Oct. 10, 2008

by Lee Pace, Extra Points

There isn't much good history to the Carolina-Notre Dame series. After all, the Irish have won 16 games, the Tar Heels one. But there certainly are some interesting kernels in plowing through the archives and memory banks of those involved since the two teams first met in New York's Yankee Stadium in November 1949.

Athletic directors Chuck Erickson of Carolina and Moose Krause of Notre Dame set up that first game at a neutral site. The Tar Heels were interested in gaining New York media exposure for Heisman Trophy candidate Charlie "Choo Choo" Justice, and Notre Dame liked the idea of playing in the Catholic hotbed of Gotham. Unfortunately for Justice and the Tar Heels, he was injured the week before against William & Mary, and his contribution against the Irish was limited to holding for an extra point. Notre Dame won, 42-6.

I recently came across an interesting connection with that game and the evolution of Carolina's Finley Golf Course in researching a centennial book for the Carolinas Golf Association. If you missed that story, you can find it at the Tarheelbue.com blog here.

Richard Stone (UNC '59) of Bowling Green, Ky., is often a font of historical detail where Carolina football is concerned, and he sends along an interesting tidbit about the scheduling of that game.

"In order to play Notre Dame in New York City, UNC needed to clear its schedule," Stone writes. "Fortunately, Maryland's Jim Tatum (the head coach and athletic director and former Tar Heel lineman and coach), agreed to cancel the Maryland-UNC game originally set for Nov. 12, 1949. Maryland wound up playing only nine games that year, finishing 8-1 before beating Missouri in the 1950 Gator Bowl. Since the Terps lost only to Michigan State, they might well have won the Southern Conference championship had Maryland played and beaten UNC. As it was, UNC won the championship on the basis of conference games played (five for UNC, four for Maryland). Apparently, Tatum wanted to store up good will in Chapel Hill."

Tatum later won the national championship at Maryland and returned to Carolina as head coach from 1956-58.

Erickson and Krause liked the relationship and proceeded to establish a regular series of home-and-home games, with 13 played over the next 17 years, the first game following in 1950 in South Bend. I happened upon some great footage from some of those games from half a century ago on Notre Dame's website. If you visit the site http://und.cstv.com, click on Multimedia on the banner near the top of the home page, then scroll down to the Notre Dame-North Carolina retrospective. The 1950 game is included in the piece that is comprised of clips from the old Notre Dame Sunday highlights show that was narrated by Lindsey Nelson. At about 2 minutes, 45 seconds into the piece, you'll see one of the most amazing plays ever: The Tar Heels from their own 16 yard-line ran a fake punt. Dick Bunting was standing on the five yard-line, took the snap from center and stepped as if preparing to kick to draw the Notre Dame rush. Then he spun out to the left, where he had a wall of three blockers set up. That gutsy play went for 37 yards and a first down. Still, Notre Dame won the game, 14-7.

Carolina's lone victory in the series came in 1960 when the Tar Heels clipped a team led by future NFL greats Nick Buoniconti and Daryle Lamonica, 12-7. Ray Farris hit Skip Clement on a 47-yard scoring pass, and Mike Greenday had a 42-yard interception return for Carolina's two touchdowns. The Tar Heel defense was outstanding, picking off five passes and stopping the Irish five times inside the 20 yard-line. Some 40,000 jammed into Kenan Stadium (this was before the upper decks were added), and a jubilant storm of fans ripped down the goalposts afterward.

Greenday tragically died at the young age of 40, but his brother Greg writes from his home in Brookhaven, Pa., that Saturday's game will have a special place in the Greenday family heart.

"My parents made several trips from our Pennsylvania home to Chapel Hill to watch Mike play, and I always accompanied them--except for the 1960 Notre Dame game," Greg writes. "I had a game of my own to play for my grammar school that day and I figured Mike wouldn't want me to miss it, so I stayed at home.

"Years later, my brother told me that all the Tar Heels were heroes after beating Notre Dame that day, and many of the fans at Kenan swarmed the field after the final gun. As Mike recalled, some of the more jubilant fans were trying to get a souvenir to take with them. They were going after helmets, chin straps, pieces of the players' jerseys... whatever they could get their hands on. Somehow, Mike had the presence of mind to take his chin strap and stuff it in his pants so the fans couldn't get to it. He never told me personally, but years later my parents informed me that he turned the chin strap over to them with orders to give it to me, his little brother. I kept it for some 20 years. When Mike died in 1980, I passed it on to his two sons.

