Music | Extra Points: Music Men
Jan. 1, 2011
by Lee Pace
The wire service guys were already clicking out their lead paragraphs Thursday night on their laptops in the press area above LP Field: Tennessee freshman Tyler Bray passed for 312 yards and four touchdowns, the last an eight-yarder to Justin Hunter with just over five minutes to play, to lift the Volunteers to a 20-17 victory over North Carolina in the Franklin American Mortgage Music City Bowl Thursday night.
The Tennessee band was striking up the school’s Rocky Top fight song, and the denizens swathed in orange were clearing their throats for yet another stanza: Once two strangers climbed on rocky top lookin’ for a moonshine still; strangers ain’t come back from rocky top, guess they never will.
As Tennessee took the ball with 1:36 to play, Tar Heel tailback Shaun Draughn slumped deadly still on the bench, his torso bent forward, his head buried in his hands. Dwight Jones shrugged off consolation pats from several teammates after having dropped a fourth-down pass that ended what appeared to be the Tar Heels’ last gasp attack. Quarterback T.J. Yates was numb and despondent: He had thrown for 9,330 yards over four years and apparently the numbers stopped cold, then and there.
“A lot of guys didn’t realize we’d get a second chance, myself included,” Yates admitted an hour later.
But on one end of the Tar Heel bench, offensive line coach Sam Pittman told his players to keep loose, keep their heads in the game.
“All we need is three ,” Pittman said. “All we need is three .”
Three points and not four, thank you very much Donte Paige-Moss . Tar Heel coach Butch Davis has mentioned at times over his four years at Carolina that a team’s moxie can be defined in the most remote of chores–specifically the effort its special teams puts into blocking extra points and field goals. It has always struck me watching from the sidelines that no matter how much Davis and his defensive coaches might be irked that the Heels just surrendered a touchdown, they are every bit as intense and precise in signaling the kick-rush call into the defense and watching the ensuing play as they are during any routine snap.
“Are you going to lie down and give them the kick?” Davis muses. “Or are you going to get off the ground after giving up a touchdown, dust yourself off and give a hundred percent and try to block one? You never know when that one point will make a difference.”
It certainly did on this night as Paige-Moss blocked the Vols’ point-after following their score with 5:16 to play. Thus the Heels could tie the game if they could forge into the neighborhood of Tennessee’s 30-yardline, giving ace kicker Casey Barth ample room to ply his sneaky long leg and icy veins.
Pittman’s thinking was simple: “We hit them fast and hit them hard at the end of the first half, no reason we couldn’t do it again,” he said, referring to Carolina’s five-play, 72-yard drive in one minute’s time that ended with a scrambling Yates hitting Erik Highsmith for a 39-yard touchdown.
Upstairs in the coaches’ box, offensive coordinator John Shoop was at first morose, thinking the game was over. But as Tennessee’s offensive possession unfolded and it became apparent the Vols were going to run the ball and try nothing flashy, he had second thoughts. Tennessee had accomplished squat on the ground all night: less than 30 yards rushing and only three first downs. No reason to think that trend would change now.
“I thought, `All right, we might get a shot,” Shoop said. “I started mulling over what we might do. We have a list of plays specifically for end-of-the-game, no-timeout situations. They all are passes thrown to the sideline, stop the clock immediately.”
“Tennessee ran two plays in 12 seconds,” added tight ends coach Allen Mogridge , who was alongside Shoop in the coaches’ box. “That was huge. We managed our time outs and our defense stoned them good.”
Barth had remained focused, limber and warm on a cold night throughout the climatic stretch, knowing that the three-point deficit could be wiped away with a lethal stroke of the leg that had nailed 17-of-20 field goals in 2010. He and holder Trase Jones rehearsed their kicking operation within the confines of the kicking net to the side of the bench area.
“I thought we were done, but Coach told me to keep kicking, that I was going to get my shot,” Barth said.
Sure enough, Carolina forced a punt and took the ball at its 20 yardline. The Tar Heels had 31 seconds and needed to go at least 45 yards, a few more certainly all the better. Yates fired to the right boundary, Todd Harrelson made a nifty catch 28 yards downfield and was hammered head-to-head by Tennessee’s Janzen Jackson, resulting in another 15 yards on a personal foul penalty. Now Carolina’s at the Tennessee 37.
“Todd came up with an amazing catch,” Yates said. “It’s one of those things, you have to throw it up to a spot and hope he’s going to be there. He went up and made an amazing catch. We got lucky with the penalty.”
Harrelson made his catch just in front of the Tar Heel sideline, not far from where Barth and Jones were watching. As soon as they saw where the Heels would now have the ball, Barth’s eyes seemingly doubled in size and they rushed back to the net for several more practice kicks.Carolina tacked on 12 yards on a pass to Jones, Yates spiked the ball and reset the offense for second down from the Tennessee 25. Sixteen seconds remained. A field goal from that spot would have been 42 yards in length for Barth against a slight breeze.
