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CHAPEL HILL – It may be December, the air is cold, and Christmas is almost here, but for North Carolina’s football team, in some respects it might as well be spring time.
As the Tar Heels prepare to face South Carolina on Dec. 30 in the Duke’s Mayo Bowl, they are also grinding away with the younger players. More contact than what has been the norm when prepping for a bowl, and more intensity. Really, more everything.
One might say this is essentially like an additional spring practice, only that winter just started.
“We’ve worked them every day,” UNC Coach Mack Brown said. “And we’ve been really physical. We’ve been more physical in bowl practice than we’ve been since we’ve been here. We just felt like that was really, really important, especially in the lines of scrimmage… Those lines of scrimmage have been absolutely game speed for every practice that we’ve been involved with.”
The motivation for enhanced pre-bowl workouts is to get better at a part of the game needed to elevate the Tar Heels to another level.
They ran the ball well conventionally this season, as evidenced by them leading the ACC in rushing averaging 219.8 yards per game. Much of that, however, was quarterback Sam Howell scrambling and picking up big gains on designed runs. Not exactly conventional, but the numbers certainly count, as Brown has pointed out many times this season.
But Carolina must get better running in tight situations. That is an absolute, and it must improve defending in the trenches in tight situations. Toughness is the name of the game, so the Heels have been grinding.
“We took the gloves off with the two lines of scrimmage and said, ‘Let’s play.’ No staying up, you can cut, it’s full speed,” Brown said.
Bowl workouts began Dec. 11, but the team departed for home for several days for Christmas following practice Wednesday morning. The coaches, however, remain in the Kenan Football Center. In part, they are grading a comprehensive scrimmage that concluded the pre-holiday part of bowl prep.
“We actually scrimmaged the younger ones this morning and had the coaches step out of the way and the older players coached their position,” Brown said. “That was fun. We had about a 16-play scrimmage at the end here that was a lot of fun to watch, and I could yell at the players like I yell at the coaches.”
The coaches graded the 16-play scrimmage and the results will help them make decisions. It helps them plan for spring and set certain bars for players. Also, if there is a possibility the staff will look to bring in a grad transfer in a particular position, they must first weigh whether or not they think a freshman in that group is progressing enough there isn’t a need to bring in a transfer there.
Furthermore, with the transfer portal affecting how programs are run, and consequently a greater importance on the trickier task of roster management, staffs need to know more about their younger players. And the kids are aided by having a better understanding of where they stand in their position group.
Knowledge can be fun, especially for football coaches who always have an eye on the future. That is a requirement in managing a program. So, Brown enjoyed the two weeks of intense, physical practices.
“We’ve gotten a lot of work with the younger ones, and that’s been fun to prepare them for spring practice and let them start competing for jobs,” he said. “So, it’s been fun to watch them."
The Tar Heels will get in 14 practices this month, and more will be in full pads than a usual spring.
