On Saturday at 3 p.m., the Carolina football team will hold its annual spring game at Kenan Stadium.
This will not be a game, really, but rather a glorified scrimmage. There is an art to watching such a “game.â€
Watch to see the various pieces that comprise a team and look for trends. If the No. 1 offense can’t move the ball well and attack, most importantly scoring points, this is a bad sign of things to come.
The coaches are not going to show much of their playbook, but the talent of the individuals making plays will reveal itself. Can the offensive line protect? Can the line open holes for the runners?
What kind of vision and feet do the runners have?
One spring, the game ended 9-0 with virtually no offense. That fall, the team generated very little offense and practically no running game.
In the spring game of Darian Durant’s redshirt-freshman year, well before most people knew who this kid was, Durant threw the ball successfully all over the field. He attacked the defense. He followed that with four years of throwing the ball well.
When the lights came on in the fall, Durant performed just as well or better. The kid was a true gamer, and has proven to be one in the Canadian Football League too.
If the defense swarms successfully throughout the day, it’s almost certainly the better of the two units. But will it be good enough to succeed against the competition it will face in the fall? This question is a little harder to answer – you can’t determine whether the dominance is due to defensive strength or offensive weakness.
If some skilled player gets the ball in his hands and proceeds to dodge and juke would-be tacklers and make huge gains, the Tar Heels have someone special for the offense and/or special teams.
The coaching staff will want to throw as many bodies into the fray as possible and then watch the film to see who understood their assignments, which players executed the fundamentals and who looked lost and overmatched.
A player like Quinton Coples, a rising senior and first-team All-ACC selection last season while playing out of position at defensive tackle, is unlikely to play very many snaps on Saturday. The coaches know what Coples can do, and so does he.
Coples slid back to defensive end this season, and he’s going to be a load for tackles to block.
“It’s great,†Coples said of moving back outside. “It’s definitely been great. I don’t have to take all those double teams. It frees me up more. My body feels better.â€
Coples expects to find a way to top his performance of a year ago.
“I hold myself to a lot higher expectations than last year,†he said. “Last year, I was just trying to step up and be the anchor for the team. Overall, my expectations for myself are higher than anyone else can have for me.â€
He envisions what he wants to accomplish this fall.
“I’m playing a sack-mental game throughout all of spring ball and forward,†Coples said, smiling. “I’m sack-minded right now.â€
Of course, most of the eyes in the stadium on Saturday will be focused on Bryn Renner, the young man who will take T.J. Yates’ spot as starting quarterback. Renner put on a show during the first drive a year ago, zipping hard, accurate throws and leading his team to a touchdown to open the game.
On Saturday, it will be fun to see how he has progressed.