April 16, 2007

By Lee Pace
Extra Points

Spring football went fast for the Tar Heels this year. Fast on their feet, fast in their playbooks, fast from one drill to the next, fast from one snap of the ball to the next. They were force-fed football at the speed of sound, with Coach Butch Davis comparing the intensity of the learning curve at one position from doing mathematics one year and graduating to calculus the next.

"The game's fast," Davis says. "And that's the toughest thing for kids coming from high school to college and college to the NFL, understanding how fast game tempo is. You want their mind to quiet down. You want their mind to play slow, but you want their body to play fast to where the fans, the band, the blimp in the air and all that stuff's not a bigger experience."

Speed first applies to covering the ground running. Davis says the Tar Heel coaching staff will sacrifice a little size and a little strength for outstanding speed when evaluating potential recruits. The off-season conditioning program under Jeff Connors was subtly tweaked this winter to emphasize speed development.

"Coach Davis loves speed," says linebacker Chase Rice. "Obviously at Miami he had all those fast guys. That program was built around speed. This one will be as well."

"The new coaches are looking for guys who can run, who are tough and love to hit," says defensive end Hilee Taylor. "The emphasis is on speed."

Speed also applies to the pace of practice, to running play after play with many coaching points reserved for tape study in the meeting room, to snapping the football every 30 to 40 seconds during team drills.

"We are running 25 to 30 more plays per practice than a lot of teams because of our tempo," says Davis. "We're in and out of the huddle, forcing the issue. It's a little like a basketball team playing up-tempo, fast break, you're trying to put the pressure on the other team to crack and break because they can't keep up with your conditioning."

"It's funny how fast practice flies by," says center Scott Lenahan. "Honestly, we're out here, what, two, two-and-a-half hours? It doesn't feel close to being that long. There's no down time. There's something to do the whole time. No one's sitting around thinking."

Adds defensive tackle Kyndraus Guy: "Some guys can't wait to get out there. There's a lot of positive energy out there."

And speed applies to the teaching and the installation of the new playbooks on offense and defense.

"We meet fast, we talk fast, we practice fast," says offensive coordinator John Shoop. "If you sense your players are getting comfortable, you need to re-set your tempo. We're pushing them past their comfort zones. That's the way you learn and get better."

"In practice every drill is fast," offensive tackle Garrett Reynolds says. "We install fast, learn fast. They're putting a lot on us. We've learned a whole new offense in a couple of weeks."

Asked about the progress of one particular cornerback, Davis said he was playing well, added that two others had shown promise but that the secondary as a whole had "struggled a little bit" during the spring because of the demands put on it by defensive coordinator and secondary coach Chuck Pagano.

"There's a tremendous emphasis, an enormous emphasis on fundamentals, technique, footwork, jams, re-routes, disguises, bailing," Davis says. "If last year was arithmetic, we're already on calculus."

It has all added to an interesting four weeks of football around the Navy Practice Fields and Kenan Stadium as Davis and staff sent the Tar Heels through 14 sessions from March 19 through the Blue-White Game Saturday. The squad's 15th session will come Monday afternoon.

"I don't think I've ever been around a football team more excited to come out and practice," says sophomore QB Cameron Sexton. "Even the 6 a.m. workouts in the winter. No one wants to be up at 6 a.m., but guys were excited and upbeat and ready to work. The energy and excitement levels are higher than I've seen here."

One player who missed the action was Guy, a senior defensive tackle who is recovering from a torn ACL in his right knee. Guy hopes to be full speed by the summer, but for now he was a de facto assistant to defensive line coach John Blake. It killed him to miss the contact, but watching from the trenches gave him a good feel for the nature of the 2007 Tar Heels.

"We're a young team, but right now we've got a lot of depth," Guy says of the defense and, particularly, the defensive front. "That will be positive in the long run. We're more competitive this year than in the past even though we don't have the experience. We've got a lot of fresh legs. It comes back to getting in your playbook. A lot of stupid mistakes are being made, and that goes back to youth."

Surveying some of those young players, a couple that will certainly have a role next fall are freshman tackle Aleric Mullins and freshman end Darrius Massenburg (though he spent some time inside at tackle as well).

"Massenburg, wow," says Guy. "I told him he was going to be great whether he likes it or not.

"Mullins, the best asset he has is that he's shorter than everyone. He can get under your pads, he's got great leverage. I'm supposed to be watching him to see how to get my hips down."

Other newcomers made their presence felt throughout the month.

Freshman QB T.J. Yates operated the No. 1 offense, though that's not to say he has the position sewn up. Yates red-shirted last fall; he has size at 6-3 and a strong arm and picked up the offense well.

