Aug. 19, 2008

By Lauren Brownlow

In his first scrimmage, Greg Little was laid out by fellow freshman Quan Sturdivant when he went up over the middle to catch a ball, prompting jeers from his teammates. But he had already been teased the entire summer. "I couldn't get in the right formation for anything for about two weeks. I couldn't line up right. (Coach John) Shoop was always yelling at me. I was called a line-up guy because I could never get in the right spot."

And he's not alone. Zack Pianalto tried to block Garrett White using shoddy technique and got whacked, prompting merciless teasing. Marvin Austin was blown off the ball by a double-team in practice last summer, only to have roommate Kentwan Balmer bring it up again the next morning. "Kentwan said, `Coach (John) Blake, there's something wrong with your boy Marvin. Last night, I was asleep and I just heard him saying, `Get them off me, dog! Get them off me! Big boy, I need your help!' He said I was getting deuce-blocked in my sleep," Austin said.

Ryan Houston was one of the only freshmen not to have suffered a `welcome to college' type of hit in camp. None of his teammates had put a solid hit on the big, bruising former 270-pound back in practice; doing so would have put their own bodies in jeopardy.

In his first game at South Florida, however, consensus All-American defensive end George Selvie had no such problem.

"He was coming up hard and I was trying to block him. It was like `boom'. I was like, `Dang, I've never had somebody that strong come at me before.' I was supposed to cut him, hit him low so he could drop, but for some reason, didn't think I needed to. I thought it was an option," Houston said. "But after the first time when he knocked me back, they were like, `You can cut him.' I was like, `For real?' So the next play, I cut him and he dropped."

He was one of 11 true freshmen to see game action last season. All had their shaky moments, some more visible than others. Pianalto didn't get low enough when he tried to block Virginia Tech defensive end Chris Ellis and was leveled; his teammates made sure that he didn't forget it. At Georgia Tech, Little didn't hear T.J. Yates' audible to change a pass to a run and ended up being dropped for a 20-yard loss.

Redshirt sophomore Deunta Williams had a breakout season at safety after making the switch from wide receiver in the spring, but it took him awhile to feel confident. During his first game against James Madison, the first time he dropped back in coverage he literally froze on the spot. As late as the Miami game, he was getting beaten downfield by opposing receivers. Something clicked before the South Carolina game and he was able to stop thinking and just play.

Pianalto remembered what it felt like, for him around the ninth or tenth game, to break through that wall. "If T.J. (Yates) is calling a play and I'm like, `Okay, I know it,' and I know exactly what to do, I don't have to think. I can just go out there and do my assignment instead of having to worry if what I'm doing is right."

Austin came in a highly-touted freshman and was determined to live up to that. With the help of his senior teammates on the defensive line, it started to click fairly early. "It was a point, second or third game where I started to get comfortable out there. At first, it was new. I was crawling out there and I felt myself starting to walk a little bit. I got my confidence up and I saw that I can really make an impact in college football, and I still feel that way," Austin said.

Houston had a nice debut against South Florida, getting 43 yards and a touchdown, and was feeling confident. That didn't last long. The next week before the Virginia Tech game, he was told that he would be the starter. "I was like, `Virginia Tech? Starting?' I had to get my mind right the whole week. That was a big deal, playing in front of all those people," Houston said. "After that, I just started playing comfortable because after Virginia Tech, they had so many people that were so loud, I was like, `If I can play at Virginia Tech, I can play anywhere.'"

While some of the sophomores are enjoying teasing the current freshmen, Williams remembers what it was like to be one and adopts a tough but fair approach. "I'm a lot tougher on myself than anyone else can ever be on me. So I feel like if everybody adopts that attitude then when somebody says something to you, it's like water off your back. You understand what they're saying but it doesn't get you down," Williams said. "What I try to do is to be there for them because I understand how it is to not know something or not know how to do something. So I sit them down and try to watch film with them whenever they make a mistake. But we're tough. There's a level of accountability right now."

Lauren Brownlow is the managing editor of Tar Heel Monthly.