Oct. 10, 2003

by Lee Pace, Extra Points

Every Tar Heel fan has an opinion about what it's going to take to get the program back to its winning ways. The emails have been flooding in the last month with the keys to the kingdom: A better running game. Tight man-to-man pass defense. A new defensive scheme. Modernized uniforms.

I'll give you my opinion. Following is the single-most important component of resurrecting the Heels from this horrendous downturn:

How well will the current players, particularly the first- and second-year guys, sell the program to recruits on their campus visits?

An innocuous sounding component of the whole process, you might think. But don't underestimate the power of one 20-year-old's influence on a 17-year-old.

A coaching staff uses all kinds of tools to help sell potential recruits on their institution--excellent facilities, a roster of former players in the NFL, high graduation rates, jerseys emblazoned with the prospect's name on the back, comely female hostesses, not to mention the daily flow of mail and phone calls. Parents have an opinion on where their sons should matriculate. High school coaches have an opinion. Teammates and girlfriends have an opinion.

But looming above every other kernel of influence in the process are the vibes the prospect gets from his potential future teammates when they're one-on-one.

During the late-1980s to mid-1990s era when Mack Brown and staff were landing Top-20 signing classes on a regular basis, Brown always pointed to the time prospects spent with the current players as the key ingredient in the sales process.

"Our kids sell our program," Brown used to say. "If they're not happy, they can't convince a recruit to come here."

Corey Holliday, a Tar Heel receiver from 1990-93 and today a member of John Bunting's administrative staff, remembers hosting William Henderson on the prospect's official recruiting weekend in the 1989-90 recruiting season. Holliday that year was a true freshman and was being red-shirted. He was assigned to being Henderson's host since both were native Virginians--Holliday from Richmond and Henderson from Chester.

"I was on him all weekend," Holliday remembers. "'William, we're going to win big here. You want to be a part of it. We're going to turn this around. We need a great fullback.' ... That kind of stuff. That's what's happening now. I think our kids will do a great job selling the fact they believe in what we're doing, that we will be successful and you need to come be a part of it."

Henderson did, of course, sign with Carolina and went on to a productive career from 1991-94 and still is blocking and scoring touchdowns with the Green Bay Packers.

February's signing class was applauded as being Bunting's best in two full recruiting seasons at Carolina, and 12 true freshmen have already played. To a man the freshmen are competent players and confident about the direction of the program.

"We hope to change the attitude of the program," says receiver Jesse Holley. "Our class is upbeat, we have a more go-get-'em attitude."

"We can build with this group of freshmen," adds fellow receiver Adarius Bowman. "We're working together to make the team better."

"I visited Michigan and Alabama and liked them both, but Carolina blew me away," says linebacker Fred Sparkman. "I liked the coaches, the players, everything about it."

Of course, there's no way for any of us to monitor the give-and-take, the ebb-and-flow of the visits prospects make to Chapel Hill. But if Bunting & Co. keep landing players like this year's crop of freshmen, you'll know the vibes from current players to prospective ones are healthy and productive.

Having heard so much about the financial status of college athletics, particularly with ACC expansion, I was curious to know what are the most "profitable" football games for the Heels to play. Do the Heels gain financially by playing ECU or William and Mary? Or do the Heels profit by playing a home-and-home series with a national power?
Jay Hill, Greensboro

The component most important to having a profitable schedule is to have a winning team. When the Tar Heels are winning, ticket sales, concessions, souvenir and media sales are all healthy. Most of the tickets for Carolina's remaining home games against Arizona State, Wake Forest and Duke have been sold, but with the Heels mired in a five-game losing streak, the attendance for those games could be spotty, putting a damper on revenue from concessions and merchandise.

A home-and-home series with East Carolina is certainly a boon to the bottom line in those years because you're certain to sell out the stadium. Whether or not Carolina should play the Pirates is a much larger issue--one that goes far beyond the football field and even the athletic department. Former Carolina athletic director John Swofford acknowledged in 1995, when tomorrow's game against ECU was announced, that it was "an institutional decision"--it was not an athletics decision.

William & Mary is a completely different situation. The Indians were added to Carolina's 2004 schedule recently because an already scheduled game against Virginia Tech suddenly became a conference game with the Hokies' admission to the ACC, and Carolina needed to find another non-conference opponent in short order. And it needed to be a team which Carolina could host in Kenan Stadium on a one-shot deal without having to return the game to the opposing team's home. Carolina's athletic administration needs to schedule those kinds of games frequently in order to insure having at least six home games per fall.

There's no question that scheduling high-profile intersectional games are important. (Check the Extra Points archives by clicking the icon on the lower-right corner of the Tarheelblue.com home page and reading the August 29th Q&A for more background). Carolina and Texas exchanged $300,000 guarantees for their home-and-home series in 2001 and 2002. Both games were picked up by national TV networks.

The nuances can be difficult to absorb, though, in the scheduling arena. Carolina has had talks with several high-profile SEC schools about playing games later in this decade or early in the next. But some SEC schools are attempting to schedule as many as eight home games a season in order to pay for stadium upgrades and private luxury suites. Carolina talked recently with Auburn about exchanging home games. Auburn said it would love to have Carolina come for a visit and would pay a guarantee of $800,000--but it would not return the game to Chapel Hill.

