Nov. 19, 2007

by Lee Pace, Extra Points

The voyage of the 2007 football season is coming to port in five days when Duke docks in Kenan Stadium, and the Tar Heels found yet another undertow of turbulence Saturday against Georgia Tech.

This year already we've seen the final-tick field goal by East Carolina and the five three-pointers by Virginia, including the infamous Virgil Valdez sun-spot reversal; the 53-yard end-around on Virginia Tech's first snap that helped spot the Hokies their margin of victory; the stadium lights that got in the eyes of Greg Little, wide open in the end zone in the fourth quarter versus South Carolina; and the freak interception by DeMario Pressley to set up N.C. State's winning touchdown.

Saturday in the shadows of the Atlanta skyscrapers, the should-haves and could-haves continued to mount into a colossal heap that, were they candy and nuts, would leave us all well-sated over the coming holidays. Richard Quinn dropped a sure touchdown pass when his focus was averted by a defender's tip of the football. For the third straight week, the offense could not salt away a victory with a sustained fourth-quarter drive. The Tar Heels watched a 77-yard punt sail over their heads, and their own punter poofed one 29 yards near the game's end, giving Tech excellent field position for a game winning field goal with 15 seconds left.

The more things change around Tar Heel football, the more they seem to stay the same. Carolina found yet another way to lose a close game, falling to Tech 27-25 for its fifth loss in a row in Atlanta and ninth loss to the Yellow Jackets in the last decade. That's now six losses by 24 points total in 2007.

"With a lot of teams, you get one or two heart-breakers, and that's it," senior center Scott Lenahan said. "It's like, `We can't win.' But none of our guys make any excuses. Our guys bounce back every time it happens. They come back and fight their butts off every week. I'm proud to be associated with these guys and this team."

"Everybody knows we have talent," sophomore receiver Hakeem Nicks added. "We're just a young team. Once we figure out how to pull it all together, I feel like we'll be a very dominant team in the future."

Individually there have been stellar moments this season. T.J. Yates passed for 253 yards Saturday and established a new single-season passing mark; his 2,586 yards eclipsed Darian Durant's 2003 standard of 2,551 yards. Connor Barth nailed four field goals to move into first all-time in the Carolina record book for most field goals made, now with 54. Brandon Tate with a 46-yard kick-off return became the ACC's all-time leader in kick-off return yards with 2,360.

But all of them would trade the records for more wins.

"I could care less right now," Yates said. "I just wish we could have gotten a win."

The game was yet another indictment on a season-long team deficiency that coach Butch Davis has pounded the table about ad nauseam--the Tar Heels' inability to run the ball and stop the run on a consistent basis. And Georgia Tech provided an ideal laboratory for continued experimentation in those arts as the Yellow Jackets sport the ACC's leading rusher in senior tailback Tashard Choice and an offensive line with four players with four years or more experience in the program.

"They are more of a throwback team," Davis said. "They are a bloody-your-nose kind of team. The object is to hammer you."

"Bring your big-boy pads," defensive coordinator Chuck Pagano warned. "This is a neck-brace kind of game."

"This is pure football," nose tackle Aleric Mullins added. "There's nothing fancy about them. This is no place for the timid. Gap control, not getting double-teamed is what we're thinking about this week."

Meanwhile, offensive coordinator John Shoop and his staff have been noodling around the grease boards, playbooks and depth charts to find and create ways to improve on the Tar Heels' woeful 92.4 yard-per-game average on the ground.

"I know two- and three-yard run plays happen. I know that," Shoop said. "But if you have four or five two- to three-yard runs and then you rip a 40-yarder, your average is pretty good. If you have seven or eight runs of two and three yards and you never rip that 40-yarder, your average isn't much. We have had chances to rip those 40-yarders but haven't done it. We as a coaching staff have to do a better job manufacturing those runs. It was a concern in training camp and still is today."

