Shop Online
Archive for the ‘North Carolina Tar Heels’ Category
Eye-opening Tar Heels
Heavyweight pass-rusher Robert Quinn was the main event among 18 players at North Carolina’s pro day, but there were some pretty good undercards for NFL teams scouting defensive prospects on Thursday.
Two of the most intriguing College players didn’t even work out. Outside linebacker Bruce Carter (torn left ACL on Nov. 20) and safety Deunta Williams (fractured right fibula on Dec. 30) are both doing their best to recover from surgery. That has changed their status from potential early round picks to mid- to late-round sleepers.
Both players, when healthy, made some impact plays for coach Butch Davis, who delivered some encouraging news to his former NFL brethren – that Carter and Williams are on track to be ready for training camp in a lockout-shortened offseason.
Here’s a roundup of what the four notable healthy defenders not named Quinn did on the field:
Marvin Austin, DT. There’s no doubt that at 6-2, 301 pounds, Austin stacks up physically with the best defensive tackles, but he was in the unfortunate position of having to perform his line drills right along with Quinn. Based on how strong and athletic he is, you could see some of his potential pop. It’s probably best if he’s drafted by a team that initially sees him as a valuable third tackle who can be effective for 10-15 snaps.
Quan Sturdivant, OLB. Sturdivant might end up a distant third in Tar Heels drafted as linebackers after Quinn and Carter. His value remains the same, he’s best built for a 3-4 defense opposite a sack artist of Quinn’s caliber.
Da’Norris Searcy, S. He and Williams worked well as a duo last season. “We challenged each other to see who could hit the hardest,” Searcy said. Without Williams alongside on the field during the pre-draft process, Searcy is proving he has quickness and athleticism to handle the position of pass-wary center fielder in the NFL. He shows the smarts necessary to consistently lift his teammates.
“They’ll get a good leader and communicator,” Searcy said of what NFL teams can expect from him. As a bonus, he can also help as a special teams cover and return man.
If a brain tumor can’t stop him, how could any lineman?
There is no known precedent for this: When Robert Quinn takes the field for an NFL team this fall, he will do so with a brain tumor still inside his skull.
Sporting News contacted officials at the National Brain Tumor Foundation and the American Brain Tumor Association, a historian at the Pro Football Hall of Fame and a doctor renowned for his knowledge of sports head injuries. None of them ever had heard of a football player—or athlete in any sport, for that matter—competing with such a condition.
Quinn, a 6-4, 265-pound defensive end/outside linebacker, not only will compete but he likely will excel.
North Carolina defensive end Robert Quinn could go as high as No. 2, according to some College draft analysts. (Albert Dickson/SN)
He is tautly muscled, never takes a play off and has uncommon flexibility, which he uses to get around offensive tackles when not going through them. He also will be one of the fastest defensive linemen in the league. He beat Bears All-Pro defensive end Julius Peppers’ 40-yard dash time at the University of North Carolina, and his dad, James, was an Olympic-caliber hurdler. Quinn could well become a top-five pick April 28.
All that for a guy doctors say should be dead.
Quinn’s up-and-down journey began in 2007, his senior year at Fort Dorchester High School in North Charleston, S.C. He suffered fierce headaches, blackouts and fainting spells. After he passed out at home one Sunday morning, his parents rushed him to the hospital.
Doctors drilled two holes in his head to drain the fluid; there was so much he was told he’d never play sports again and should have been brain dead. But his recovery went far better than doctors expected. The surgery was in late October, and by the end of February, he was wrestling. He went undefeated to win his third consecutive state heavyweight championship, which had never had been done in South Carolina.
He returned to the football field in the fall of 2008 at North Carolina. He won the 2008 Brian Piccolo Award given to the ACC’s most courageous football player. In 2009, his sophomore season, Quinn tallied 11 sacks and says he left at least that many unmade.
Off Their Heels
Harrison Barnes said he did not even stay up Saturday night to watch the Duke-Virginia Tech game. Roy Williams did stay up, though. “I’m sitting at home, so I’m comfortable,” he said Sunday night after his North Carolina team had played Maryland. “I didn’t have to coach it.”
Williams and his players will see Duke soon enough — six days later, in the same building, the Smith Center. And because of the results of the College games Saturday and Sunday, the chances are excellent that the game will decide the Atlantic Coast Conference regular-season champ, as well as the usual bragging rights on Tobacco Road. Both Duke — ranked first in the nation going into the weekend — and 19th-ranked North Carolina have to get past one more conference game before meeting in prime time to decide it all.
Of course, after Virginia Tech beat Duke, North Carolina had to handle another opponent immediately, and it did, decisively. Maryland needed this game as much as, or more than, the Tar Heels thanks to its precarious NCAA bubble positioning — and the Terps got simultaneously run over and swatted away, 87-76. No getting caught up in the moment or overlooking opponents for this group, not this season and not lately.
