Phil Longo's assessment "a big hit to the stomach" for Tar Heel offensive line

After a tough night at Wake Forest, Carolina's linemen responding to challenge

The North Carolina offensive linemen knew it and they knew exactly what coordinator Phil Longo was going to say about their performance on Friday night at Wake Forest.

Didn’t make it any easier to hear the one thing a lineman doesn’t want to hear, though.

“I think we have to do a better job being physical at the line of scrimmage,” Longo said. “That’s where it starts.”

Ouch.

“That’s a big hit to the stomach,” left guard Ed Montilus said. “That’s what offensive linemen do.”

“I take it as a challenge,” center Brian Anderson said.

It’s been boom or bust for the Tar Heel offensive line since rushing for 238 yards in the season-opening victory over South Carolina, managing just a total of 241 yards over the past two games on 73 carries, good for 3.3 yards per carry.

With Miami and Wake Forest both bringing more pressure, sacks have gone in the wrong direction too, going from giving up three to South Carolina before the Hurricanes tallied four and the Deacons lived in the backfield on Friday night, finishing with six sacks and four hurries.

Of 130 teams, Carolina is 125th nationally having allowed 13 sacks.

Carolina finished with 144 yards on 37 carries, but 116 of those yards came on five explosive carries. On 18 attempts, the Tar Heels managed two yards or fewer.

In all this season, 50 of Carolina's 125 rushing attempts have netted two yards or fewer, but the average has been balanced by eight runs for 20 or more yards, which ranks 12th nationally. Overall, Carolina is 79th nationally with an average of 159 yards per game.

“I would say that we were not happy overall, Coach (Stacy) Searels probably would tell you we weren’t happy overall with our performance up front,” Longo said. “It’s an offensive unit deal and that falls back on me; we weren’t ready to play early on.”

Needless to say, the line is well aware it needs to do more for the offense to succeed and the most important factor for achieving that was missing.

“Any offensive line, the biggest thing you can always say about yourself is that you’re a physical group,” Anderson said. “That’s something I’d like to say about our group … but against Wake Forest I do not think we did a good job being as physical as we should have been.”

Getting back to work on Sunday and Tuesday with an eye toward Appalachian State, the focus has been a simple one for Searels and the big boys.

“I would say we just need to play with more effort and play with more fundamentals,” Montilus said. “We’ve got to come out in practice like it’s a game — every day — and we’ll be all right.”

Fundamentals means also wiping out the five penalties committed by linemen on Friday, with Anderson responsible for two snap infractions while Marcus McKethan and Joshua Ezeudu were each flagged for a false start. Perhaps most damaging was a holding call on McKethan that nullified Sam Howell’s 22-yard run and put the Tar Heels into a 3 and 20. Carolina ultimately got a field goal on the drive, but the hold slowed the Tar Heels’ momentum after Myles Dorn’s interception.

Making the first start of his career in place of the injured Nick Polino, Anderson was quick to take responsibility for his mistakes.

“When things get loud, you can sometimes hear things when they’re not there, so that’s something I’ve got to be better on, going into weeks to come, that’s something you have to dial in.

“As a center, a lot of it comes back on you. A lot of the group things, things that sometimes didn’t work right as a unit, that all comes back on me.”

Physicality, he said, is also a matter of personal responsibility.

"Being physical is a choice you can make,” he said. “It’s a mental thing that you can walk into the game and deicide whether you want to finish blocks or not, whether you want to take the extra steps to block to the whistle or not. As a group, as an offensive line that’s something we need to key in on this week.”

And that’s exactly what Longo is keyed in on, too.

“Better focus early on, got to be more physical and we’ve got to play cleaner football,” he said.