CHAPEL HILL – How do you tell a quarterback who has essentially done it all to try and not do it all in the biggest football game of his life?
That’s the message Phil Longo has imparted onto Sam Howell all week as North Carolina prepares to face Texas A&M in the Orange Bowl.
Howell has passed for 6,993 yards in 24 games as UNC’s quarterback and is just four touchdown passes from becoming the school’s all-time leader. A big game Saturday night versus the No. 5 Aggies and the mark can be all his. Howell has 65 scoring tosses as it stands, 27 of which have come in this COVID-shortened season.
The possible top overall selection in the 2022 NFL draft, Howell can carry a team on his shoulders. He can make every throw, every read and his 17 touchdowns versus no interceptions in the fourth quarters of games during his Carolina career speak volumes about his knack for rising to in the biggest moments.
And perhaps at no time has UNC needed that from Howell than now. Only that it’s a four-quarter mandate, not a fourth-quarter one. UNC will be without its best wide receiver – the only two-time 1,000-yard receiver in school history – and a pair of All-America running backs. Howell must be huge for the 13th-ranked Tar Heels to have a chance, conventional wisdom suggests.
However, he scoffs at the notion more rests on his shoulders.
“For me, it's nothing different,” Howell said earlier this week. “I'm going to prepare how I'm going to prepare and then just execute the play that (Longo) calls. I'm not going to try to do anything more than I usually do.
“I am who I am, and I'll just go out there and play my game.”
Longo, UNC’s offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach, said coaches sometimes over-complicate things by trying to install too much one way or the other for a specific game. They can crowd a player’s mind, so simplifying is the preference and in this case is the mission.
Granted, UNC Coach Mack Brown acknowledged Monday the staff took an extra day devising a plan for the Aggies once they learned last Saturday that Javonte Williams was also opting out of the Orange Bowl and entering the NFL draft. Previously, the staff was so confident Williams was going to play he took part in a pre-recorded video interview session for the Orange Bowl that was released Wednesday. It was a three-way with linebacker Jeremiah Gemmel and Howell, so the Orange Bowl staff chose to not record a new one swapping out Williams. An odd situation, for sure.
Carolina has no choice but to move forward without Williams, though, but Longo and Brown aren't asking Howell to do more than he has so far.
“The only advice I gave him and the only coaching I told him was not to feel like he has to go and win this game himself,” Longo said. “The best thing he can do for our football team right now is to keep doing what he has been doing. Manage the offense, make plays when he has the opportunity to make plays and not go outside.
“The only time he's ever gotten in trouble at all, and it's been very few, is when he's tried to do more than he really needs to do on a play. And I think he’ll tell you the same thing. And he hasn't done that in quite a while. And so, that's really the only advice I gave him was, look, we need to stay focused and keep doing what we're doing. And he just gave me the nod that he always gave me and we go out and practice the way we always do. So, it's business as usual right now offensively.”
Business as usual has been pretty good to the Tar Heels so far, especially as long as it has Howell leading the way and staying the course.
