University of North Carolina Athletics
LEE PACE' S EXTRA POINTS: Carolina Recruiting Becomes a Family Affair
Feb. 13, 2001
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By Lee Pace
Corey Holliday was first sold on Carolina almost 13 years ago, when head coach Mack Brown and assistant Jim Cavanaugh asked the Richmond, Va., receiver to be a part of their rebuilding effort in Chapel Hill. Over the next five years, Tar Heel fans became enamoured with Holliday's soft hands and reliability over the middle (he caught a pass in 45 straight games from 1990-93), his good manners and appearance (a clothes-horse, Holliday entered his senior year with a closet full of polo shirts and more than two dozen baseball caps), and his attention to detail and organized mind ("Usually we ask the questions," Brown said after Holliday's campus recruiting visit. "With Corey, it was, `Coach, can you sit down a minute? I've got a few questions.'")
Now Holliday's been sold again, this time to return to Carolina in an administrative post under new head coach John Bunting.
"Both times it didn't take much for anyone to sell me on coming to Chapel Hill," Holliday says. "I know what the University of North Carolina stands for to a student-athlete."
The pitch from Bunting (Carolina '72) to Holliday (Carolina '94), was simple, much the same it was from Brown--come help us build a winner.
"I got fired up meeting Coach Bunting and seeing what kind of person he is," says Holliday, who played four years of pro ball with the Steelers and most recently was with Andersen Consulting in Columbus, Ohio. "I have no doubt when he gets on the field and begins coaching our players, they'll have the same intensity he had as a player and the same passion he has for the University."
Intensity and passion are two words circulating a lot around the world of Tar Heel football these days as Bunting last week announced the signing of 21 high school seniors to scholarships as well as an ambitious assignment at Oklahoma on Aug. 25.
Question the ranking of the Tar Heels' signing class if you want. Indeed, it's not remarkable, coming in middle-of-the-road in the ACC and from 37th to 43rd in several rankings such as SuperPrep and Rivals.
And wonder if you'd like whether Bunting's gray matter was bounced around too much during 13 years chasing quarterbacks in the NFL and now-defunct USFL. National champion Oklahoma? On the road? Before road games at Maryland and Texas? "Some people are looking at me like I've got two heads," Bunting admits.
But a thread is developing in the early days of the Bunting regime. Combined with a boot-camp mentality in the off-season conditioning program of new strength coach Jeff Connors, the qualities of Bunting's signing class and his plucky challenge of the Sooners lead to one conclusion:
Only the strong will survive. Only those who love to play college football need apply.
"I jumped at the chance to play Oklahoma," Bunting says. "I didn't come here to be second best. It'll help us get better faster. I want our players to recognize what it takes to be the best."
Carolina's 2001 signing class is about what you'd expect in a transitional year. Bunting and his million-dollar staff (the new tally for nine assistant coaches is $1,007,000) did an excellent job retaining 10 of the 12 commitments from Carl Torbush's regime (only prep schooler Jason Crawford, a 2000 signee, went elsewhere, following his parents' wishes, and another signed with East Carolina rather than go to prep school). It did a good job of plowing new ground with prospects not on the recruiting board last fall (Harry Lewis of Kentucky and Danny Rumley of Alabama appear to be outstanding players).
Yet without on-the-field results to document their case, Bunting and staff just missed on a number of high-profile candidates who opted for proven commodities--quarterback Adrian McPherson of Brandenton, Fla., chief among them in choosing Florida State.
The highlights appear to be snaring what the staff feels are the No. 1 tailback, defensive end and defensive tackle prospects in the state and signing five offensive linemen. The latter quintet, combined with three newcomers in 2000 and seven in 1999, hopefully retool a position decimated by only two signings in the 1996 and '97 classes.
"I think we've improved our athleticism, and we now have better speed at the wide-receiver and defensive-back positions," Bunting says. "I like these offensive linemen. One thing I didn't like watching film from last fall--and nobody likes it--was the fact that Ronald Curry was getting hit too much. With the new system, improvement in the ones coming up, and with the ones coming in, our quarterback will be more secure. I like that."
Carolina also lured one quarterback to Chapel Hill, that being Matt Baker, of Birmingham, Mich. Baker doesn't have the glitzy ranking of some QBs, but new QB coach and offensive coordinator Gary Tranquill was attracted to Baker while coaching at Virginia. Baker apparently stood up well with the likes of McPherson and other blue-chips D.J. Shockley, Brodie Croyle and Joe Mauer in a Nike camp in Georgia last summer. The Tar Heel staff likes his decision-making ability and accuracy (only three interceptions last fall). He's smart and can throw the deep ball as well as back off and feather the short ones.
