Oct. 27, 2003

Clemson coach Tommy Bowden lamented last week the fact he and his staff allowed Florence's Darian Durant to leave the state without much of a fight following the 1999 high-school football season. "I wish we'd have gone after him a little harder," Bowden said. "But we were looking for a little different body type and didn't pay Darian as much attention."

Under new quarterbacks coach Mike O'Cain, the Tar Heel staff was looking for athletic quarterbacks as signing day 2000 approached. Carolina had had a run in the mid-1990s of signing prep quarterbacks with gaudy passing stats but limited speed, quickness and improvisation talents.

"Look at Steve McNair and what he did scrambling in the Super Bowl," Carl Torbush said, referring to the Tennessee Titans' mobile quarterback. "The problem as a defensive football coach is, you worry more about a guy who can hurt you running 15 or 20 yards downfield with the football when nobody's open. A drop-back passer can hurt you one way--throwing it. If he can't find someone open, you can get him on the ground."

The Tar Heels signed QB Aaron Leak from Durham that year along with Durant, who had missed six games as a high-school senior because of injury. It turned out that even the Carolina staff wasn't sure what it had in Durant, as both O'Cain and Torbush believed Leak to be the prize catch between the two as they shared scout-team duties in 2000.

Torbush, O'Cain and Leak are no longer around. Torbush is defensive coordinator at Texas A&M. O'Cain is quarterbacks coach at Clemson. And Leak is the starting quarterback at Troy State, and Saturday went 6-of-19 for 72 yards as Troy State was whipped at Virginia.

But Durant is still around Chapel Hill and took another step Saturday in his ascension up the record-book ladder.

Jason Stanicek

Durant, known by his teammates as "D-Block" for his sturdy physical composition, ran 64 yards for one score and threw for one more Saturday at Clemson. He ran for 110 yards and passed for 208 and in the process passed Ronald Curry as the Tar Heels' all-time total offense leader. He now has 6,299 yards, just ahead of Ronald Curry (6,236 from 1998-2001) and Jason Stanicek (5,497 from 1991-94).

His performance was tinged somewhat by his mistakes, however, as he threw three interceptions and fumbled the ball just shy of the goal-line in the game's final minute. "Sometimes a strength can work against you," John Bunting said. "Darian is such a competitor and is always trying to make a play. On one of his interceptions, he probably should have tucked it in and run. He tried to dink one in there and it got tipped."

Added safety Dexter Reid: "I've got so much faith and confidence in D-Block. He's one of the best in the ACC."

The best news for the Tar Heels, though, is that "D-Block" still has at least 15 games left in his career.