“We all woke up this morning and we were told about the game,” said Barnes, the freshman, who set the tone by knocking down three three-pointers in the game’s first four minutes. “And that was great and all, but we knew we had to come out here today and play our game. Because if (Duke) lost and we lost, then we’re in the same position we were in. We knew this was a big game for us, and we had to come out and win.”
The Heels have been winning just fine lately. They lost the week before Christmas to Texas, and since then they’ve won 15 of 17. Their last lost was at Duke, but they’ve won five straight since. Their previous loss was early in the ACC season, a 20-point throttling at home to Georgia Tech that still defies logic. It also raised the questions about whether this team really was past last year, the 17-loss disaster.
“You lose a couple of games in November and December, and people kind of stop talking about you,” Maryland coach Gary Williams pointed out, before calling North Carolina, sure to move up in the polls this week, “a top-12, top-15 team.”
North Carolina’s sights are higher, though — even as the coach and players try to keep them from scanning too far.
“I’ve always been told that to make all birdies, you have to make the first one. So we want to make the first one,” Williams said.
Barnes couldn’t agree more with his coach.
“We’ve been working all season to make sure we get to this position,” Barnes said. “And it’s been a struggle. We definitely had times where we didn’t think we could do it. But now we’re in this position and we just have to seize the moment.”
Barnes’ words were as mature as his game was (most of the night, at least). The same went for fellow freshman Kendall Marshall, handed the point guard reins in late January and handling both them and the still-perplexing withdrawal of former starter Larry Drew II with a levelheadedness beyond his years. Marshall finished with 10 assists and exactly one basket, that with eight minutes left and after the Tar Heels (22-6, 12-2) had already gone ahead by 17. Marshall totaled six points on 1-for-3 shooting. Three shots and 10 assists for a freshman point guard.
On Their Heels
The news that Larry Drew II — at that point a second-stringer — had suddenly left the North Carolina program had an unintended, or at least unexpected, consequence. It got the College basketball world talking and thinking about North Carolina again.
What was unexpected was that one of the most storied programs in America had drifted so far off the radar, all of two seasons after winning its second national championship in five years. And the Tar Heels had done so even as they were tied for first in ACC with arch-rival Duke, which, as usual, is on everybody’s radar.
The two renew their feud Wednesday at Cameron Indoor Stadium. But even if they beat Duke, the Heels are not expected to get all the way back to the Final Four this season, although they’re far better off than they were last season, when they missed the dance completely. And these two years of stumbling — highlighted, so to speak, by Drew becoming the fourth player since the 2009 title to walk away or be sent away — only continue a bizarre recent trend, that of national champions plunging off their pedestal soon after settling onto it.
Holloman: Larry Drew II Quits on Roy Williams, North Carolina
There’s no one reason why, in nearly every program that’s hoisted the trophy since the turn of the century, the highs are followed so quickly by the lows. The fact is, though, that they are — and the conclusion at each school is the same: it’s incredibly difficult these days to sustain great success. And it’s just as hard for those programs’ fan and alumni bases to accept that.
Actually, there is one pretty good reason, and it was spelled out by none other than Mike Krzyzewski, back in December when he passed Dean Smith on the all-time wins list and he was asked how he managed it.
Is Yankee Stadium Enough to Spark Notre Dame?
Everything was glorious Saturday night for the Fighting Irish, ranging from the moon-lit sky to the pageantry inside stuffed and loud Yankee Stadium to a 27-3 rout of Army. And, no question, they needed such a diversion. That’s because reality for Notre Dame College football these days is an ugly thing.
It’s just less ugly at the moment.
Despite the dismantling of overrated Utah and overmatched Army in consecutive weeks, and more specifically, despite flashing signs of owning a defense for the first time in years, the Irish still have issues. They are a study in mediocrity or worse at a 6-5 record before their expected beat down next week in Southern California, where they’ve lost four straight to USC by an average margin of 20 points.
Beat a USC team that is highly talented but clearly vulnerable, and then we can believe Notre Dame’s revival is here.
For now, Charlie Weis, Tyrone Willingham and Bob Davie likely are giggling to themselves when the topic is this first edition of the Irish under Brian Kelly and then saying, “It wasn’t just me.”
Read More >>
Butch Davis Is Dedicated to Tar Heels’ Football Program
Despite the firestorm that surrounds North Carolina’s football program, Butch Davis has no plans to resign as head coach. He also said he was unaware of former associate head coach .
Davis made both emphatically clear Thursday, telling the media that he plans “to be the head football coach here currently, and in the future.”
When asked if it was in the best interest of the school for him to resign, Davis said, “No.”
Blake and Wichard engaged in multiple business transactions, spurring NCAA and state investigations into tampering with the UNC football team, according to a Wednesday Yahoo! Sports report.
According to UNC, it became aware of some of the financial ties between Blake and Wichard when Blake was interviewed Aug. 31 as part of the NCAA’s investigation into the school’s football program. Read More >>
Entries (RSS) and Comments (RSS).
The views, opinions and information are unofficial, independent and are not otherwise affiliated or represent the views or opinions of Custom Authentic Jerseys not any team, league or organization.
Recent Comments