Extra Points: Standards

By Lee Pace

An eight-year-old Myles Dorn looked around the vast expanse of Kenan Stadium one afternoon during a family visit to Chapel Hill from its home in Charlotte and announced to his mother, "One day, I'm going to play football here." More than a dozen years later, father Torin stood on the sidelines as the Tar Heels drew their home schedule to a close against Mercer and watched the sleek safety wearing jersey No. 1. "To see him fulfill that dream is truly amazing," Torin said.

A 15-year-old running back at North Stanly High named Antonio Williams told Larry Fedora in the fall of 2013 that he wanted to play ball for the Tar Heels. But he wound up detouring through the states of Wisconsin and Ohio (he committed to the Badgers but played for the Buckeyes) before landing in Chapel Hill and scoring on an 11-yard touchdown run to conclude his Kenan Stadium playing career. "I would have gotten here eventually," Williams said. "I think it was meant to be."

Charlie Heck was a sophomore in high school in October 2012 and was sitting with his mother in the players' family section when Kenan Stadium exploded on Gio Bernard's epic punt return against N.C. State. Jon Heck was a freshman tackle for the Tar Heels and the Heck family (sans dad Andy, who was an NFL assistant coach and had weekend work commitments) traveled from their home in Jacksonville to see the Tar Heels' 43-35 win. "I remember that punt return and everyone going crazy," Charlie remembered. "I loved the atmosphere, and that's when I kinda fell in love with UNC."

And a young lacrosse player from Boca Raton, Florida, once envisioned himself following in his brother's footsteps and playing as a defenseman for the Michigan Wolverines. Then Jake Bargas blossomed as a tight end in football and drew recruiting attention from Wake Forest and Duke, among others. He was actually set to be a Demon Deacon in the fall of 2014 until he visited Chapel Hill and Kenan Stadium and joined the Tar Heels' incoming freshman class of 2015. Four years later, Bargas caught his second career touchdown pass on a four-yard throw from Sam Howell.

"It's the best decision I ever made," he said. "I'm in the best place. I have so many memories over the years. This stadium keeps changing—the seats, the turf, the players' lounge. But the one thing that's constant is being a Tar Heel and getting to play the game with your best friends. Playing the game you love with the people you love in the place you love—you rarely get to see that."

As the erudite singer and songwriter John Lennon once said, "There is nowhere you can be that isn't where you're meant to be."

Dorn, Williams, Heck and Bargas were among 20 Tar Heels who took their last bow Saturday against Mercer, a member of the Southern Conference and a program just in year seven of its modern iteration after the private institution in Macon, Ga., discontinued the sport during World War II. The Tar Heels popped the Bears with a fumble recovery and touchdown in the first 1:30 of the game, and the 56-7 outcome was never in doubt.

That Carolina was significantly more talented was never in question. Whether the team would be mentally sharp taking a break from the rigors of a season that had seen the Tar Heels lose six games by a scant 26 points was the only question. As it evolved, the script was exactly what Tar Heel Coach Mack Brown envisioned entering the last two weeks of the season:

* Quarterback Sam Howell penned the next chapter in his record-setting freshman campaign with three TDs passes, giving him 32 for the year and setting what is believed to be the standard for the most by a true freshman in FBS history (eclipsing the 30 by Clemson's Trevor Lawrence one year ago).

* The Tar Heels committed no turnovers despite cold temperatures and a steady rainfall for most of the game and they showed no lapses of concentration, that best illustrated by the defense delivering a snuff when Mercer gambled on fourth-and-1 at its own 35 yard-line early in the second quarter.

* Carolina was able to spread the ball around many hands, with players like Bargas, receiver Emery Simmons and tailback British Brooks scoring touchdowns, and had the luxury of resting many starters all of the second half. Freshmen like Josh Henderson on offense (98 yards rushing) and Eugene Asante and Khadry Jackson at linebacker got their first true feel of college action.

* And they did so without sustaining any new injuries. Carolina still has been battered with medical issues in the secondary, but fortunately the starting secondary of cornerbacks Storm Duck and DeAndre Hollins and safeties Dorn and Don Chapman now have several games of cohesion entering the season finale Saturday night against N.C. State.

"We told our guys that regardless of who we're playing, it needs to be about us," Brown said. "It needs to be about a standard that we play as a football team. We hadn't played 60 full minutes, we've been up and down, some time we'd not start very well. So all of the boxes were checked. We got to play a lot of kids in the second half, so it was great for morale. It was a home run for us. Everything we wanted coming into the game, we got. I think our players are really starting to learn the process of winning."

"We played to our standards, that was the main thing all week—play to our standard," echoed Williams.

The Tar Heels are 5-6 and need one more win to become bowl-eligible. They get that opportunity with a 7 p.m. kick-off in Carter-Finley Stadium against a Wolfpack team that has three straight wins over the Tar Heels but is struggling in 2019 without an experienced quarterback and having lost key defensive players from its recent run of back-to-back nine-win teams.

"We pictured this as a playoff game," Heck said. "We're trying to get to a bowl game, so this was a must-win. It was just as important as any game we've had this season. We wanted to execute our game plan. We did that and now it's on to the next game."

As Brown, Heck and the other Tar Heels reviewed the game from the fifth floor of the Kenan Football center early Saturday evening, the field down below was awash with several hundred kids and their parents enjoying the annual tradition of opening the playing field up after the final bell of the home season.

"What a cool sight," Brown said, taking it all in.

Later he was shown a photograph snapped from the sidelines that pictured him clapping for Torin Dorn, a prize cornerback during Brown's first two seasons at Carolina in his 1988-97 tenure, as Dorn was recognized as a "Kenan Legend" during a second-quarter time out. Myles broke the team huddle long enough to join his dad for a hug on the 20 yard-line of the east end of the stadium.

"That's another reason I'm back," Brown said. "Moments like that."

The strains of Pharrell Williams' 2013 song Happy wafted through the mist as the festivities drew to a close:

"Because I'm happy
Clap along if you feel like a room without a roof."

It was cold and wet and everyone was soaked to the marrow. The fog tried its best to shroud the blue light engulfing the Bell Tower just outside the stadium. And certainly for this moment, everyone was just where they were meant to be.

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

Eugene Asante

Jake Bargas

British Brooks

Don Chapman

Myles Dorn

Storm Duck

Charlie Heck

Josh Henderson

Ladaeson DeAndre Hollins

Sam Howell

Khadry Jackson

Emery Simmons

Antonio Williams

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University of North Carolina Athletics