faster,” Hollins says, speaking not so much of foot speed as he is the unit's ability to snap the ball at warp speed should it desire to do so. “We have to figure out ways to gets plays in faster, get lined up faster, move the ball around faster, get the ball to more people. That's always a goal, move faster than the defense is used to. We're already fast, but getting faster will help us even more. We can always go faster.”
The defense is a blank canvas with an entirely new coaching staff moving in. Gene Chizik is the new coordinator after two years out of coaching and John Papuchis and Charlton Warren have joined the staff from Nebraska. Fedora is looking to quickly fill another position with the departure earlier this week of line coach Keith Gilmore to Notre Dame. Before Gilmore's departure, Warren was going to coach the secondary, Papuchis the linebackers and Chizik oversee the operation and be hands-on at various times with each position. On an interim basis, the three full-time coaches and the graduate assistants will share the various position responsibilities.
No matter, Chizik's goal is to assess where the Tar Heels are solid and where they have talent gaps. His staple scheme has been the 4-3, but he says the defense will evolve as he and his staff learn their personnel.
“When you talk defensive philosophy, when you turn on the film, you're painting a picture,” Chizik says. “Every coach paints a picture, every player paints a picture. You're the artist. I have over the years run a 4-3. But this spring we'll see exactly what the best thing to do is in terms of not putting round pegs into square holes. Our philosophy more than anything is to have a relentlessly aggressive defense. You want the opponents to start worrying about you when they turn on the film on Sunday and see the intensity level and effort the players give.”
Carolina's kicking game was highlighted last fall by Nick Weiler and the kickoff cover squad. Weiler nailed 58 percent of his kickoffs into the end zone and his average was just inside the 1 yard line, and the Tar Heels were in the top 10 nationally and first in the ACC in net kickoff coverage, with opponents averaging a starting position just inside the 18 yard line.
Punter Tommy Hibbard and place-kicker Thomas Moore were seniors last year, so those slots are open. Hibbard was a directional/placement style punter, and Charlotte walk-on Corbin Daly at 6-3, 190 pounds is more of a prototypical “big leg” kicker who'll strive for length and hang-time. Freeman Jones was red-shirted last year and the place-kicking job is his to seize.
Ryan Switzer averaged only 4.6 yards on punt returns with his longest at 31 yards as a sophomore after that breakthrough freshman year of a 21-yard average and five touchdowns. That production drop-off was the result of a number of factors—opponents punting away from Switzer; the loss of a couple excellent blockers from the 2013 unit; a preponderance of penalties; and Switzer perhaps pressing and trying too hard to make things happen.
The Tar Heels will practice Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday this week, then take the following week off for the University's spring break, returning to the field Tuesday March 17.
Chapel Hill writer Lee Pace (leepace7@gmail.com) in 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 appear regularly throughout the year. Follow him on Twitter @LeePaceTweet.
