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Serious Stuff
UNC's period of adjustment is over; now it's time to win some football games
Journal Photo by Lauren Carroll
Greg Little says he feels like he can be the 1,000-yard rusher that the Tar Heels need this season.
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Published: August 22, 2008
Almost everything is settling into place at North Carolina as Butch Davis begins his second season as coach.
The adjustment period is over. The players know Davis' system better, and the coaches no longer have to question whether someone is playing at the right spot.
Now comes the serious business: winning.
Davis still has a young team on his hands. UNC has only 11 seniors, one more than last season when it finished 4-8 in his debut and was a missed chip-shot field goal away from finishing with only three wins.
UNC returns 18 starters, and it has plenty of optimism but numerous questions. Davis was still searching for solutions deep into preseason practice.
UNC was picked to finish second in the ACC's Coastal Division in preseason voting at the conference's annual football kickoff. Presumably, the voting took place before the bar opened that particular night. The selection seems highly optimistic, but Davis is confident that his program has earned that respect.
"I don't mind the expectations, and I don't think our players do, either," Davis said. "I think it's validation that people recognize that we made strides as a football program. I think the biggest compliment that other coaches paid, media paid and fans paid to our football team is how hard our players played.
"We weren't good in some games. There were things that we didn't do well. We didn't win some games we would have liked to have won. But every single Saturday those kids went out there and they competed. They spilled their guts on the line. They put it out there."
T.J. Yates will head into his second season as the quarterback and a great deal of the hope for the Tar Heels' success is riding on his surgically repaired right shoulder.
Yates underwent surgery after last season and didn't begin throwing until after spring practice. He said that he is 100 percent recovered and ready for the season. Davis said he has no worries about the shoulder and that Yates is firmly his starter.
"He has the benefit of 12 games of experience," Davis said. "That certainly is an advantage for him. I think the other two quarterbacks (Cam Sexton and Mike Paulus) are pushing him, and that's making him a better quarterback. He knows he's got to go out and push. He puts pressure on himself, but those guys are putting pressure on him to perform well every day in practice."
Yates set a school record with 2,655 yards passing last season. He believes that he will be a better quarterback this season despite missing all of spring practice because of the work he did while healing.
"During the spring, Coach wanted me to help a lot with ‘teaching' to the other quarterbacks," Yates said. "He always says, ‘To teach it you have to know it.' You have to know it really, really well.
"Going through the spring and watching as much film as possible, it helped me learn the offense a lot better and going at it from a coach's aspect. I watched the whole practice and watched everybody else run the offense."
UNC has three veteran receivers in Hakeem Nicks, whose 74 receptions set a school record last season, Brooks Foster and Kenton Thornton. Depth must come from freshmen.
Yates might not have to throw as much this season, which would ease the strain on his shoulder, if Greg Little can do the job at tailback. Little showed a lot of promis in last season's last two games after he moved from receiver.
He has only 59 carries heading into his sophomore season, but he does not lack for confidence.
"I feel like I can be that 1,000-yard back that we've been missing," Little said.
Eight starters return on defense. Other than Trimane Goddard, a senior safety, and Mark Paschal, a senior linebacker, the talent is young. Five sophomores could start.
Missing will be Connor Barth, the best kicker in school history. Jay Wooten, a redshirt freshman, will likely take over the job. Davis is confident that Wooten can become a very good kicker, and he firmly believes that special teams can determine a team's success.
Davis has recruited well at UNC, but those players are, for the most part, unproven. Davis believes that this team can post a winning record and contend for a bowl berth, but it must improve throughout the season to do so.
"Now we've got to play smarter," Davis said. "Now we've got to play more physical. Now there are some things that we've got to do that will control the outcomes of games that we've got control over."
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