Extra Points: Gut Ripping

By Lee Pace

Two years, two teams, two won-loss records, two messages.

Carolina had just beaten N.C. State in Raleigh in late November of 2015, wrapping up an ACC Coastal Division championship season and dominating the Wolfpack on its home turf. Never before had a Tar Heel football team won 11 games in a row as this one had to complete an 11-1 regular season.

"It's amazing the power that you guys have when 70 of you all are pulling in the same direction," Coach Larry Fedora told his team amid the din of the postgame locker room celebration. "No one cares about who gets the credit. All that's important is knowing that we want to get it done. That's an incredible feeling."

Some 23 months later, Fedora is addressing his 2017 team before practice on Tuesday afternoon. The Tar Heels are mired in a 1-5 season and the last two weeks have been dominated by Georgia Tech and Notre Dame in the second half, the offense's struggles putting enormous pressure on a worn-down defense. What was already going to be a rebuilding year has turned immensely more challenging by a deluge of injuries.

Receivers cannot get separation and make plays on 50-50 balls. Blockers are slow to make precise pre-snap calls and adjust to defensive line fronts and movement. Defenders are often in the right place at the right time but whiff trying to wrap-and-roll a ball carrier. The things the 2015 players did by rote are collectively far more of a challenge two years later when Landon Turner has gone to the Saints, Mack Hollins to the Eagles and Nazair Jones to the Seahawks.

"Guys, this is not easy, what you're doing now," Fedora said. "Mentally, it beats you down. But something good will come out of this if you stick together and keep working."

"These kids do show up and work hard," noted line coach and offensive coordinator Chris Kapilovic. "A lot of times when things are not happening and you're having a bad season, guys start to pack it in or start being selfish. We've not seen any of that. There's no quit in these guys. They're not rolling over. We're just having a hard time making plays to win a game."

That headache was ratcheted up into migraine status Saturday against old rival Virginia, a team the Tar Heels had beaten seven years running. When the Tar Heels need a competitive catch, a blitz pick-up, a precise tackle on the corner, they're coming up a day late and a dollar short. Ergo the Cavaliers escaping Kenan Stadium with a 20-14 win.

Momentum and runs of luck are powerful forces, in both directions. The 2015 team got its share of bounces and calls. This team, hardly any. The officials could have flown a flag on Virginia for a facemask penalty when QB Brandon Harris was sacked on Carolina's last fourth-down play with under a minute to play. That Chris Peace grabbed Harris's facemask was not in doubt; the referees ruled it not egregious enough to warrant a flag. M.J. Stewart could have returned a fumble for a touchdown early in the fourth quarter, but he came from just out-of-bounds before snaring the loose ball and the Cavalier retained possession.

The misfortune "seems to keep coming in waves," Fedora noted. "We've got to find somebody to step up and make one of those plays and get us over the hump."

"That was a mistake of awareness on my part," Stewart said. "I've got to have a little better football IQ and know where I am on the field."

The defense generally played a solid game, allowing Virginia 306 yards total offense on 77 snaps, an average of less than four yards a pop and easily its best showing this year. Problem was, there was a 78th play—that a flat pass that should have been good for exactly four yards. But safety Myles Dorn missed the tackle, cornerback K.J. Sails couldn't shred a blocker and Stewart hit but couldn't convert on the receiver 40 yards farther down the field. The result was an 81-yard score that proved the difference in the game.

"Missed tackles, that's all that is," Stewart said. "I was a part of that, too. I have to get him down from the back side. I had a chance to get him down and didn't make the play. We played pretty decent on defense. But there are always a few plays every game we kind of break down. That always comes back to bite us."

"Those are catastrophic plays," Fedora said. "We talk about those week to week. We had opportunities to get the guy on the ground. Even after he made a play and had a good gain, it's important to get him on the ground and limit the damage. We didn't do that."

The offense has a star in the making in freshman tailback Michael Carter, who had runs in the third quarter of 56 yards to set up one touchdown and 47 yards to score another. The first was an outside zone play, the latter an inside zone, each run from different formations. Both flowed to the left, with the offensive line collectively putting a hat on a hat and clearing a lane for Carter. Virginia's defense was set to stop the run with the free safety consistently playing only six or seven yards deep, so it was actually a productive day for the Tar Heels being able to average six yards a run.

"I saw some creases," Carter said. "I've said it before, I'll say it again—all I do is run. The O-line and the receivers on the perimeter block. All I have to do is find some open space."

"Michael has some talent," Kapilovic said. "He's a guy who can make a big play, make a guy miss, break a tackle. We knew it was going to be tough sledding running the ball. We thought—three yards here, four yards there, then maybe pop one."

Carter has something else that's emblematic of this team's nature behind closed doors.

"He comes to work with a smile on his face every day," Fedora said. "I can't ask for any more than what these guys are giving us."

In the aftermath of Saturday's loss, Fedora noted the stark contrast in this team's struggles at 1-6 and the 2014 squad that lost four straight early, rebounded and closed the year with lopsided losses to State and Rutgers, all amid the backdrop of a handful of players not marching to the drumbeat of the program's mission.

The loss obscured the good news Fedora received Friday morning when told Carolina would receive no NCAA sanctions and could now recruit on even terms with its competition. Fedora had been the Tar Heel head coach for 2,134 days through Friday, and Saturday was the first he awoke without the NCAA overhang. He said simply Saturday evening that he'd become "numb" to the whole ordeal.

"I wasn't going to let that be the reason why we weren't successful in the first place when I got here," he said. "I never used that as an excuse and never will. I said that we'll overcome it no matter what happened. No matter what they dealt us, we would have overcome it."

All that mattered at the moment was being six points shy of Virginia. The rapture of Raleigh in 2015 was far, far away. Perhaps Webster invented the word capricious for the world of athletics.

"It's just ripping my guts out I can't help them any more than I am," Fedora said.

Lee Pace is in his 28th year covering Tar Heel football through "Extra Points" and 14th as the sideline reporter for the Tar Heel Sports Network. His book, "Football in a Forest," is available in bookstores across North Carolina and online at www.johnnytshirt.com. Email him at leepace7@gmail.com and follow him on Twitter @LeePaceTweet.

Players Mentioned

Michael Carter

Myles Dorn

Brandon Harris

Mack Hollins

Nazair Jones

K.J. Sails

M.J. Stewart

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