Here is an online prospectus of the upcoming football season for the North Carolina Tar Heels
Presented by:Ike Oglesby
The 2000 football season is just around the corner, in just over 100 days players will be reporting to campuses all over the country. Everyone will be undefeated and talk of bowl games and championships will be heard from the lips of coaches everywhere. It is the time of year when hope springs eternal for fans across the land. In Chapel Hill there are good reasons for optimism. The last tarheel season of the millennium, ended on high drama, starting with the win over the wolfies, and culminating with the firing of Marshall, Rucker, and Hohfer and the Hiring of O’cain, Caldwell and Lewis. Out with the fatbacks and the sideline oriented passing game, in with the wizardry and flair of MOC. The start of the summer camps will see the return of Curry, Allen and “Spoon” and the debut of Parker and the “Rabbit”. So let’s take a look at what we have to look forward to in the coming season, through sky blue lenses, of course. The defense will be the strength of the coming year. The return of Brandon Spoon to the lineup gives us one of the more formidable trio of linebackers in the country. They have it all, speed, size, experience, savvy and attitude. The Year of playing without Spoon, forced Merceda Perry and Sedrick Hodge to step their intensity level, and the rancid taste of defeat gave them a hunger that can only make them better. For Spoon, the hunger has come from the pain of holding a clipboard while watching his teammates suffer through a nightmare season. Quincy Monk, Robert Harris and David Thornton will provide more than adequate depth, with the possibility of some major help from some of the incoming freshman, most notably Kitawna Jones. The defensive line will revolve around rising super star Julius Peppers. Tar heel fans have been salivating over his athleticism throughout march madness. He is, to say the least, formidable, 6’8” 280, fast and a nose for the ball. Other teams will try to double team him, which should open the door for Ryan Sims, Willie Quick, Ross McAllister to pick up some sacks. A pass rush will be important this year, pressure on the QB will allow the young, but athletically gifted, group of cornerbacks to break on the ball. Led by Michael Waddell, the DB’s have the potential to be great. Erroll Hood, and Kevin Knight will push each other all year. At the safeties, David Bomar and Billy Dee Greenwood will lead, while Dexter Reid and a surprising Defonte Coleman will play, a lot. The defense should be stellar. The offense, will be......different. There are lots of question marks, with some potentially brilliant answers. As a former tailback I can tell you that the most important question that has to be answered is, “How good will the offensive line be”? Robbie Caldwell has a reputation as one of the best O-line coaches in the country. The first thing he did was to demand better physical conditioning. He immediately announced that they were, “too fat”, and instituted an off season conditioning program aimed at making them quicker and stronger. His coaching has already manifested itself in more intensity and cohesiveness. The core group is made up of veterans, Cam Holland, Louis Marchetti, Adam Metts, Bryant Malloy, Isaac Mortford and a slimmer (down to 360) James Wagsaff. Combine them with the upcoming group of highly touted redshirt freshmen, Greg Woofter, Jupiter Wilson and Marcus Wilson (no relation), and you have a O-line group that can rotate in and out enough to keep it fresh and intense. Next we look a the receiving corps, starting with the tight ends. Duante Finger and Zack Hilton are good tight ends. Finger has shown that he can carry the load and Hilton, at 6’8” is as big a target as you could want. Alge Crumpler, on the other hand, is a weapon. With MOC calling the shots, look for Alge to shine this year. Just as he was able to see Torry Holt’s ability to beat defenders and exploit it. So look for him to challenge opposing defenses with plays designed highlight Crumpler’s abilities. The wide receivers are another group with loads of on paper talent and potential. Kory Bailey, Sam Aiken, Danny Davis and Bosley Allen should benefit from MOC’s offensive schemes. Aiken and Allen are capable stretching the field and going long anytime. Bailey and Davis are the possession type of receivers that every offense needs in order to consistently move the sticks. Now we move to the backfield, starting, of course, with the fullbacks. No I formation can do anything without a fullback that can take on the linebacker at the point of attack. They must also be able to pick up the tough yard and a half on fourth down when called on and catch the ball in the flat. With MOC calling the plays there will be times that a fullback will be the lone back in the backfield. He has to be able to provide the protection the QB will need and provide an occasional safety valve. Anthony Saunders and Ronnie Robinson have the tools to do those things. If Saunders completes the transition back to fullback he has the size and speed to be an offensive plus. Robinson is probably the superior blocker tight now, but is not the runner that Saunders is. There is also help available from the incoming freshman class and Dom Williams, provided that he comes back into the fold. The same can be said for last years sensation, Daniel Davis, at tailback. If he is back in good graces and ready to contribute, he and Willie Parker could be the most talented pair of running backs we’ve had since Johnson and Johnson. Davis showed flashes of brilliance last year and defenses have to be aware of him as a threat to take it all the way from anywhere on the field. The same is true of redshirt freshman Willie Parker. Coaches on the UNC staff have been heard to speculate that we may have signed the best running back in North Carolina after all, when we got Parker back in 1999. He has elusiveness, speed, vision, power and a work ethic that is becoming legendary. He voluntarily does 6:00 a.m. workouts similar to the ones I used to do as punishment for cutting class back when I was in school there, now that’s commitment! With Davis and Parker we have super depth, without Davis we may be forced to play an incoming freshman, which may not be that bad, given the talent that we signed. We now turn to the QB’s. One reason that MOC was considered such a good hire was because of his reputation as a quarterbacks coach. I am dying to see what MOC can do with a talent like Ronald Curry or Antawn Black, or Luke Huard for that matter. Better O-line play and a running game that should threaten defenses combined with QB’s coached by a master teacher, performing in an offense designed around our strengths, will give Ronald Curry the opportunity to be the star that everyone assumed he would be. Black can come in and run the same types of plays that Curry would run, so look for things to be consistent as long as we can stay with those two. As I stated at the beginning of this look at the coming season, this view is strictly an optimistic one. After all this time of year everyone one is optimistic. Besides we are undefeated, aren’t we?
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