"Today, 48 years after the fact, that chin strap remains in the Greenday family as a treasured keepsake."

The table is certainly set this week for a resurgent Tar Heel squad to add some texture to the history book.

Saturday night was the most fun I have had at a game in a long time. The crowd was really into it, making the win even more special. My son, Cameron, wondered about an element of the blocked punts. If UConn picked the ball up and ran with it, could they have gotten a first down or a touchdown if we had not tackled him?
George Floyd

Indeed they could have. The ball is live after the block and is anyone's to recover and advance. If the Huskies had recovered the ball and advanced it past the first down marker, they would have retained the ball. Had they not crossed the first-down line, it would have simply been an unsuccessful fourth-down attempt and Carolina would have taken over on downs. And yes, they could have scored a touchdown as well.

Is there a member of the coaching staff who has responsibility for monitoring the video replay for calls which the Heels might want to challenge? I'm thinking particularly of incidents of players keeping their feet in-bounds, questions of fumbles vs. knees down, etc. Is there someone other than the players involved in helping Coach Davis ascertain whether or not he has a good chance of winning a challenge?
Joseph Caddell, Washington, D.C.

College staffs are not allowed to use television replays or their in-house video systems during games. As NFL teams over the last couple of decades began using all manner of sophisticated technology during games--from coaches communicating with quarterbacks by radio to coaches making photos of formations from upstairs and faxing them to the sidelines--the NCAA stepped in to restrict such innovations in college. It didn't want schools with more resources to gain an advantage by spending more money on technology.

Thus Davis depends on his own eyes and judgment and those of all of his coaches and players for input on potential appeals. The coaches in the box can sometimes have a vantage point that helps, and if one of them has a strong opinion, they'll certainly communicate that via the headsets. After close calls, you'll see Davis and his staff anxiously looking at the video board for the replay.

The coach can take input from anyone. If you recall, Virginia Coach Al Groh used the vantage point of the Cavaliers' ball boys to appeal the ruling on a field goal in Virginia's 22-20 win last year in Kenan Stadium. A third-quarter field goal by Chris Gould was originally ruled as short, but the ball boys said it had indeed cleared the crossbar. They communicated their views to Groh, who appealed and had the ruling overturned.

Why doesn't Coach Davis put the little Heel stickers on the players' helmets anymore like previous coaches have done?
Jay Lee Cox, Greenville

Davis thinks those kinds of awards attract too much attention to the individual. He's more about team accomplishments than individual awards.

How many phases are there going to be for the Kenan Stadium renovation, and what will the seating capacity be once the project is completed?
Jeffrey Wallace

The plans for the renovation are fluid at the moment, and the University's Board of Trustees has not yet approved the most recent blueprints. Thus the seating capacity total is not available.

There is no question that the stadium, which is now more than 80 years old, is in need of major upfitting. Some of the elements under consideration are: renovations of the bathrooms and concession stands; a new academic center for all of UNC's student-athletes; premium seats, including suites and club seats; a concourse to completely connect the lower bowl; dramatic new landscaping that would include the planting of more than 1,000 trees.

"One of the exciting things about our design is that we will keep the four vistas in the corners of the stadium," Athletic Director Dick Baddour says as he views the trees that loom above the playing field in each corner. "We will keep those corners open so that when you're in the stadium, you won't lose the connection to the campus. That's such a big deal to us. Our overall goal is to enhance the game day experience for our fans, while preserving the history integrity and beauty of Kenan Stadium."

In three home games this year, operations officials have had to deal with lights going out, an elevator malfunction underneath the press box, a fire started by lightning that debilitated the public address system, and an episode of concrete dislocation in one section. The McNeese State game was the second in four years (Wisconsin in 2005 was the other), where officials had to completely evacuate the stadium to Kenan's narrow concourse areas.

"If anyone needs to know why we need to fix it, all they need to do is show up on Saturday," Davis says.

Chapel Hill writer Lee Pace is in his 19th year of chronicling Carolina football through "Extra Points." He'll answer questions about the Tar Heels weekly throughout the season through his "Extra Points Mailbag" and on the pregame show for the Tar Heel Sports Network. Email him at leepace@nc.rr.com and include your name and hometown. No recruiting questions, please.