Extra Points: Clear As A Bell

By Lee Pace

At 4:30 p.m. Sunday the Carolina football team gathered on the lawn around the Bell Tower just outside Kenan Stadium, where less than 24 hours earlier it had staved off old rival Duke by a 20-17 margin. The Victory Bell had been relocated from the Tar Heel locker room to the lawn and was sitting on drop cloths. Eighteen cans of Carolina blue spray paint were lined up on one of the brick steps at the base of the Bell Tower.

Mack Brown gave his players a quick history lesson about the bell—that it's served as the spoils of victory in the Carolina-Duke game since 1948 and that the Tar Heels have won 46 games, Duke 25 with one tie since then.

"Thank you, and congratulations for bringing it back to Chapel Hill," Brown said, then introduced the 18 seniors who each took a turn at covering the royal blue with that lighter and infinitely more pleasing shade of blue. Then each player vigorously rang the bell to the applause, hoots and hollers of his teammates.

"This was a special one for the team and the senior class," said tight end Jake Bargas.

"The seniors, they've worked too hard to leave here without beating Duke," quarterback Sam Howell added. "We knew how much this game and this rivalry meant to them. I'm just glad we were able to pull it out in the end."

Carolina football fans this season are bidding up the prices on defibrillators, antacids and counseling sessions for all the drama they've endured over eight games. Seven of them have gone down to the last seconds and been decided by six points or less. The total spread in those games is 22 points. That wafer-thin margin of victory and defeat sets a national record for close encounters going back to 1936, according to ESPN researcher Brian Ives.

"We're the darlings of the TV business," Brown cracked Saturday night. "We should be prime time every week for the ratings we're bringing."

How to catalog the Tar Heels' latest theatrics? There were so many morsels throughout the day I scribbled on notepaper from the field:

* Brown coming to the sideline during pre-game warm-ups to speak to some recruits and within seconds being engulfed in the middle of a huddle of several dozen teenagers, such being the benefit of having rock-star status for the head coach and providing a harbinger of what is shaping up to be an outstanding recruiting class;

* Seeing many of the Tar Heels' injured players sidelined all or parts of the season decked out in game jerseys and shorts and bringing energy and support to their teammates, most notably Nick Polino on the offensive side and Trey Morrison on defense;

* Getting immersed for the fourth consecutive home game in a standing-room only house in Kenan Stadium. From the field you can absorb the panoramic views and bask in the buzz and roars as the game ebbs and flows. But I had to make a third-quarter dash back to the press box, and a quick trip up and down the aisles reminded me of the tension and electricity that crackle through the stadium during a taut game.

* The otherworldly catch by Dazz Newsome when he reached behind Duke defender Jalen Alexander with both arms to make and maintain the catch while tumbling to the turf, with a spot-on photograph by Grant Halverson emerging later Saturday evening showing Newsome's eyes wide open, staring down his opponent face-to-face in a perfect rendition of offensive coordinator Phil Longo's "Don't Blink" mantra;

* The way kicker Noah Ruggles remained focused and engaged on the sideline during the first half after being benched for Jonathan Kim, then stepping in with businesslike precision to nail two second-half field goals. Ruggles bore the weight of having missed a potential game-winner in overtime last week at Virginia Tech but didn't check out mentally last week with the benching. "I saw a guy coming off the edge, off the left, I lifted my head and I just pushed it right," Ruggles said. "I just have to keep my head down and focus on the ball. I learned from the mistake and was ready this week if they called on me."

* Tight ends coach Tim Brewster yelling in the grill of one offensive player after another before a crucial fourth-quarter possession: "Take this game over, take this game over!!!" Therein lay the crux of one of the coaching staff's priorities for the week—finish. When you jump on App State with an early touchdown, run it up. When you hit Virginia Tech with a 68-yard TD pass, stone their rears on defense after the kick-off. That element's been sorely lacking so far in 2019.

* Dominique Ross and Myles Dorn in an arm-in-arm embrace after the team's routine gathering in The Tar Pit end zone during the transition from the third to the fourth quarter. Those two seniors have been rocks on defense amid a deluge of injuries to the secondary (now up to six with Storm Duck leaving after one snap on Saturday), with the linebacker Ross morphing essentially into a nickel back. "D-Ross has done a fantastic job," says linebackers coach Tommy Thigpen. "He can blitz and get to the passer and he can cover wide receivers and hold his own. That nickel slot is one of the most valuable positions in football, and he's become a stud."

* The irony of Chazz Surratt being the starting quarterback two years ago against Duke, dancing and darting 56 yards for a touchdown but also throwing a late-game interception in Duke's 27-17 win, then switching to defense and making the game-winning pick Saturday after defensive coordinator Jay Bateman clued his players into the likelihood of Duke running a jump pass on the goal line;

* The nauseating feeling of déjà vu when Javonte Williams fumbled near the goal line as the Tar Heels were driving for a knock-out blow, nearly the same circumstances but at the opposite end zone from last year's Virginia Tech game. That sick feeling was compounded moments later by a face mask call on the Tar Heels after stopping Duke on fourth down.

