Extra Points: And For Our Next Act ...

By Lee Pace

CHAPEL HILL, NC (AP) — University of North Carolina wide receivers Dazz Newsome and Dyami Brown announced Sunday they are surrendering their eligibility on the Tar Heel football team and turning pro. They will make their debut with the world-renowned circus troupe Cirque du Soleil next week in flying trapeze, fire dancing and high diving acts.

Well, it could happen. "The Dazzling Dazz & Dyami Duo," perhaps.

Gasp: There's Dyami getting behind a Temple cornerback in the first quarter as they streak toward the end zone, pirouetting to his right and snaring the football as he's falling to the turf on his back.

Gulp: There's Dazz running a corner route into the left of the end zone in the second quarter, following the flight of the pass from QB Sam Howell as it's nearly deflected by a Temple defender, bobbling the ball off his right arm, spinning as he follows its bounce back in the air, dragging his right foot inside the boundary and leaning out-of-bounds to match the catch.

Whoop: And there's Dazz late in the game, thick in double-coverage in the left corner of the end zone, turning to find the ball, leaping high, snaring the ball with a defender's arm in his chest, slipping his left foot inbounds as he falls on his back out-of-bounds.

And those didn't include another apparent scoring pass with Newsome's body parallel to the turf, collecting the ball but being ruled out-of-bounds, and teammate Beau Corrales reeling in four balls and waylaying would-be tacklers with potent stiff-arms. As mere mortals watched, eyes wide and jaws dropped, and as ESPN's Sports Center listed those touchdown plays Nos. 10, 8 and 1, respectively, in its Top 10 Plays of the Day, the Tar Heels themselves were nonplussed. It's all routine to the players and their coaches.

"They're doing what they're supposed to be doing," said receivers coach Lonnie Galloway. "One-on-one for us is like wide open."

"We work on catching every day," added Brown. "That's something we're supposed to do. See ball, get ball. Just lock in on the ball and use your athleticism to go get it."

Or they're giving credit to someone else. Newsome said that last touchdown wasn't a big deal—that Howell placed it within a whisker of where it had to be, far enough to elude the Temple defender, short enough to let him gather it inbounds.

"That was more of a better throw than a good catch," Newsome said.

Newsome and Brown were just two of the sparks Friday in the Tar Heels' authoritative smackdown of Temple in the Military Bowl in Annapolis, Maryland. Carolina won 55-13 and was never threatened after Brown's 39-yard haul from Howell with 6:24 left in the first quarter. The Tar Heels did not punt. They were 11-of-14 on third downs. They were perfect on seven red-zone possessions.

Brown and Newsome each passed 1,000 yards receiving for the year. Junior tailback Michael Carter clipped 1,000 yards, with three to spare. Howell finished his remarkable freshman season with 294 yards passing, with three touchdowns and no interceptions, giving him 3,641 yards in 13 games, the second most in a season to Mitch Trubisky's 3,748 yards in 2016.

"It was fun to watch us get better every week, and you just knew the last three or four weeks we were in a rhythm, and we certainly were today," offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Phil Longo said. "The philosophy of the offense is to distribute the ball to a lot of players. Obviously, we did a good job of that this year.

"Sam was amazing. You just feed him a little every week and he just kills it. We progressed every week and gave him a little bit more, and he's been able to handle it."

The victory lifted Carolina to a 7-6 mark and that important distinction between "winning" and "losing" seasons.

"It was nice to get a bowl game, but you have to win it," Carter said. "It's real important. It's like your season's 'championship.' If you do not win a championship game, you're going to have a nasty taste in your mouth. I'm glad we got the win, glad we have good momentum going into spring."

And thus the 2019 season is laid to rest as a tasty hors d'oeuvre to the next chapter of the Mack is Back feature film and its many subplots: Consecutive wins over South Carolina and Miami to open the season; ending three-year losing streaks to backyard rivals Duke and N.C. State; six losses by an average of 4.3 points; enough energy and intrigue to sell out Kenan Stadium six-of-six home dates and a Military Bowl venue with Tar Heel fans outnumbering Owl supporters by a healthy margin.

"There's no question it's been a successful year," Brown said. "I was gratified how we finished the season. I'm still frustrated how we let a couple of close ones get away. But I told the team—'That's life. You don't get do-overs.'"

The Tar Heels started one senior on offense, three on defense in the Military Bowl. They get a half dozen secondary players back into the fold after injuries or having sat out transfer seasons. Thirteen members of a highly regarded signing class enroll on Jan. 5, a dozen more come in the summer. There's no more doing everything on the calendar for the first time as a collective of staff and players.

"Our offense is going to be scary," Newsome said.

"We can be amazing, totally amazing," Dyami added. "It makes me excited. You have something to look forward to."

"We're only going to get better, that I guarantee you," Longo said.

"I'm so excited to watch this team in the future," said offensive tackle Charlie Heck, now officially a Tar Heel football alumnus and likely on an NFL roster in 2020. "This offense can hang with any offense in the country."

In a steamy and kinetic Tar Heel dressing room after the game, Brown commended his players for their focus and resolve since losing at Pittsburgh in mid-November ("For whatever reason, you grew up starting with the Mercer game," he said) and noted the seniors had started a new Carolina bowl tradition. Bowls will now not be a question of if, but of where.

Then Carolina Athletic Director Bubba Cunningham asked for a moment. He held a football aloft and referenced the Tar Heels' previous record points high in a bowl game, the 42 they notched in a rout of Virginia Tech on New Year's Day 1998 in the Gator Bowl to cap an 11-1 season. Brown had left for the Texas job and wasn't with his team in Jacksonville, so Cunningham thought it appropriate and momentus that Brown had returned to Carolina and, in his first bowl appearance, his team shattered that scoring standard.

Then Cunningham told the team that Brown wouldn't be standing in front of them if Brown's wife Sally, who was nearby in a clutch of the couple's children and grandchildren, hadn't approved and even encouraged the move back into the coaching cauldron 13 months ago. So Cunningham offered the game ball to Sally, a gesture met with a raucous round of applause and hoots in unison of "Miss Sally, Miss Sally."

Mack suggested that his wife take his spot in the requisite post-victory dance that had become social media and ESPN sensations over the season. She demurred, so Mack took the lead from Carter and Jahlil Taylor in mimicking their gyrations to the "Woah" dance.

"This is a real high," Brown said. "This is why you do it. This has been a fun team. This team will never be together again, so enjoy the moment with each other."

Before dismissing the players on their travels home for a few days of rest before spring semester, Brown tied a neat bow around the week, which included an array of educational side trips to venues like the floor of the House of Representatives in the U.S. Capitol and several hours on Christmas Day writing notes and assembling care packages to U.S. military personnel deployed worldwide.

This is a man who has the innate ability to say just the right thing at the right time, Exhibit A coming in the Texas Longhorns' locker room moments after winning the 2005 national championship in the Rose Bowl over USC: "Don't let this be the highlight of your life," Brown told his players.

Late Friday afternoon, he referenced the upper-deck facade of Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium, which is adorned not with the names of Naval Academy football greats like Roger Staubach and Napoleon McCallum but with significant battles fought in history such as Midway, Guadalcanal and Belleau Wood. Brown told his players to think of someone in their respective families who had served in the military and added, "Say a little prayer for them as you leave the stadium tonight."

A fitting epitaph indeed for a week at the nation's capital.

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.

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University of North Carolina Athletics

Players Mentioned

Dyami Brown

Michael Carter

Beau Corrales

Charlie Heck

Sam Howell

Dazz Newsome

Jahlil Taylor

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