Tar Heel Backfield Takes Pride in Blocking
For backs, running is but half the battle.
Aug. 18, 2009
By Lauren Brownlow
Dreaming of Bruce Carter or Quan Sturdivant running at full speed towards them might have kept a few ACC quarterbacks awake this summer. Both linebackers are exceptionally quick and athletic, both lethal on a blitz.
Fortunately for T.J. Yates, both are on his team. Last season, Ryan Houston, Shaun Draughn and Jamal Womble - often responsible for blitz pick-up - would have stood little chance. “I was getting murdered when I first got here, flat-out. It was pretty bad,” redshirt freshman Jamal Womble said. “But now I’m holding my own. They’re just as fast as you are, really athletic, but now as a group, we’re starting to go blow-for-blow. They throw one punch, we throw one right back. If I had to keep a tally, I would have to say we were up.”
Both Draughn and Houston struggled at times last season with pass blocking. Running backs coach Ken Browning said the two have progressed “light years” from where they were. “We give them a lot of responsibility in picking up blitz, anything from corner blitzes to safety blitzes to even backside linebacker blitzes. So they’ve got to scan over half the field sometimes in terms of a potential guy that they are responsible for,” Browning said. “If you don’t have some pre-snap keys and so forth, if you don’t understand those and you’re too slow, you’re either too slow picking it up or you’re too slow getting out.