"We're clearly unsettled at quarterback," Davis says. "It's still a position that's up in the air. It probably will be that way until some point in training camp. At some point we're going to have to pull the trigger and make a decision. I would guess it would be somewhere after about the first week of training camp."

Ronnie McGill has graduated and Barrington Edwards is suspended indefinitely, leaving a cluster of players vying for time at tailback, among them senior Justin Warren, sophomore Richie Rich and three freshmen -- Johnny White, Anthony Elzy and Anthony Parker-Boyd. Bobby Rome is the No. 1 fullback with last year's starter, Nick Starcevic, moving to defense. Rich opened Saturday's Blue-White scrimmage running with the No. 1 offense, but there is still many snaps to be taken before the competition settles itself out.

"It's still up in the air," says Rich. "Everyone brings a little something different to the table. My strengths are speed and quickness. Elzy's a powerful runner. We all do something well."

The left side of the offensive line will be all new with the graduation of tackle Brian Chacos and dismissal of Charlston Gray. Kyle Jolly, red-shirted last fall as a freshman, spent half of spring behind Garrett Reynolds at right tackle but then moved to the left side and had moved in front of Andre Barbour by the end of spring. Sophomore Aaron Stahl was running first at left guard. Center and the right side are manned by returning starters Lenahan, Calvin Darity and Reynolds, though Darity did not play Saturday.

"I think we're going to be a physical group," says Sam Pittman, the offensive line coach. "We're pretty athletic, pretty smart and we're willing to work hard. We're going to be young on that left side. I'm real excited with what the older players are showing me. When you first get to a new job, you usually walk in and find there's no talent there at all. That certainly hasn't been the case here."

Jon Hamlett's departure leaves Richard Quinn (injured last year) and Vince Jacobs (red-shirted) as the top candidates at tight end. A tweaking in the position-designation system of Davis and Shoop is that an "H-Back" is now listed "HB" on the roster. The H-Back is a tight end/wingback/fullback hybrid; sophomore Ryan Taylor and Zack Pianalto (true freshman who entered school in January) are among the top players there.

The wide receivers have a nice nucleus returning in Nicks, Brandon Tate, and Brooks Foster. Kenton Thornton has had a good spring and made a lot of catches, and Joe Dailey moved from quarterback and is smart and has good speed.

On defense, the return of Trimane Goddard at strong safety is significant. His loss for the year last August was devastating to the Tar Heels. He's now back full speed and will be the anchor of a very young secondary. Jermaine Strong was impressive from mid-season on last year and will start at right cornerback. Freshman Kendric Burney was running with the ones at left corner, and freshman Shaun Draughn had moved into Kareen Taylor's vacated free safety position.

Freshman Wesley Flagg has moved into the starting slot at middle linebacker, with senior Durell Mapp moving outside as the weakside backer with Rice on the opposite side. Freshmen Bruce Carter and Quan Sturdivant, both of them January enrollees, are running with the second team. All three of those freshmen are quintessential linebacker types: 6-2 to 6-3 height range, 225-230 pounds and excellent speed.

"Those guys can run," says Mapp. "They're aggressive and hustle to the ball. I think we've got a lot of guys at linebacker who can play."

The emphasis on speed is reminiscent of the Mack Brown days in Chapel Hill when any conversation with Brown or an assistant coach about personnel started and stopped with the question, "Can he run?" Brown and Davis both were weaned on Southern football and learned their coaching craft in the Southeastern Conference and the old Southwest and Big Eight Conferences, where recruiting speed across the Sun Belt was a program's bread and butter.

"Speed is a hallmark of football teams I've been associated with going back to Oklahoma State, Miami and Dallas," Davis says of coaching stops in the Big Eight, Big East and NFL. "We want to be the fastest football team on the field."

As Davis and his staff work to build a team that will reflect that philosophy, he's done an excellent job instilling a renewed sense of family and organization around the program.

"We're a new, spirited team, one with a new swagger and more confidence," says Elzy.

And any time a team is coming off a difficult season, as the Tar Heels did in 2006 with a 1-9 start and the turmoil of the firing of Coach John Bunting, the bile in the players' mouths always serves as a strong motivational force.

"The promise I made to myself is, no matter what, a 3-9 season will never happen again," Guy says. "That was the most disturbing thing I've ever been through."

The Tar Heels have many questions to answer and many holes to fill across the board. But with a new shot of adrenalin from an experienced, organized and focused head coach, September 1 and the James Madison opener can't come quickly enough. Davis addressed the crowd in Kenan Stadium Saturday and said, "This program is headed in the right direction to win a national championship." That's certainly fast company, appropriate indeed for a program that knows just one speed.