"I was thrilled when he said he was coming," Bunting says. "If you get to know him and study him, he's probably as good an athlete as some of the others, he's just not scoring 45 points a night [a reference to McPherson and his hoops skills]. But we're not bringing him here to play basketball."
Despite any losses the Heels endured this recruiting season, rest assured that the groundwork is being laid to restore Carolina to the outstanding recruiting success it enjoyed under Brown from 1989-94, the years Carolina signed the backbones of its 1992-94 and 1996-97 pinnacle teams. "We want to own this state," Bunting says.
Bunting wants to include the District of Columbia-area and Florida more in Carolina's recruiting base, but not before taking care of business at home. Kenny Browning, shifted from defensive coordinator and tackles coach to recruiting coordinator and tight-ends coach, has ideas to improve the Tar Heels' March clinic and summer camp operations and wants to make more use of e-tech and e-mail. Browning also wants to move the recruiting calendar up--to locate, evaluate and offer prospects sooner.
And there certainly are ideas and recruiting contacts to be brought to the table from new coaches such as Jim Webster (from East Carolina), Jon Tenuta (Ohio State), Rod Broadway (Florida), Tranquill and Andre Powell (Virginia) and Dave Huxtable (most recently Oklahoma State, before that East Carolina and Georgia Tech).
Most noteworthy, however, are the Tar Heel pedigrees from Bunting, Webster (Carolina letterman 1969-71), Broadway (1974-77), Holliday and Rick Steinbacher (an administrator alongside Holliday and a classmate of Holliday's at Carolina). The word passion creeps up again here as assistant coaches speak of watching Bunting in the living rooms of prospects.
"Being a Carolina man brings a little something extra to the table," says Webster. "You can look a kid and his parents in the eye and tell them what the experience did for you, how it affected your life. Those four or five years literally shape your life. John can speak from the heart about those things."
"He's got a tremendous love for this university," says offensive line coach Robbie Caldwell. "That comes through first and foremost."
"Carolina's an easy sell for all of us, but particularly for Coach Bunting," says receivers coach Gunter Brewer. "He talks about wanting to give something back, to be a molder and shaper of young men like he was molded and shaped during his time here."
Steinbacher says that on recruiting weekends, when players and their parents come to Chapel Hill, he had to keep the chief on schedule between one recruit and the next.
"He could talk to one kid all day about Carolina," Steinbacher says. "I'd have to remind him, `Coach, you've got eight more to go.'"
For Bunting, nothing could be easier. "I've loved it," he says. "It's been fun. We've got so much to sell. The tradition. The facilities. The academics. What is there not to love about Carolina?"
A couple glimpses of Bunting during this recruiting season offer clues to the manner in which he attends to detail and provides leadership to his staff.
Coming to Chapel Hill from the NFL, Bunting had to pass an exam on NCAA recruiting rules before he could go on the road to evaluate prospects and visit their homes. Steinbacher told him a couple of times he was ready to pass the exam, but Bunting wanted to study some more. Eventually, Bunting took the exam and got the only acceptable score--40 questions, 40 correct.
"Aced it," Bunting said with a smile at his signing day press conference.
Once Bunting had most of his staff assembled by mid-January, he noted that the recruiting board in the staff conference room was looking a little thin. The Tar Heels were likely going to have more scholarships available than originally thought because of attrition. Grades were going to be problems with several targets. Others looked like they were headed elsewhere.
It was time, Bunting said, to dig deep--re-evaluate tape, get new tapes in, find out who was left in other states that might not be traditional recruiting ground, work the phones with contacts up and down the East Coast to see who might be overlooked.
"He did a great job starting cold turkey," Webster says.
"We did a good job late in the process of targeting guys," Browning says. "Coach Bunting's very aggressive. That came through."
Two results of the last-month scampering were Harry Lewis and Danny Rumley. Brewer spoke at a coaches' clinic in Louisville, Ky., last winter and was given a tape of Lewis, an outstanding athlete who could play several positions in college. Brewer liked what he saw but learned Lewis favored Kentucky. But when Kentucky Coach Hal Mumme was fired two weeks ago, Brewer and Bunting saw an opening, jumped on a plane and reeled him in. A phone call to an old coaching buddy alerted Brewer to Rumley, a receiver from Birmingham, Ala., who was getting the shaft from SEC schools because of his desire to attempt walking-on to basketball. Carolina's academic reputation was key with Lewis's parents, and its JV basketball program and the success of Curry and Julius Peppers helped with Rumley.
Of course, no one up to and including John Bunting will know how good this class will be until at least 2003. The staff likes the heart and toughness of its 21 new Tar Heels. If they work out like Corey Holliday did 13 years ago, Bunting's off to a good start.
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