Lawrence Taylor and the 1980 Tar Heels caught Belichick’s eye

[andrew jones]

Lawrence Taylor and the 1980 Tar Heels caught Belichick’s eye

Lawrence Taylor and the 1980 North Carolina football team caught Bill Belichick's eye in 1980

northcarolina.rivals.com

 

[WoadBlue]

That team's 1 loss was at OU. The team looked bad that day, and a big part of it was old Astro Turf. That crap was just terrible even when brand new. A Turf burn was as bad as a Road burn from a wreck. And OU had the worst field with it ever. All Astro turf fields had a crown, down the middle of the field that was raised higher than the rest so that water would run off easier. But that meant the players who did not know how to play on such a field always missed out on using angles to make tackles or blocks or catches because the angles were necessarily different on a field with an Astro Turf crown than on a real grass field.

And again, it cannot be overemphasized that OU had the highest crown in the sport. UNC did not play teams with Astro Turf much at all, and all Big 8 and SWC teams played on Astro Turf. And then to play at OU was an extra mess. Making it even worse was the fact that the OU field then was a year, maybe 2, too old. It had actual tears in several sports in the AT that had been stitched back together but would rip easily. It had bald spots that were as slick as if you were running on ice. The OU players all knew the bad spots, and UNC players really had no concept of how there could be such bad spots.

If that game had been played in Chapel Hill, it probably would have been a 1 score game, and UNC would have had better than a 50% chance to win.

By the way, Astro Turf also did in UNC the next year as injuries on it played key roles in both losses. One of those losses was by 2 points to undefeated National Champ Clemson.