University of North Carolina Athletics
Extra Points: UN-Common
August 22, 2016 | Football, Featured Writers
By Lee Pace
A football player at Auburn a few years ago told head coach Gene Chizik he wanted to be a doctor when his playing days were over. The reports Chizik was getting from the proprietors at various watering holes around town begged to differ, there being no way to reconcile long evenings at the bar with the demands of a pre-med curriculum and Division I football.
“I called him in one day and said, 'You still want to be a doctor?'” Chizik recalls. “He said, 'Yes sir.' I said, 'No you don't. You want to be a drunk. That's what you're repeatedly doing.'”
Chizik pauses, looks around the room and nods to a quote displayed on a projector screen at one end of the room. A head shot of the Greek philosopher Aristotle looms with 16 of the most profound and spot-on words ever assembled: “You are what you repeatedly do. Therefore, excellence becomes not a single act, but a habit.”
Chizik elaborates. “This guy said he wanted to be a doctor. But that's not what he was doing. There's a huge difference in that. We drill this into our guys. They can repeat this in their sleep. Your habits tell me who you are.”
Eighteen months into Chizik's tenure as Carolina's defensive coordinator, the Tar Heels are being driven to develop good habits—in the meeting room, in individual film study, in the classroom, in honing their tackling, ball-stripping and block-shredding techniques. A group that Chizik termed from his first day of spring ball in March 2015 as “soft, slow-motion and no-urgency” is now “like night and day.” He and his coaches rode the theme “Inch by Inch” last year to establish the mindset that improving would be a slow, meticulous grind, forged by incessant attention to detail.
This year, he's developed the mantra “UN-Common.”
“We have to come up to the level of the Clemsons and Alabamas, arguably the two best defenses last year,” Chizik says. “How can we be different?”
The Carolina defense hopes that in 2016 its differences will be apparent by a year's immersion in Chizik's scheme and philosophy and having those habits click into gear after unwavering repetition.
Like from the study of opponents, admittedly an endeavor put on the back-burner a year ago when the Tar Heels first needed to learn their new playbook.
“We're in the film room more now than ever,” says linebacker Cole Holcomb. “We're learning offensive schemes. That's helped a lot, understanding what an offense is going to do before they do it. You learn to see the little clues that give you an idea of what's going to happen. You know what to expect and you're not just reacting.”
Like from learning to go full bore in practice, no matter the heat and fatigue and the fact that in spring ball and August camp there's not a real game on the horizon.
“In high school I was so much bigger, stronger and faster than the other guys, and in practice I would hurt people,” says junior linebacker Cayson Collins. “My coaches said to chill out and slow down and show up on game day. My freshman year, I had that same approach, kind of turn it up on game day. Coach Chizik and JP (John Papuchis) came in and demanded I be physical in practice and build habits in practice. It showed up this spring. I've made huge leaps.”
And from realizing that the raw power and size that helped make you a four-star high school luminary must be accommodated by sound technique to ward off opponents equally gifted physically. Chizik remembers thinking last August there “was no way” highly touted lineman Jalen Dalton would play in 2015.
“But he kept doing the same boring things over and over and it kicked in,” Chizik says of Dalton, who played nine games and started at the end of the year when Nazair Jones was injured. “About week two, it kicked in.”
Dalton, slated to start alongside Jones at one of the tackle positions this season, smiles thinking back on his baptism into Tar Heel training camp last August.
“It's a whole different game from high school, it's much more physical,” he says. “It took some getting used to. I had bullets flying at me at first. The game slowed down, one day at a time. I had to learn the habit of going hard every day. I'd never had to do that.”
Chizik and the Tar Heels are buoyed by the fact the unit was the most-improved in the nation in scoring defense in 2015 over the previous year, cutting its points-allowed 14.5 per game, and the secondary was ninth in passes defended (62 breakups, 17 interceptions). They were sobered, though, by allowing scads of rushing yards against Clemson and Baylor at the end of the year.
“We still have a bad taste in our mouths from the end of the year,” Jones says. “We can never let that happen to this university again.”
The line should be two-deep this season with players who have been through at minimum a red-shirt freshman season and are poised to make an impact, end Jason Strowbridge a prime example. Holcomb played as a reserve last year and will start at the “Will” linebacker.
“Cole can really run, he'll run a 4.5 every time,” head coach Larry Fedora says of the walk-on from Florida who joined the team in 2014. “He's a diamond in the rough. He can go and he will hit you.”
Winning a divisional title last season and having a full complement of scholarships to award resulted in terrific recruiting haul last February, which will show up first on defense. Patrice Rene, Greg Ross, Myles Dorn and K.J. Sails have been particularly noteworthy in the secondary, and Dominique Ross and Jonathan Smith will likely play at linebacker. Smith is slated to back-up sophomore Andre Smith at the “Mike” spot.
“Jon's a thumper,” says Fedora. “Between the tackles, he'll light you up. He's an old-school linebacker, he'll pop you in the face and knock you back.”
With the Tar Heel offense boasting a senior-laden line and a galaxy of skill-position aces, the defense will have the opportunity to jell in the front seven behind an experienced and skilled secondary. By the meat of the conference season, Chizik will know just how common, or not, this defense can be.
Chapel Hill writer Lee Pace has covered Tar Heel football for 26 years through “Extra Points” and a dozen as the Tar Heel Sports Network's sideline reporter. He has just published a book on Kenan Stadium, “Football in a Forest.” Follow him at @LeePaceTweet and contact him at leepace7@gmail.com.