The staff's latest effort to generate a consistent ground was the insertion Saturday of receiver Greg Little into the lineup as the starting tailback. He is now is the fifth Tar Heel to get an opportunity to show some big-play ability, some knack for turning a play blocked for a four-yard gain into a 20-yard gain, and someone who can play adroitly without the ball as well as with it. Johnny White and Anthony Elzy have auditioned for highlight tapes, but their reels just aren't long enough. Freshman Ryan Houston is a horse with the football in his hands but still needs to learn to run low and pick up the blitz on pass plays. Richie Rich never broke enough tackles to work his way up the depth chart and has been moved to defense. Freshman Devon Ramsay could be a player of the future, but he's not been remarkable enough to prompt the coaches to remove his red shirt.

Ergo Little's move to the running backs group, where position coach Ken Browning gave him a crash course the last two weeks on blitz protections and the other nuances to playing the position.

"I felt like I picked up the protections well enough in practice, and Coach felt he could rely on me, that he could put me in and not get T.J. killed," Little said.

Little gained 115 yards on 24 carries, but his net total fell back to 89 when 20 yards were subtracted when he misplayed a pitch from Yates and Tech recovered the fumble. He also lined up at wideout several times and caught three passes for 13 yards.

"I love running the ball," Little said. "I love having the ball in my hands. I like to make things happen. I'm kind of a hybrid between receiver and running back. I like the variety, I like doing both."

Davis sang Little's praises after the game Saturday.

"It's a hard transition from wideout to getting the snot knocked out of you 35 times a game," Davis said. "But that's the easy part, carrying the ball. Blitz protection, protecting the quarterback against the nation's No. 6 defense and one that blitzes every down, that's the hard part. Greg had a crash course in learning it this week. I can't say enough about what he did. He's a big, good-looking athlete. He's got a burst, some vision, he can change directions."

But Davis stopped short on Sunday of saying Little was entrenched as a tailback for his career.

"That's going to be decided during the off-season," Davis said. "Certainly, now that we've got a season under Greg and the rest of the guys, we'll be able to better evaluate what we want to do with Greg once we go through January, February, March and April with the current running backs that are here, including Devon Ramsay and Ryan Houston. And we'll evaluate what happens as far as recruiting is concerned."

Davis can only reiterate what he said two weeks ago, that developing the running game will be a crusade over the winter, spring and summer leading to the 2008 season. Twice the Tar Heels were stopped inside the Tech 10 yard-line Saturday. Once they gambled on fourth down and were turned away from the one; later they were halted at the three and went with a Barth field goal.

And when you learn to run the ball effectively, you're usually good enough to stop it as well because your defense is playing against a quality ground game consistently in practice. The Tar Heels allowed Choice to pound out 142 yards and freshman quarterback Josh Nesbitt to add 53 on only four carries.

Oh, there are many more issues to address as well. Shoop certainly got ultra-conservative late in the game with three straight running plays that forced a punt and gave Tech its last possession. Punter Terrence Brown was instructed to aim the ensuing punt out-of-bounds, away from a potential return, but he executed it poorly and the punt sailed across the boundary at the 50, giving Tech a ridiculously short field. And the coaches upstairs were paying too little attention when the Tar Heels had 12 men on the field--this coming out of a time out--when Travis Bell lined up for his game-winning field goal from 32 yards out.

All of these elements will perhaps coalesce into the "burning passion" Davis talked about after the game. Perhaps Yates and Little and others like Marvin Austin and Deunta Williams will one day write their own chapters in a book Davis referenced entitled Cradles of Eminence, a 1962 classic that studied the childhoods of more than 400 famous individuals, from Helen Keller to The Dalai Lama to Abraham Lincoln to Pablo Picasso. Most of them overcame early troubles of one form or another--poverty, broken homes, physical handicaps or dominating parents.

These "early childhoods" as Tar Heels have certainly been fraught with hardships. Six losses by 22 points, indeed. That should be enough kindling to start a fire burning through Duke, the winter weight room, the spring practice field and those 300-yard sprints under a scorching July sun.

Chapel Hill writer Lee Pace is in his 18th season writing "Extra Points," a colorful and in-depth look at Tar Heel football. He'll answer your questions about the Tar Heels regularly during the season in his "Extra Points Mailbag" column and on the Tar Heel Sports Network's pregame show. Email him your questions (please, no recruiting questions) about the Tar Heels at leepace@nc.rr.com and he'll answer the most interesting ones.