Extra Points: Run UNC

By Lee Pace

Growing up in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, in the 1990s, Robert Gillespie was always drawn to the hip-hop music of the band Run-DMC. From the University of Florida, where he played running back from 1998-2001, to coaching stops at South Carolina, Oklahoma State, West Virginia and Tennessee, Gillespie's hardware of any given era—from tape cassettes to iPods to a cell phone—was loaded with an inventory of songs from It's Tricky to Walk This Way.

So imagine the juice Gillespie felt one night in 2015 in Knoxville's Neyland Stadium when highlights of his Volunteer running backs were shown juxtaposed to the music of a favorite band.

This speech is my recital, I think it's very vital ...

The music blared to the dancing and churning of Jalen Hurd and Alvin Kamara, the Volunteers' talented duo of tailbacks, slicing through SEC defenses—Hurd pancaking a Georgia tackler here, Kamara weaving through the Vanderbilt Commodores there. For the year, they'd carry the ball within a whisker of 2,000 yards combined with 19 touchdowns.

"Those kids were killing it on the highlights and the fans went crazy," Gillespie says. "I looked up and the whole team was dancing. Every week after that, during a timeout they'd show some big plays with the Run-DMC music."

The connection was further mined through the fact that when at Oklahoma State from 2009-2010, Gillespie conceived "Chain Moving Gang" (a.k.a. CMG) as the moniker for his running backs. The leap to Run-CMG was almost inevitable. Gillespie had orange T-shirts made for his Tennessee players with the block type "Run-CMG" stenciled across the front.

"The idea was to create a mindset in our room—our job is to move the chains," says Gillespie, the Tar Heels' first-year running backs coach. "It's not just on third-and-one. It's not just fourth-and-one. It's every time you touch the ball. You create the mindset that when you get in the game, you need to be a playmaker. That keeps the whole offense on the field and puts points on the board."

That's the backdrop entering the 2018 Tar Heel season at the running back position, one that figures to be significantly improved in talent, depth and experience over last year's unit. With T.J. Logan and Elijah Hood gone to the NFL, Carolina was left in 2017 with sophomore Jordon Brown, who had 20 career carries to his name, freshman Michael Carter and an array of transfers, walk-ons, position transplants and walking wounded. Good luck with that going against ACC stalwarts like Tremaine Edmunds at Virginia Tech and Bradley Chubb of N.C. State.

"Last year I was a little gassed at times," Carter says in an heroic understatement.

Brown and Carter return as the nucleus and are joined by newcomers named Williams—Antonio, a transfer from Ohio State, and Javonte, a freshman from Wallace-Rose Hill High School. Johnathon Sutton is a steady and strong runner one year after moving from linebacker, and Antwuan Branch is a big-back type who was redshirted in 2017. And there's yet another freshman, Devon Lawrence.

"This is a really smart group of kids, really competitive," says Gillespie. "They were already that way coming out of spring, and Antonio coming in [for the summer] has made them that much stronger. We'll find a role for each of them. It's a long season. We'll need all of them."

"We've got great competition in our room," says Brown, a junior from Durham. "Each guy pushes everyone else to get better every day. No one can get comfortable. No one is saying they're the starter and will get the most reps. We've got a deep set of running backs, and every one can move the chains and score."

Both Antonio Williams, a junior, and Javonte, a freshman, expect to play important roles Saturday in the season opener at California. Both are interesting stories on how they got to Chapel Hill.

Antonio committed to the Tar Heels in September 2013, just as his sophomore season at North Stanly High was commencing. Though head coach Larry Fedora, running backs coach Randy Jordan and area recruiter Chris Kapilovic where high on Williams' future and excited he was interested in Carolina, they knew there was a downside to having a player commit so early. In a nutshell, if a player takes himself off the market with more than two years to go before National Signing Day his senior season, he forgoes the buzz and intrigue of the recruiting game. There's a chance he'll get bored and anxious and start to second-guess himself. That's exactly what happened, with Williams de-committing the following June. He eyed Wisconsin and eventually enrolled at Ohio State for the 2016-17 season. He played in one game as a freshman and six as a sophomore.

Five years later, Williams has come full circle, announcing his transfer to Chapel Hill in late April and getting an NCAA waiver in late July that allows him to play without the usual one-year "sit out" period.

"Antonio has bought in completely, he's thrilled to be here, he loves being home," Fedora says. "He's excited about playing. He's a kid who's starting to establish himself as a leader on this football team. It's been neat to watch."

Williams didn't have a scholarship offer through the first week of his senior season at Wallace-Rose Hill, prompting his coach, Kevin Motsinger, to go on a spirited television rant that "college coaches are idiots" for not seeing the potential in this sturdy runner who was going to be the school valedictorian and was a kid "you'd want marrying your daughter." He was the school's nomination for a Morehead-Cain Scholarship, so the Tar Heel staff was hoping for Williams to at least want to walk on. Williams eventually got a scholarship offer from Coastal Carolina, and Jason Tudryn, the Tar Heels' director of recruiting and high school relations, kept selling Williams' potential inside Kenan Football Center.

When Fedora watched Williams break for 73 yards on the first snap of the state 2-A title game in Kenan Stadium in early December and win MVP honors with 207 yards on 22 carries, he was sold. It helped that Williams' team won four consecutive state titles and that he had a 4.0 GPA. As soon as Williams was offered, he accepted. He enrolled at Carolina in January and was impressive in Blue Dawn workouts in February and spring practice in April. He's picked up where he left off and is certain to play early this fall.

"The thing about Javonte that has struck me the most is he's so mature," Fedora says. "He has handled all types of situations we've put him in very well. It's not flustered him. He's made mistakes, but the way he's handled them has been very mature. He's a different individual mentally. He can carry the ball, and another thing is he's really good in pass protection. Typically, that's the most difficult thing for a running back coming out of high school because they never do it there. It was natural for him."

Kapilovic adds that Williams is "one of the more impressive freshmen I've been around. I'm not talking about running the ball. That's there. But just his maturity, how he's picked up the offense. I've never seen a freshman pick up pass-blocking like he has. He's an unbelievable kid."

Kapilovic paused and smiled.

"I hope I'm not jinxing him," he said.

The coaches haven't said who'll get the first chance to show off this new "Run UNC" production on Saturday in Berkeley. It's likely that three or more will play, and some of the substitution patterns will be dictated by play-calling and personnel groups. And of course, there are always the assorted training camp nicks and opening-game jitters that come into play.

No matter, the goal is the same—move the chains.

"I grade every game, and if you play 30 snaps and only move the chains one time, you've not been very productive," Gillespie says. "Another guy played only nine steps but moved the chain six times, that guy needs to be playing more. It's second-and-seven and you touch it, get nine. First-and-10, get 15, third-and-one, get 20. It's all about moving the chains. It's mentality and mindset."

And if all goes well, the 2018 Tar Heels will adapt their own highlights to Run-DMC lyrics. Something like this might work well indeed:

Now we crash through walls, cut through floors
Bust through ceilings and knock down doors.

Carolina graduate Lee Pace (1979) will see his 334th consecutive Tar Heel football game dating to November 1990 when Carolina plays at California on Saturday. He's written "Extra Points" since then and reported from the sidelines for the Tar Heel radio network since 2004. Reach him at leepace7@gmail.com and follow him @LeePaceTweet.

Players Mentioned

Antwuan Branch

Jordon Brown

Michael Carter

Devon Lawrence

Johnathon Sutton

Antonio Williams

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