Extra Points: Spurts & Stops

By Lee Pace

Carolina's football program is populated with a handful of individuals with direct ties to their counterpart operation at Appalachian State. Mack Brown was head coach there for one year in 1983, has had a summer residence in Linville for more than two decades and even helped raise money with App State Athletic Director Doug Gillen at times during his five years away from coaching from 2014-18.

"To see what that program has turned into is just really, really rewarding for me," says Brown, who's watched from a distance as App State has collected three Football Championship Subdivision championships, won on the road at Michigan's "Big House" and since moved up to Football Bowl Subdivision level in the Sun Belt Conference. "I fell in love with the mountains and the community and always remembered they gave me a chance."

Sparky Woods, one of Brown's senior consultants, followed Brown in Boone and was the Mountaineers' head coach for five years in the mid-1980s. Offensive assistants Lonnie Galloway and Stacy Searels had stints coaching in Boone. The Tar Heels' support staff of graduate assistants, analysts and recruiting staffers has a half dozen former members of the Mountaineer football community. Even Jahlil Taylor, the redshirt freshman who's backed up Aaron Crawford at nose guard this year, was originally a Mountaineer commit two years ago before a late offer came from the Tar Heels.

So the Tar Heels were infused the last week with insight from multiple sources that their opponent Saturday was a program on solid enough footing that its previous head coach, Scott Satterfield, had been deemed attractive enough to be lured to Louisville of the ACC; that its decades-old template of beating the bushes (and particularly the football-rich state of Florida) for diamonds in the rough and developing them over several years in a football-intensive culture in Boone would offer a talented, experienced and confident opponent; and that the visitors would have that same proverbial chip-on-the-shoulder mentality that has fueled the likes of N.C. State, East Carolina and everyone in the Anybody-But-Carolina world when they visit Kenan Stadium.

"App State could be in the ACC, they're that talented," Brown said last week. "They're 2-0 with a week off, fresh and excited about coming here. They will have a lot of energy. They've made a living for a long time selling kids on the idea, 'That program overlooked you, go show them they were wrong.'"

Brown paused and smiled and referenced his first year back as the Tar Heels' head coach.

"Well, I didn't pass you over. I wasn't here."

Cases in point Saturday were Mountaineer defensive end Demetrius Taylor and running back Darrynton Evans.

Taylor is a junior from Miami's vaunted Northwestern High who chose App State over offers from East Carolina, Idaho and McNeese State. On Saturday he destroyed the Tar Heels, notching one scoop-and-score after causing a fumble and later beating off a block and intercepting a pass to set up another App State touchdown. He had 2.5 sacks and another pass breakup.

Evans is also a junior from the state of Florida (19 Mountaineers are from the Sunshine State), and committed from his home of New Smyrna Beach in December 2015 over offers from Georgia Southern, Bowling Green, Kent State and Air Force. On Saturday he riddled the Carolina defense for 86 yards on 19 carries and three touchdowns.

There in a nutshell was why App State was able to invade Kenan Stadium, seize first half momentum, win the turnover quotient 3-1 and emerge with a 34-31 victory. No matter how many stars or recruiting accolades the Mountaineers had from their high school careers, as collegians they are productive, driven and cohesive.

"This wasn't an underdog story," Appalachian State Coach Eliah Drinkwitz said. "We talked all week that it wasn't going to be an upset. We belonged on that football field and we were going to prove it. We went in with that mentality that we were going to win the game."

The Mountaineers certainly deserve the accolades. But enough about them. As Brown likes to say, "This is about us."

Indeed, it's certainly about the Tar Heels, whose defenders missed some key tackles and were out of position on several big plays by the Mountaineers. It's about a team that once again followed its early game script of falling behind 20-7 late in the first half. It's about a team that has yet to strip and recover a fumble in four games. It's about a team that is going to many quick-hitting and roll-out pass plays because the offense is struggling to give QB Sam Howell time to find receivers in a traditional pocket.

"We have to develop an identity," Brown said. "What would that look like? It would look like playing consistently well instead of having great plays and bad plays. It doesn't matter who we're playing. We play the same way every play. We don't have mental mistakes. We're in great shape, so that's not an issue. But we have to get over the hump of playing consistently good."

And it's about a team with a patchwork offensive line that has lost two senior starters in center Nick Polino and left tackle Charlie Heck and, one month into the season, is having more personnel issues to face than is comfortable. Heck was not dressed out Saturday, his right hand in a brace, and his absence in protecting Howell's blindside was noticeable. Defensive tackle Jason Strowbridge is still fighting an ankle problem, and safety Myles Wolfolk was sidelined much of the second half with a lower body injury.

The age-old adage is proving spot-on: It's not how good your first 22 are, it's how good are your second 22? Depth was always going to be a theme of the 2019 season.

"It's a problem but it's not an excuse," Brown said. "They're on scholarship. We've got to play with what we've got and we've got to coach what we've got."

The emotional contrasts over the first month of the season have been dizzying. There was the fourth-quarter rally to beat South Carolina and Brown's locker room dance that went viral nationally. There was the bomb of energy erupting in Kenan Stadium the night of the Miami win. There was the gut-punch in Winston-Salem. And now the loss to the Mountaineers—a stunner in the Tar Heels' minds, routine in the visitors' frame of reference. That's four games and only 16 points separating the winner and the loser; you have to go back 41 years to Dick Crum's first team in 1978 to have an opening month with a tighter point differential (13 points in a win over ECU and losses to Maryland, Pitt and Miami of Ohio).

"This one hurts," center Brian Anderson said. "We've got to let it hurt and leave that bad taste in your mouth and feel it. The best thing is there is still so much of a tight bond within this team and so much we can correct and fix."

"Once you get a taste of winning, you definitely don't want to go back to losing," receiver Beau Corrales added.

One individual watching from the sideline as the game unfolded was Chase Rice, a Tar Heel linebacker from 2005-08, Survivor cast member and now an accomplished country music singer, guitarist and songwriter. He talked of getting his first guitar while living in Granville Towers, writing his first songs from a rental house on nearby Coolidge Drive and performing for the first time at He's Not Here on Franklin Street. He reflected on overcoming a knee injury and the death of his father, of losing his way after college but finding himself through his music and the grounding he'd gotten through playing college football.

No matter where his concert tours have taken him—and this week he's in Wichita, Fort Wayne, Nashville and Chicago—Kenan Stadium has never been far from his heart and head.

"I've seen a lot of stadiums around the country, and there's nothing to match this place," he said, gazing first toward the Bell Tower through the northwest corner and then panning to the east end zone.

As Rice spoke early in the second quarter, Wolfolk intercepted a pass and the stadium erupted. Rice paused to look around and take it all in.

"I've never seen the passion that we have right now, even dating to when I played here, and we had a good, solid team then," he said. "I watched the Miami game, and I've never seen us play with that type of passion and that type of fire. Now, it looks like the kind of football that Mack Brown brought here in the Nineties. The biggest part is that Mack says it's not about him, it's about playing the Carolina way and the way we did in the Nineties. I think that's coming back."

There's no question about that. Yet as the first month of the season proves, it's coming in spurts and stops.

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.

Scoreboard Slider

University of North Carolina Athletics

Players Mentioned

Brian Anderson

Beau Corrales

Aaron Crawford

Charlie Heck

Nick Polino

Jason Strowbridge

Jahlil Taylor

Myles Wolfolk

Related Videos