"It was like, 'What do we have to do to catch a break?'" Thigpen mused. "That Virginia Tech game was definitely flashing in my mind."

* And seeing Brown cradle the game ball that he was presented by Athletic Director Bubba Cunningham for having become the Tar Heels' winningest head coach, notching victory No. 73 to usurp Dick Crum's run from 1978-87. Brown characteristically said the record should be shared by all of his players from his first decade at Carolina, by the 120 on the roster today as well as the legions of Tar Heel fans who jammed every nook and cranny of Kenan Stadium and who have helped generate capacity crowds for all four home games this season.

"What a crowd," he said. "Everytime we play, I go back and say, 'This might be the best crowd I've ever seen in Kenan Stadium.'"

The coach was in his previous life as a television analyst one year ago and was watching from ESPN studios in Bristol, Conn., when the Tar Heels suffered that devastating loss to Virginia Tech. He admitted to having nightmarish flashbacks as he watched Duke drive down the field for potential tying or game-winning points.

"The difference is our defense stopped them and forced the turnover at the end of the game," Brown said. "It was probably the best way we could have won. Now, we've got to learn to finish it and get to 10 points up with 2:40 left.

"This was such a significant win for our program. This is one we'll remember. This is a step forward. This is one we were in trouble and came back and hung in there and won, and that's the thing we had not been doing the last couple of years."

Two numbers were particularly salient entering the game.

First was the number of Tar Heels who had actually played in a victory over the Blue Devils, the last one coming four years ago in a 66-31 pummeling of Duke during the Tar Heels' ACC Coastal Division championship run. Eight fifth-year seniors (Bargas, Corey Bell Jr., Aaron Crawford, Brandon Fritts, Charlie Heck, Nick Polino, Jason Strowbridge and Carl Tucker) were members of that team but didn't play that day.

So the answer was zero.

Second was the number of starters from the state of North Carolina, kids who had grown up living around and consuming the Anybody But Carolina chatter and inherently understood the concept that all games are created equal—but some are more equal than others.

And that answer was six—four on offense, two on defense.

Brown harped on both themes all week. He told his players of his Carolina program winning eight straight over Duke from 1990-97, that streaks don't end until you're so sick and tired of them that you virtually will them to end, that you have to become the "toughest the longest" and thus are able to grind out one more yard or one more stop in the fourth quarter.

"You want to keep your scholarships? Keep these nice facilities?" Brown posed to his team. "Well, take care the boosters who pay those bills. They hate to go to work on Monday after losing these in-state games. We've lost nine a row. And we've lost five of seven to Duke. That's not a rivalry. That's a rout. It's time to stand up."

A theme emanating from Brown's return to Chapel Hill is what's past is prologue, and the same tenets of structure and discipline, attentive coaching and lights-out recruiting that worked in 1990s will bear fruit today. The Tar Heels marinated for a year in 1989-90 in the ignominy of dropping a 41-0 stinker to Duke in Brown's second year. But the program was clicking efficiently under the unimpressive won-loss mark and rolling toward an eventual explosion. The Tar Heels thumped Duke 22-20 in the 1990 season finale and all bets were off the rest of the decade against the Blue Devils.

"The Victory Bell won't spend much more time in Durham—at least not anytime soon," I wrote after that game. "The Mack Brown era has officially turned the corner, and with only six scholarship seniors leaving the Carolina roster and 24 leaving Duke, the balance of power could well swing back to the days of the '70s and early '80s, when Carolina beat the Blue Devils 10 times, tied one and lost one in a 12-year stretch."

"There's no doubt Carolina's turned this thing around," said senior tackle Kevin Donnalley, who went on to a productive career in the NFL. "We crossed a new threshold. It's a new Carolina now."

A new Carolina. The Tar Heels certainly have some issues to work out, but nonetheless they'll square off against Virginia Saturday for a prime-time battle before another sellout crowd with the ACC Coastal Division lead on the line. It looks like cut-and-paste has quite a future around Tar Heel football as Mack Take II hits the next gear.

Chapel Hill writer Lee Pace (UNC '79) is in his 30th year writing "Extra Points" and 16th reporting from the sidelines for the Tar Heel Sports Network. Follow him @LeePaceTweet and email him at leepace7@gmail.com.

Players Mentioned

Jake Bargas

Corey Bell Jr.

Aaron Crawford

Myles Dorn

Brandon Fritts

Charlie Heck

Sam Howell

Jonathan Kim

Trey Morrison

Dazz Newsome

Nick Polino

Dominique Ross

Noah Ruggles

Jason Strowbridge

Chazz Surratt

Carl Tucker

Javonte Williams

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