Dec. 8, 2009
By Adam Lucas
Most of Butch Davis's days since Carolina's regular season finale have been consumed by future seasons. Players had last week off, giving the coaching staff the opportunity to spend time recruiting for the class that will sign in February 2010.
But the focus on the future ends soon. With the announcement that Carolina will participate in the Meineke Car Care Bowl on Dec. 26 against Pittsburgh, the Tar Heels will begin bowl preparations this week.
With a week's worth of perspective to temper the sting from the regular season-ending 28-27 loss to NC State, Davis has taken the opportunity to evaluate the state of his program, which has won five straight games over ranked opponents--the longest streak in school history. The Tar Heels will participate in back-to-back bowl games for the first time since 1997 and 1998.
"I'm excited for our players and I'm excited for our coaching staff," he said. "We're thrilled to have the opportunity to participate in the postseason for the second straight year. That's something we haven't done here in over 10 years. It's a great way to show that the program continues to move forward and make progress."
The Tar Heels made progress thanks to a hard-hitting, big-play defense that led the ACC in total defense by a wide margin (Carolina gave up 267.8 yards per game, while the next-closest defense was over 300 yards) and finished sixth nationally. Four Carolina defenders made first-team All-ACC, the most since the stalwart 1997 group. But that '97 crew was largely upperclassmen; all four of this year's first-team picks are eligible and expected to return for 2010.
Offensively, the news was mixed. It's tempting to wonder what the results might have been without an unfortunate rash of injuries that began during training camp and continued throughout the season. Eventually, 13 offensive players--eight of them starters--missed at least one game in 2009. Those players accounted for 27 missed starts. Tight end Ryan Taylor and lineman Carl Gaskins could have boosted the occasionally sporadic running game, as could tailbacks A.J. Blue, Jamal Womble and Shaun Draughn. Tight end Zack Pianalto's absence was notable against Georgia Tech (Carolina scored 7 points) and Virginia (3 points); once he returned, the offense averaged 28.9 points per game over the rest of the season.
|
|
 |
"When you look at what this team was able to accomplish, especially with all the injuries on the offensive side of the ball, it says something about the character of your team," Davis said. "In 35 years of coaching football, I've never seen the number of injuries just to one side of the ball like we suffered this year. That affects your football team, but our players and staff fought through and found ways to win football games."
Some of those ways included finding creative ways to diversify the offense. When defenses became accustomed to Ryan Houston pounding the middle, coordinator John Shoop tossed in liberal usage of jet sweeps, putting the ball in the hands of speedy Jhay Boyd or Greg Little to amass rushing yards in different ways.
Young talent like Boyd and fellow receiver Erik Highsmith will benefit from the additional bowl practice. It's a schedule Davis plans to make routine in Chapel Hill--training camp, regular season, bowl practice, bowl. Carolina will enter this postseason with the same record as last year, but also with some momentum. Only three teams in the league have more wins over the past two seasons, and six of Carolina's nine losses over that same stretch were by a field goal or less.
"When I took the job here, I said we weren't going to set a timeline," Davis said. "We knew we had to start the process of building a national championship quality program. We've built many of those pieces. Our NFL alumni are coming back to Chapel Hill more than ever before. We've attracted a first-class coaching staff. The Blue Zone and Kenan Stadium renovations are a reality.
"But we are still looking to improve in every way, both immediate and long term. We still have some very young players who have a great opportunity over these next few weeks to find out how they can contribute to this football program. We continue to have high expectations for everyone involved in Carolina football."
Adam Lucas is the publisher of Tar Heel Monthly. He is also the author or co-author of five books on Carolina basketball, including the just-released book on the 2009 national title, One Fantastic Ride. Get real-time UNC sports updates from the THM staff on Twitter.
