The Leader Up Front
CHAPEL HILL – Charlie Heck has adapted multiple times since arriving at North Carolina several years ago, so why not one more time for his senior season?
Heck wasn’t actually an offensive lineman when he signed with UNC, though his brother, Jon, played tackle for the Tar Heels and his father, Andy, was a tackle at Notre Dame and in the NFL. His father was also an offensive line coach with the Kansas City Chiefs at the time.
Charlie was a tight end in high school and technically recruited to Carolina as one, too. The previous staff had a pretty good idea he would move to tackle after Heck arrived to Chapel Hill, which happened not long after. But it was an adjustment, former head coach Larry Fedora noted even into the early portion of last season.
Now, the 6-foot-8, 310-pound Heck has moved from starting at right tackle to the left tackle job, replacing William Sweet, who left last winter for the NFL. Change of positions? Not really, at least not to Heck.
The Tar Heels still employ gap and zone schemes integrated into their new Air Raid offense, which is intent on being faster to the ball and off the ball than anything the Heels ran under Fedora. Fast has become faster. So right or left, it doesn’t matter much to Heck, it’s about speed and efficiency.
“I think we’ve gotten a lot quicker,” Heck said as spring practice was winding down, noting the difference from when the six-week stretch began. “The main thing (start of spring) was to know what play to run, and I think for the most part the whole offense sees the play call and we’re ready to go.”
The staff will signal in the plays just once pre-snap instead of three and four times, which was common for the previous staff. Heck said that adjustment didn’t take long, and the Heels closed the spring on the same page across the offensive line.
The other adjustment is learning from a new position coach. Having a father who’s made a living playing and coaching the big guys up front is one thing, being taught by former UNC o-line coach Chris Kapilovic is another, but now Heck is working under Stacy Searels.
Searels’ mission is toughness, an area sometimes in question with Carolina’s offensive line in the past. Heck thinks those days are over.
“In general, I think there’s a lot of similarities between o-line coaches,” said Heck, who has started 22 of the 30 games he’s played as a Tar Heel. “Coach Searels has done a great job with our core o-line establishing a toughness. We want to be the toughest unit on the field, so he’s done a good job bringing that energy out in all of us.”
One part of an offseason and a full spring with Searels has rendered some positive results with some of the other Tar Heels along the line, what about for Heck?
“I would say just continuing to build confidence,” he said. “(And) something that I’ve been working on is being more explosive off the snap, and I think I’ve done a good job this spring of getting more explosive, getting my hands on people and really using my size to my advantage.”
That and leadership.
Heck has learned to be more vocal, but he’s also a lead-by-example guy. He doesn’t cut corners and is always on top of everything the staff wants from the players. That is a form of leadership for sure.
“He’s always getting called out in meetings, coaches telling him he’s doing a good job,” sophomore running back Javonte Williams said about Heck. “I feel like he’s a player that’s really going to help us out this year being that it’s his last year.”
Heck’s last year meaning he’s likely done making major adjustments as a Tar Heel. Cemented on the left side, that’s where he’ll remain the rest of the way.