With all the changes both defensively and offensively, with freshmen being put in, has any thought been given to trying one of our other quarterbacks? Darian Durant gets the points on the board but ..... well, quite frankly, we have no wins this season. What would be the harm in trying out one of the other quarterbacks since change seems to be the name of the game? ?
David Campbell, Chapel Hill?

Durant is far and away Carolina's most productive and dangerous offensive threat. There's no way he'll sit down as long as he's healthy. But you make a good point that at some point the Tar Heel staff is going to have to groom a younger quarterback to take over for Durant in 2005. But right now, the Tar Heels are desperate to win a game--any game. They need Durant on the field.

I know coach Bunting is playing several freshmen on defense, but what is the average age and grade of UNC's defense compared to some of the teams they have played. It seems to me that some of the other teams have guys a lot bigger and older than what the Tar Heels can put onto the field. ?
Tim Gore, Hope Mills

Age and playing experience are obviously important. Given two players of equal athletic ability, you obviously prefer the senior to the sophomore or freshman. The senior is no longer doing anything new--he's seen it all before and knows how to react. Plus he's tougher mentally and stronger physically.

But sometimes too much is made of the age issue. It doesn't matter if one player is a senior if he doesn't have the ability to compete athletically with the guy across the line of scrimmage.

What you are striving for is athletic ability and maturity. That's what Carolina had in the 1990s, when it produced its most consistent stretch of success in school history--nine straight winning seasons from 1990-1998, seven consecutive bowl appearances and the 11th-best winning percentage in the country over seven years.

During the two peaks of that stretch of success--the 1992-93 seasons and the 1996-97 seasons--the Tar Heels started 18 juniors and seniors out of 22 slots.

Coming into this season, the coaches talked about the running game. They said that they wanted to run the ball and run it successfully. There were four legitimate candidates for the job. Why has Carolina continued to be stymied when it comes to running the ball? I know that in the past, you cited the lack of a proven fullback and only one scholarship tight end. The Heels seem to have capable backs. Why not stick with one back and try to get him about 20 carries per game? The coaches seem to be too quick to abandon the running game and are too quick to put in another back when one is unsuccessful. ?
Jeff Hicks, Nashville, Tenn.

Bunting got this very question twice this week--on his Sunday teleconference and Tuesday news conference. He continued to cite the lack of sufficient numbers, experience and ability at fullback and tight end as a problem in the running game. In the Tar Heels' offensive system, an "H-back" is a fullback-tight end hybrid who is used in the slot, on the wing and in motion for blocking purposes in the running game. Last year, tight ends Zach Hilton and Bobby Blizzard were used frequently together in the lineup--as either bookend tight ends or a tight end and "H" back.

"We have not found ourselves a fullback or an H-back to run up in there and block for our runners," Bunting said. "In order to run the football really well, you need a lead blocker. We have not yet found that guy. We need to get that piece of the puzzle figured out. You do that by continuing to develop the players you have in your program and then you go out and recruit to fit that need. We're trying to do both."

Jacque Lewis has been Carolina's most productive back this season. He's been used as a tailback and a "Rabbit" back--sort of a fullback hybrid whose job it is to catch short passes in the flanks. Lewis has rushed for 101 yards on 18 carries in five games and has caught 19 passes for 211 yards.

That's certainly good production--but it comes with a caveat.

"People say, 'Why don't you play Jacque more?'" Bunting says. "When we play him too much, we've gotten him hurt. We've got to limit what he can do. Last year he played on three special teams and played a lot at tailback. Now we've limited him to being the personal-protector on the punt team because he's a good blocker and he's smart."

I have talked to some of the top players in Dekalb County, Ga., about uniforms. They say they like the updated uniform that a lot of the schools are wearing (West Virginia, Notre Dame, California, Miami) and so on. I think it would improve recruiting and add some excitement with our present team. ?
Glenn White, Atlanta

A uniform-related question pops up most every year. I always answer it the same way: Look at the uniforms of the some of the most storied programs in college football--Penn State, Tennessee, Alabama, Texas, Southern Cal, Michigan, Ohio State.

Their uniforms never change.

Unfortunately in programs that never achieve consistent success, new coaches come and go and each new coach wants to brand the program his own by changing the uniform. Over the last 20 years, look at the uniform designs at Wake Forest, N.C. State and Maryland--their programs have been up and down and each coach has changed the uniform design.

Dick Crum wanted nothing to do with the Bill Dooley era when he came to Carolina in 1978, so he invented a new helmet logo and tabled the use of the traditional "interlocking NC." Mack Brown brought it back in 1988.

Sorry, but I can promise you that with Bunting as head coach the Tar Heel uniforms will never venture from the straight-and-narrow.

TarHeelBlue.com football expert Lee Pace will again answer your questions about the Carolina program this season in an exclusive column published each Friday. Pace, editor of the Extra Points newsletter that appears each Monday morning, will answer your questions on personnel, strategy, opponents and anything on your mind about the Tar Heels. Please send your questions to Lee at lpace@nc.rr.com, and include your first and last names and your hometown.