THI TV: Spring Football Interviews | Harris, Green, Lane & Barlow

CHAPEL HILL – North Carolina held its 12th football practice of the spring Tuesday at the Koman Practice Complex, and afterward, we spoke with four Tar Heels about how they are doing, some of their personal stories, and about the team in general.

Here are interviews with Jakeen Harris, Trevyon Green, Stick Lane, and Darwin Barlow:

Note: We’re adding a few tidbits with each as well.

*Harris transferred to UNC from rival NC State where he spent five seasons. Harris played as a true freshman at State, but was using last season as his Covid year, but was injured in the opener and missed the rest of the campaign. So, he used that as his redshirt year and has one season left.

*Harris played 5 snaps in State’s opener at UConn last season. He didn’t play again. Overall, he played 1,833 snaps with the Wolfpack.

*Harris really likes UNC’s new defense, saying it’s “aggressive” also saying, “I feel like this is a real good defense right here.”

*Having another year to play, and also the perspective being out gave him, Harris says, “it’s a blessing just to be back here and to keep going and keep playing.”

*Green arrived at UNC two years ago as a raw talent who was 410 pounds when UNC started recruiting him. He dropped a lot of weight, and has spent the last two years fine-tuning a new lifestyle while getting better on the field each day. With that, he is currently UNC’s starting right offensive tackle.

*He played 41 snaps last season, but got between four and seven snaps in games against Pittsburgh, Syracuse, Virginia, and NC State, and he played 15 snaps against Campbell. Now as a starter, Green is in the process of adjusting to having much more responsibility.

“Ever since I started being on the blue team this spring, I’ve taken a bigger role and be more accountable toward people beside me. Last year, when I was a sophomore, I was second team (and) I was still learning and still trying to understand things.

“I got better but still wasn’t in that starting role. But this year, I’ve had to grow up a little bit and understand that people are counting on me, and that’s a great feeling.”

*Lane graduated in four years at Georgia State before transferring to UNC, arriving last summer. As a late arrival and then injuring his ankle in fall camp, Lane says he spent the whole season catching up. The closest he felt to being caught up was the Clemson game, which happened to be his first start at Carolina, too.

*He played 409 snaps for the Tar Heels last fall, and as a three-time All-Sun Belt Conference member, Lane played 2,143 snaps at Georgia State. In all, he’s played 2,552 snaps in college, and likely will surpass the 3,000-snap mark this season.

*Lane really likes UNC’s new defensive approach under first-year DC Geoff Collins, as he explains.

“He does a great job with the coverages and making us disguise certain coverages. And it’s really basic for us, he’s making basic for us and harder for the offense, basically. When a quarterback sees us, he’s gong to see us disguising. It’s going to look like something that it’s really not. It’s an illusion, basically.”

*Barlow spent his first two seasons at TCU, redshirting his first year there, and the last three at Southern Cal. Using his Covid year, Barlow is at UNC for his final season.

*Barlow has played in 40 college games and rushed for 993 yards and 11 touchdowns during his career. He ran for 428 yards and four touchdowns with a 5.9-yard average per attempt in 2020 at TCU. At Southern Cal, he got lost in the shuffle. His touches dropped from 62 carries in 2021 to 16 in 2022 to eight last season.

*A difference in how he’s running at UNC as opposed to how they ran the ball at USC was his running zones are tighter. As a Trojan, he ran inside zone, which was wide tackle to wide tackle. At Carolina, it’s A gap to A gap.

“I always bounce it out. But I feel like my past years… it was inside zone, so here it’s tight zone, insert zone. It’s more downhill, so I’ve just got to keep my eyes A to A. It’s been a struggle, kind of for me. But each day watching more film constantly, watching it with (running backs) Coach (Larry) Porter, Coach (Natrone) Means, eventually that’s just things that instead of it being a habit of me not buming the hash.”