University of North Carolina Athletics
RAMblings - Four to Watch - Rams Club
RAMblings 8.4.09 - Four to Watch
by Lee Pace
Butch Davis welcomes the 2009 Tar Heels to campus on Thursday for the opening of training camp amidst a substantial amount of buzz.
Carolina has improved from 4-8 in 2007 to 8-4 a year later, and that latter record could have been better given the Tar Heels’ two 3-point losses and one 2-point loss, so fans are anxious to measure the next anticipated leap forward. Season ticket sales are within a whisker of last year’s pace—overall a good barometer given the economic morass of the last year and the fact there are no marquee opponents like Notre Dame coming to Kenan Stadium this fall. And workers are working hard to complete an extensive renovation and expansion of the Kenan Football Center that provides Davis, his staff and players more space and more structure.
“We’re still a young football team,” Davis says. “You talk about nine starters that are coming back, but all nine of those are basically underclassmen. E.J. Wilson and Cam Thomas are the only seniors we have on defense. We are still growing, and there are a lot of things from a sophistication standpoint we can improve on. Our mantra is very simple—try to get better every week.”
Quarterback T.J. Yates notes that it’s tougher to take the second step in growing a program than to take the first: “It’s harder to go to 11 wins from eight wins than to eight from four,” he says. “We’re definitely going to work as hard as we can, get to next level and compete for BCS games and ACC championships.”
How much the Tar Heels can improve each week will depend on many factors, not the least of which is how much newcomers to the lineups can plug holes and contribute. As two-a-days begin early next week, here are four fresh faces to keep an eye on:
* Split end Dwight Jones — The athletic receiver from Burlington finally gets his chance to show what all the recruiting fuss was about after a year at prep school and delayed entry into Carolina last August. Jones originally signed with Carolina in February 2007, spurning offers from Alabama, Clemson, Florida, Tennessee and Virginia Tech, among others, and attended Hargrave Military Academy for the 2007-08 school year. He played briefly as a freshman last fall but didn’t catch a pass.
The 6-foot-4 Jones played behind Hakeem Nicks at split end and is expected to start there come September. One of Jones’ off-season projects was to learn to run more efficiently—to lengthen his stride and eschew a choppier running style he brought to campus. Strength and conditioning coach Jeff Connors says Jones was taking too many steps to get from Point A to B and has learned the concept of acceleration in his running style.
“Dwight’s had a good off-season,” Davis says. “We have lengthened his stride, taught him to run with his shoulders over his knees. He’s learning to break the cushions from the defensive backs a little quicker. He’s in better position to get in and out of cuts. He’s gotten better at being able to out-physical the defender. He now runs straight up and down with a lower center of gravity.”
* Left guard Jonathan Cooper — The 6-3, 295-pound freshman from Wilmington reminds Connors of Jason Brown, the three-year starting center from 2002-04 who now plays for the Baltimore Ravens of the NFL.
“But for a young kid, he’s already done some things in the weight room that Jason never did,” Connors says. “Jonathan’s already benched 470 pounds, and that’s more than Jason ever benched.”
Cooper made his way to the second team last year and traveled on road trips in case he was forced by injury into action, but the plan by coach Sam Pittman was to red-shirt him. Pittman actually sees Cooper as the Tar Heels’ center of the future, but help is needed more at guard in 2009, and it’s easier to break in a newcomer at guard than at center.
“He’s got a lot of athletic ability and he’s got a big ole anchor in the back of his pants,” offensive coordinator John Shoop says. “He is really hard to move. He’s low to the ground, and no one can get around him. He and Alan Pelc can be really good guards for us. We do a lot of things with our guards—we pull them get them on the edge, and you’ve got to be athletic to do that. I think these guys can be pretty good.”
* Linebacker Zach Brown — With Mark Paschal’s departure, Quan Sturdivant has moved from outside linebacker to the middle, and the 6-2, 220-pound Brown has taken Sturdivant’s slot at the weakside position. Brown is from Columbia, Md., played one year at Hargrave and was a special teams contributor in 2008.
Speed is Brown’s stock in trade.
He was timed by the Hargrave coaches in 2007 at 4.3 in the 40 and last spring amazed his teammates by clocking 4.26. He has also run the 100-meters in 10.4 and has athletic ability that Kenny Browning, the lead recruiter for Brown, terms “freakish.” Davis pegs him “electrifyingly fast.”
“Zach’s speed is just really special,” Browning says. “He’s able to make plays with his speed he might not otherwise. And the more comfortable he becomes, the more football he learns, the more you’ll see it. He doesn’t have a lot of background as a linebacker. He was more of a safety and tailback in high school. His best football is still ahead of him.”
* Safety Da’Norris Searcy — The junior from Decatur, Ga., ran with the first-team defense at strong safety this spring. That followed an outstanding performance he had in the Meineke Car Care Bowl, where he started as a fifth defensive back and had 10 tackles and two sacks. Previously, Searcy had excelled as a special-teams player and last year was tabbed teammates as the player most likely to block a punt if Bruce Carter, who led the nation with five blocks, couldn’t get to a kick.
Searcy has the athletic and physical skills. He can run a 4.41 in the forty and benches 385. His job is to simply learn to play the position.
“We have high expectations for Da’Norris,” Davis says. “We’ve known he is a very physical, aggressive player. We have seen that on special teams. His biggest challenge is the recognition stuff, the either/or downs. If he knows it’s run or he knows it’s pass, he’s pretty solid. It’s the snaps that could be one or the other that he has to master. Those are the hallmarks of how your safeties are playing. They cannot get sucked up on play-action passes. But he’s a very good tackler, and we love the fact he brings extra speed to the safety position.”