Kicking Game

Bronze – (Three-way tie)

Why not a three-way tie for the gold you say? Because right now, we don’t know enough about any of the guys that will be kicking for our Triangle teams to give them the benefit of the doubt. For the first time in a long time, all three teams will be breaking in new full-time kickers, and for State and Carolina fans, that’s bad news.

Connor Barth left Chapel Hill as the school’s greatest place kicker, breaking the school record for total field goals and consecutive kicks made before he left. Barth was an All-ACC performer and acted as a huge security blanket for Butch Davis and his team, as they knew pretty much anything from closer than 50 yards was good for three points. Now, Carolina is forced to turn to a pair of first-year players, red-shirt Jay Wooten, and, of course, Barth’s brother Casey, the true freshman from Wilmington, N.C. Davis doesn’t know who will take the kicks just yet for his team, and he hasn’t dismissed the idea of a kicker-by-committee situation, but it will be tough for anyone to step up and fill the void the elder Barth left when he graduated.

For State, Steven Hauschka went from virtual unknown to saving grace in a matter of a few weeks. He was good on all of his extra-point attempts and missed only two field goals all year for a State team that needed every point it could get. Now, for the second time in two years, the Pack will try and come up with lightning in a bottle. Will Josh Czajkowski be the answer? We’ll find out starting Thursday, as he is the starter according to Tom O’Brien’s week one depth chart. The red-shirt sophomore hasn’t seen any game action, but hit all of his attempts under 40 yards in spring practice. That’s nice, but let’s see how he does from that far with 65,000+ fans screaming in his ear hole.

Duke is the only team that returns a kicker that has seen time in a college football game, but it still isn’t enough to vault them out of a three-way tie for the bronze. That’s because the man David Cutcliffe has penciled in to take the kicks to start the season is Nick Maggio, the very same Nick Maggio that missed two crucial field goals in last year’s season finale against arch-rival North Carolina. Joe Surgan, a senior who has been anything but consistent with his tremendous leg since arriving on campus, will handle the field goals from 45 yards out and farther, but Maggio is the man if the line of scrimmage is the 28 or closer. Either way, Devils fans should just pray for first downs and touchdowns for their team, because the field goal unit will be a crapshoot every time they hit the field until they prove otherwise – the two finished last year a combined 3-10, with none of those attempts coming from beyond 49 yards.

Return Game

Gold – Carolina

Brandon Tate – enough said.

Other than the gold medal I awarded to State for the tight end position, this was the easiest call I had to make. Tate already has the ACC record for kickoff return yards (in just three seasons), and, barring injury (I know Carolina fans, I probably just jinxed it), he should have the NCAA mark all to his own by season’s end. He is one of only nine players in NCAA history to return a punt and a kickoff for a touchdown in the same game (vs. Duke, 2006), and holds the single-season school record for kick returns for touchdowns with three.

With Tate, Carolina has the kind of proven game-breaker on the receiving end of punts and kicks that the other Triangle schools just don’t have. If he gets hurt, Hakeem Nicks provides a solid backup on kickoffs and Kendrick Burney does the same on punts.

Silver – Duke

The Devils have a pretty good threat returning kicks as well, he just doesn’t provide enough to vault the Devils over Tate and the Heels. Jabari Marshall, a senior, ranks third in career kickoff return yards among active NCAA players, and sits at eighth on the ACC all-time list. Marshall has elite speed and solid instincts, making it no surprise that he averaged just less than 25 yards per return in 2007, good for third in the ACC. Clifford Harris is listed as Marshall’s backup on the two-deep – talk about a change of pace. Harris is very experienced but doesn’t possess nearly the breakaway wheels that Marshall does. Duke fans will hope to see number 1 returning kicks for them all year, and not number 4.

Leon Wright handles the punt return duties for Duke, and while he isn’t the scoring threat that Marshall is, he is very consistent and won’t turn the ball over. Should anything happen to him, Marshall has his back.

Bronze – State

The Wolfpack lost one of the best return men in recent ACC history when Darrell Blackman graduated. He handled both kickoffs and punts for Tom O’Brien in 2007, and his presence (23.2 yards per return on kickoffs and 12.4 yards per return on punts) will be sorely missed on special teams.

Making matters worse for the Pack, is that Jamelle Eugene was slated to take over in both of those capacities, but he is not available for the team’s first game (and who knows how much longer). Andre Brown, Eugene’s backup at both running back and kick returner, will take over in both areas – he is experienced in the former, but not at all in the latter. The punt return game is an even bigger issue, as the backup on the two-deep there is T.J. Graham, a true freshman.

When Eugene comes back the return game shouldn’t be as much of a concern for State fans, but for at least one game things could be very interesting.

Coaching

Gold – three-way tie

This would be the opposite of the kicking situation, when all three were awarded bronze because of a lack of a resume to lean on. All three coaches in the Triangle have been successful at other places, and will be successful with their current teams as well.

Anytime you go through a coaching change at the major college level, there is always an alternating sense of excitement and anxiety. Fans and administrators alike are excited about the prospects of who they might be able to land, but nervous about the possibility of not getting any of their top choices. In the case of Carolina, State, and Duke, I don’t know that the schools could have done much better than they did.

In Butch Davis (55-28 all-time as college head coach), Carolina landed a head man with experience on the college and NFL levels, and a person who knows how to build a national championship contending program from the ground up. When he took over the Miami program in the mid-90’s, the Hurricanes were crippled by NCAA sanctions that limited the number of scholarships the team could give out in Davis’ first three seasons. Nevertheless, the University of Arkansas grad built “the U” into an NFL player factory before trying his hand at the NFL with the Cleveland Browns. In his two years at Carolina, Davis has re-energized a program that was dangerously close to becoming a perennial ACC bottom-dweller, and improved season ticket sales and facilities in the process.

State should thank Chuck Amato for what he was able to do to raise money for the program and improve the stadium and surrounding facilities, but I think State’s program is in better hands for the long-term with Tom O’Brien (80-52 all-time as college head coach) at the helm. The Navy alum brings the kind of discipline that State so badly missed during the Amato years, when the immense amount of talent on the roster was often derailed by its own careless mental mistakes. O’Brien built the Boston College program to what it is today, and there is no question in my mind that State will be a top-25 mainstay in a few years.

Duke, perhaps more than both of the other schools, hit a home run by landing David Cutcliffe (44-29 all-time as college head coach). The former mentor of back-to-back Super Bowl MVPs Peyton and Eli Manning, Cutcliffe brings the kind of star power and buzz to Durham not seen since the departure of Steve Spurrier. Given the dilapidated stadium in which the team plays, and near complete lack of success the program has had in the last half century outside of the late 80’s, luring Cutcliffe to Duke was nothing short of a coup. The early returns have been good, as recruiting has picked up and stadium and facility improvements are already in the works.

If all three of these coaches stay in the Triangle, a huge question mark in this era of coaching carousels, fans in and around this area will have plenty of good football to watch for some time. I see no reason why State and Carolina can’t make a bowl game every year, and why Duke wouldn’t at least be knocking on the door on a regular basis. Programs are built on recruiting and coaching, and all three of our area schools have set themselves up nicely for the future in both areas.