What ensued was a bizarre series of events that will be recounted with wonder, amazement and disbelief whenever Tar Heel fans ruminate about eight points in 17 seconds, Marvin Williams’ stick-back against Duke and the great goal-line stands against N.C. State in 1999 (the Errol Hood-David Bomar tackle) and 2004 (the T.A. McLendon fumble).
Shoop called for a run against what he anticipated would be a form of prevent defense designed to not allow any damage through the air. The run held better odds at a meaningful gain in that situation and there was less chance of a worst-case scenario–a holding call or sack that would take you out of field goal range, and of course an interception. That play would be followed with a quick spike of the ball to stop the clock. There should be one to four seconds left on the clock, all you need to run the field-goal operation.
“Every step is rehearsed,” Shoop said. “We do two-minute drills every week. Everyone knew exactly what we were doing. And we’ve got the right guy running the show out there. T.J. had been unbelievable all night and all year.”
Draughn gained seven yards as planned. Then with the clock running down and the offense scurrying to line up to run the spike play, someone on the bench apparently yelled “Lightning,” the signal for Barth, Jones and snapper Trevor Stuart to take the field post haste . Yates had the wherewithal to still get the spike play off amidst the confusion, but the clock ran to 00:00.
“I’ll take responsibility for the sidelines,” Davis said. “The offense executed, they did exactly what they’re told to do. We didn’t communicate to the rest of the guys. … That’s totally on me.”
Game over. The wire service guys hit SEND. Davis and UT coach Derek Dooley shake hands near midfield. Then it happens.
“Just when you think you’ve seen it all, you haven’t,” Dooley said. “I had a sick feeling when the clock hit zero, and I didn’t celebrate.”
“They’ll be replaying that on ESPN Classic for a hundred years,” Davis offered.
Game officials tell the teams to return to their sidelines. A voice on the public address system says the final play of the game is under review.
“That’s all I needed to hear,” Carolina tackle Mike Ingersoll said. “I knew if they reviewed it, we’d be okay. I knew there was one or two seconds left on the clock. They made the right call.”
The replay booth deems that Yates had in fact spiked the ball with one second to play, that Carolina was guilty of having too many men on the field. The Tar Heels are assessed a five-yard penalty and given one final snap from the 23 yard-line. Barth and the field-goal unit quickly take their positions–a hailstorm of beer, liquor and soda bottles being flung on the field by irate Tennessee fans–and convert the 39-yard kick, sending the game into overtime.
“I knew once we got the second chance, we were destined to win this game,” Yates said.
Carolina scores a touchdown quickly on its first overtime possession. Bray responds with a 20-yard shot into the end zone for a tying score, following immediately with a throat-slashing motion toward the Carolina bench. Bad move. What goes around certainly comes around, though not always so quickly, but on the Vols’ next series, Bray lofts a pass toward his fullback in the left flat, but Tar Heel Quan Sturdivant sniffs the play and snares the ball. All Carolina needs now is a 23-yard kick from Barth, who delivers and then celebrates with a forward somersault.
The score is 30-27, Carolina.
The record is eight wins, five losses–coincidentally the identical mark as 2008 and ’09, but a season with a decidedly different flavor.
“Ten days before the start of the season, this group of guys developed a bond and brotherhood they were going to play this season out and make the most of it,” Davis said. “They made everyone in North Carolina and everyone at the University of North Carolina proud with the way they played.”
The victory was special for everyone in the program, but it hit home in particular with Mogridge, who grew up 20 miles from UT’s Neyland Stadium in Sevierville. Mogridge was recruited by the Vols and assumed by family and friends with deep Vol connections that he’d wear the orange jersey. But Mogridge visited Chapel Hill, fell in love with the school and program and never looked back. He joined Davis’s staff two years ago and already has made an indelible impression recruiting in Western North Carolina–long the fertile hunting grounds for Tennessee.
“That’s all those people know–Tennessee football from cradle to grave. It’s a way of life,” Mogridge said. “Make no mistake–this was a home game for Tennessee. To go into that stadium with all their fans, to win that game the way we did, that’s huge for our program.”
In fact, the win could not and should not have come any other way, Mogridge thought as he watched ESPN’s replay of the game twice into the wee hours Friday morning in his Nashville hotel room.
“It had to end that way,” Mogridge said. “With the ups and the downs, with the stress, with the controversy, with the way it went down for five months, to put a bow around it, to close the books on this season, it could end no other way.”
1979 Carolina graduate Lee Pace ( leepace7@gmail.com ) is in his 21st year writing about Tar Heel football under the “Extra Points” banner. Look for his missives each Monday during the season.
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