by Lee Pace

The Tar Heels' journey back to football respectability went careening over the cliff on an Indian summer afternoon Saturday. Trailing the Maryland Terrapins by merely three points as the first half wound down, the Tar Heels imploded with a tragedy of errors--one interception, one fumble and a variety of missed tackles and botched assignments. Maryland exploded for 21 points in three minutes and 46 seconds. One moment the Heels were poised and competitive. Poof and they were discombobulated. The final score of 59-21 reflected a measure of Christian charity on the part of Terps coach Ralph Friedgen and sent the Heels reeling after a three-week stretch of one victory and two near-victories.

"We were in position several times to make a big play against them, instead it was a big play for them," Tar Heel coach John Bunting said of Maryland's 39-7 second-period domination. "That can really deflate you. That can get a team unraveled. It really concerns me that that could happen to a team I coach."

That was Point One to be taken from this game--that the Tar Heels remain a fragile entity. They've not had enough success individually or collectively to be confident and even carry themselves with a little arrogance. A couple turns for the worst and the bad stuff can avalanche as it did Saturday.

"It's largely a function of being too young, of never having been involved in situations like that," Bunting said. "You have to bounce back, to say, 'Okay, we're good enough to make those plays.' That's the thing about developing real, true, genuine confidence. The tough losses work on your confidence. It only happens over time. You develop confidence by doing things right on the practice field, over and over and over again. Then you take it to game day and experience success.

"You've heard of a false sense of security. I think we have a false sense of anxiety."

Point Two is that Bunting and the defensive staff are danged if they do, danged if they don't.

They entered the 2003 season hoping to be aggressive--to pressure the quarterback often and from every angle with every player. They sent some heat early but it rarely hurried the passer, much less got him on the ground, and the gambling often paid off in jackpots for the opposition. So they became more vanilla along about games four and five when more red-shirt freshmen and true freshmen began moving up the depth chart into starting and key reserve roles.

Now that newcomers like Larry Edwards, Alden Blizzard and Lionell Green have begun to get a little more comfortable, coordinator Dave Huxtable has gradually ratcheted the heat back up. Bunting, Huxtable and secondary coach Jim Fleming also decided last week to flirt once again with their cornerbacks playing press-man coverage on wideouts. The Tar Heels have not been good at that since Dre Bly and Robert Williams departed in the late-1990s, but the staff keeps working and hoping it can develop the skills needed to hassle a receiver at the line of scrimmage and still keep up with him downfield.

Both ideas bombed on Saturday.

Green came to Chapel Hill from junior-college with well-established bump-and-run skills, and he was the only Tar Heel cornerback not toasted off the line of scrimmage Saturday. Three first-half plays in particular were ugly with a Tar Heel providing only token resistance to the Terp receiver at the line.

"Poor technique," Bunting said. "We used poor technique on several plays."

Huxtable had hoped the Tar Heels could do a respectable job limiting Maryland on first and second down and get the Terps into passing situations. Then they'd bring pressure with an arsenal of fireworks known by names like Thunder and Apache and Cannon. Here's how that plan worked:

* Good result on third-and-goal at the three early in the game. Six players rushed and Dexter Reid hurried Scott McBrien into a bad throw.

* Bad result on second-and-18 at the Carolina 40 early in the second quarter. A safety blitz is efficiently picked up and McBrien completes a crossing route for 17 yards.

* Bad result on third-and-six at the Tar Heel 18 on the same drive. Carolina comes with a seven-man blitz, including two linebackers and a safety, but McBrien completes a nine-yarder against man-coverage for a first down.

* Bad result on third-and-goal at the Tar Heel six on the same drive. A cornerback, safety and linebacker come but McBrien slips through a missed tackle by an end for a touchdown.

* Bad result on third-and-seven at the Tar Heel 14 one Maryland possession later. McBrien launches a throw as seven Tar Heels stampede him and connects on a receiver who was hardly touched by a cornerback playing "press" coverage.

Need we say more?

"We were in position several times, that's the frustrating thing," Bunting said. "We were calling a defense to be aggressive. It makes it tough on coordinators, players and head coaches when you just can't quite make it."

And Point Three is that freshmen will make mental miscues that lead to bad plays. A freshman wideout ran his route incorrectly on a second-period throw intended for Jarwarski Pollock, allowing the freshman's defender to be where the ball was thrown instead of well out of harm's way. A newcomer also forgot to blitz on one of the aforementioned calls; he might have had an open lane to McBrien.

"That was very, very unfortunate," Bunting said. "He would have hit the quarterback before he threw the ball."

All of this, of course, is distasteful to many Tar Heel fans who want to win and win now. But in truth it's no different from 15 years ago when folks got tired of Mack Brown talking about the youth and the frequent assignment busts. It's unfortunate the Tar Heels and their legions of fans find themselves in this spot after experiencing the Big Time just a few years ago. But what is, is, and the only way out of the dungeon is recruit your tail off and work to develop the players in the program..

"We are a work in progress," Bunting said. "We knew that coming into the season. We're far from being done. We've got to coach our team better. We've got to continue to recruit to get good players into the program, good student-athletes who love football, talented guys who can make plays in games like this. We've got to keep working the younger players to make them better, make them stronger-willed, make them more competitive."

Bunting and his coaches racked their brains last week for any kernel of an idea that might help burst the Heels through the invisible membrane of losing to winning. The defense turned up the aggression and spent considerable time preparing for the option in the event McBrien, who suffered a concussion a week ago, was unable to play and Friedgen would go with an option-oriented quarterback. The offense, meanwhile, adjusted its plan around injuries to tight ends Bobby Blizzard and John Dunn.

Most of all, Bunting anguished over the state of the Tar Heels' psyches. He ached over the memory of his offensive linemen distraught in the locker room after the gut-wrenching loss at Clemson a week ago.

"I would give anything for these kids to have some success," he said. "Anything."

Away from the spotlight of the playing field and the media interviews and the won-loss record, a college football team in truth is simply a collection of kids doing things kids do. They laugh at one another and crack on one another and goof on one another. Sometimes they get mad and slug one another. But they push each other to lift a few more pounds or run a few seconds faster. They score a touchdown and trade chest-bumps. They recover a fumble and a mosh pit breaks out. They lose and cry and win and cut a swath down Franklin Street. All the while they're forming bonds that will last forever. They're the bonds that keep bringing the codgers of the Justice Era back to Chapel Hill year after year. They're the bonds that keep the Baby-Boomers from the Bunting Era on alert for anyone who so much as cuts his eyes at their boy in the head-coaching suite.

Last week Bunting instructed staff video director Chris Allen to assemble a montage to Bruce Springsteen's Blood Brothers. The piece features clips of the older Tar Heels--the seniors and juniors-in game action and informal horse-play, then winds its way at the end to the young pups prancing toward the end zone. Springsteen's scratchy and haunting voice winds to its denouement:

We stood side by side, each one fightin' for the other

We said until we died, we'd always be blood brothers.

The vignette ends with Jacque Lewis crossing the goal-line and the words BEAT MARYLAND superimposed over the image. Someone said Bunting got a little weepy Friday night showing the video to a group of Tar Heel fans gathered at the Greenbelt Marriott. I could understand why after viewing the piece myself Sunday night--still pondering the issue of why bad things keep happening to good people.