CHAPEL HILL – Jay Bateman said in early September he was hoping at some point he’d have some packages in which three linebackers would be on the field for an extended period of time.
North Carolina’s defensive coordinator is known for using five defensive backs and two hybrid linebackers/defensive ends, so adding a third backer to the mix wasn’t something Tar Heels’ fans saw much of through the first four games.
But in the last two, a one-point loss to Clemson and 16-point win at Georgia Tech, the Heels have used three linebackers at the same time almost exclusively. In those two games, Chazz Surratt has played 107 total snaps, Jeremiah Gemmel 105 and Dominique Ross 87.
For Bateman’s depleted defense, that has lost three players for the season and a couple more for an extended period of time, not to mention it’s extensive youth, the objective is to win games, so tweaking the approach to maximize the talent on the field is the mission.
“The thing we’re trying to do is get the best players on the field,” Bateman said. “Right now, Gemmel and Surratt are playing so well and Dominique Ross has started playing really well and Dominique is a better pass rusher than some of our other guys. We’ve got to get more pressure on the passers,”
It’s worked. The Tar Heels kept Clemson quarterback Trevor Lawrence from lighting them up, holding him to 18-for-30 passing for 206 yards. Carolina sacked him once and was credited with seven QB hurries. Georgia Tech’s quarterbacks were a combined 11-for-24 with UNC picking off two passes and registering a pair of sacks.
Combined, that’s 29-for-54 with 377 yards, three sacks and eight QB hurries. Not bad.
“Those three guys right now are playing at such a high level so we just feel like we don’t have a lot of depth, so we’ve got to get the best 11 out there every play that we can,” Bateman said.
Ross missed the opener versus South Carolina, and versus Miami the snap breakdown was Gemmel 76, Ross 39 and Surratt 39, at Wake Forest it was Gemmel 58, Surratt 53 and Ross 23, and against Appalachian State it was Ross 54, Gemmel 47 and Surratt 15.
So why full bore over the last two games?
“After the App State game, we needed a little better edge rusher for some of the stuff we were doing and we wanted to get (all) of them on the field a little more,” Bateman said. “We were kind of working in that direction. And I think a big part of it, too, is Chazz’s improvement. We felt like we couldn’t take Chazz off the field much.”
Surratt and Gemmel have largely been inside linebackers, but do their roles change at all when a third linebacker is added?
“For me and Chazz, our roles really (don’t) change, but for D Ross it changed a lot,” Gemmel said a few days after the Clemson game. “He had to go cover the slot receiver a lot and also fall back into the run fit coming outside the box, which he isn’t used to.”
Once a position of major concern entering fall camp, the unit has quickly ascended into one of strength. Surratt leads the Tar Heels with 46 tackles (three sacks, four QB hurries and three PBUs), Gemmel is third with 39 tackles (one sack, three QB Hurries, one PBU and a forced fumble) and Ross with somewhat limited reps is ninth on the team with 20 tackles (one sack, three QB hurries and three PBUs).
The front line with Aaron Crawford and Jason Strowbridge is very good, but the linebackers are closing in. Given their sideline-to-sideline speed, that’s an appropriate description.
“We take pride in trying to be a strength of the team because we’re kind of like the quarterback of the defense, all the calls go through us, all the checks…,” Surratt. “We work well together… It’s based on who we play, but I think we all like it.”
And considering how well they’ve played together the last two games, there’s a pretty good chance the trio will spend a lot more time together on the field over the final half of the season.
