Tar Heels looking for wide receivers to catch on

Posted 8:17PM on Tuesday 1st November 2005 ( 19 years ago )

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. (AP) There he was, running wide open in the center of the field. Jarwarski Pollock's eyes followed Matt Baker's perfect pass spiraling toward him for a sure touchdown. All that remained was the formality of making the catch. Instead, the ball skipped off Pollock's outstretched hands. While the catch would have increased North Carolina's first-half lead on Miami, it was just one drop and hardly determined the outcome. Still, it illustrated some of the offensive inconsistency for the Tar Heels in their pursuit of a second straight bowl bid. Simply put, the wide receivers outside of Jesse Holley aren't performing the way coach John Bunting would like heading into Saturday's game against No. 19 Boston College. ``Ultimately you see a ball coming, that's the only important part you have to worry about,'' Holley said Tuesday. ``It's coming and you're going to have to catch it. ``Rameses the Ram could be throwing the ball, you have to catch it. It doesn't really matter who's throwing it. Your job is to catch the ball.'' Holley, a junior, leads the Tar Heels (3-4, 2-2 Atlantic Coast Conference) with 27 catches for 355 yards and a touchdown. He's gotten help from tight end Jon Hamlett, who has 15 catches for 153 yards and a score. But the rest of the Tar Heels' top receivers Pollock, Mike Mason, Derrele Mitchell and Wallace Wright have a combined 43 catches for 712 yards. The problems, however, are about more than just the play of the receivers. ``It's usually a couple of little things on every play,'' Baker said. ``It's a bad route, a missed block, a dropped ball, a bad throw. There's always one thing that we're not perfect with and this offense has to be perfect with its execution.'' The discrepancy has been even more pronounced in the past two games, when Holley caught 10 balls for 94 yards and the wideout quartet combined for three catches and 12 yards. Bunting blamed several factors, from Baker not seeing some openings downfield to receivers not running good enough routes. ``There has been a little bit of a disappearance over the last couple of games,'' Bunting said. ``And they need more production. I think we're starting to get our run game back, which is good so we'll have more balance. ``We can do it. There's no doubt in my mind we can do it. We've got good enough players to get that done.'' Pollock leads that group with 15 catches, but missed a game with knee surgery and hasn't been as steady since returning in the 7-5 win against Virginia. His pursuit of the school's career reception record has moved at a crawl; he came into the season with at least 31 catches in each of his first three seasons and needing just 19 to set a new mark. It seems like each guy behind Holley has missed out on a couple of big plays. Pollock's bobbled ball against the Cavaliers was intercepted and ended a first-half drive on Virginia's side of the 50, and his aforementioned drop against Miami would have given the Tar Heels a 23-7 first-half lead in the 34-16 loss. Meanwhile, the speedy Mason dropped a perfectly thrown ball as he fell into the end zone in the Virginia win. Holley sees one difference in those two TD drops. ``Nobody talked about Mike Mason's dropped touchdown pass. Why? Because we won,'' Holley said. ``Everything is better when you win. ... When you lose, everything's magnified.'' (Copyright 2005 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

http://accesswdun.com/article/2005/11/122646