As if Thursday night wasn’t bad enough for T.J. Yates — he finished with only 64 passing yards, tossing an interception en route to blowing an 18-point lead in a loss to Florida State — the North Carolina quarterback says he had a fan throw something at him as he left the field.
Either a pin or a coin pinged off his helmet, Yates said today, but he’s trying not to let the criticism get to him.
“Walking off the field, people are yelling at you and everything, so it’s kind of hard not to hear it,” Yates said. “… It’s hard not to hear about all that stuff. I try to do my best to just try to block it out, because it doesn’t really matter.”
First of all, throwing objects at the players is beyond stupid. Regardless of Yates’ play on the field, he still wears the Tar Heel uniform and is doing his best to win games.
Unfortunately the first thought that entered by head concerned the irony of a fan being more accurate throwing objects at Yates from the stands than Yates has been throwing passes this season. I know. I am an awful, awful person.
Anyway, Yates is correct. It doesn’t really matter because the only player who could have stepped up to take Yates job left the program last spring leaving an inexperienced Braden Hanson and a shell-shocked Mike Paulus as the only options. In other words, Yates is like that shopping cart with the bad wheel you choose to put up with all the way through the grocery store because you do not want to go through the trouble of returning to the front to change carts. There is a silver lining though. The cart ultimately gets the job done in that squeaky, unbalanced sort of way. Just don’t expect it to be pleasant.
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If you’re an awful, awful person what does that make me for spewing diet coke on my monitor when I read that? (The accuracy part, not the whole thing).
Once again you’re spot on THF. I’m as guilty as anyone of expecting too much from these kids and I’m glad you posted this because it sorta puts it all in perspective. After all they are just kids and no matter how badly we hated the loss, we’ll never feel it as deeply as they do. It’s tough balancing being a fan that expects so much AND remembering they are amateur athletes. YOUNG amateur athletes at that.
I certainly can believe some clown is capable of throwing something at a player, but as THF points out, it would be a heck of a shot to throw a small object the 10-15 yards and ping a helmet. Something might have hit the helmet but I’d be shocked someone was able to do that without being seen. More likely somebody might have thrown an object randomly.
Maybe somebody should actually do an MRI of Shoops head instead of throwing something at the QB’s helmet.
There is just no excuse for hurling something at a COLLEGE KID just because his team lost. Whoever did this, please remember, this is someone’s son. If the shoe were on the other foot, and it was your son, how would you like it? Was I upset about the way the game turned out? Sure. Would I throw something at TJ Yates (or any other player) because of the outcome? No. I hope they find this idiot and he is never allowed in Kenan Stadium again.
Definitely need to ban whoever throws anything at anybody.
But the squeaky shopping cart… What if the wheel actually falls off? Then it doesn’t get the job done. I don’t know. Are Paulus and Hansen that bad?
i was just wondering the same thing, wasn’t paulus a top recruit? is he just a bust? the problem here is really not with the kids, b/c i’m sure they’re trying their hearts out. if we see kids w/ bad attitudes who mope and don’t give it their all, then i have a problem with them. but if yates is in the game and is still our starter, that is because our coaching staff has determined he is the best option! if he goes zero for 69 and does not get benched that must be because the next guy is liable to go 0 for 100 with 10 INT’s. okay that’s a huge exaggeration, but my point is i can’t blame yates or any of our starters. if they don’t get the job done they should be benched unless they are the best options.
so moving on and looking ahead. what’s the deal with the bryn renner kid? i have heard he is the real deal. I would probably redshirt him unless we think next year will be a great deal better w/ the o line and receivers. then we just work him in next year and he may win the job by end of season, if not, he gets good reps next year and still has 3 years of eligibility to lead the team. heck, clemson has that redshirt freshman QB who definitely made some blunders but he looked sharp and had a competitive fire about him. i think we should expect something like that, it would be nice right?
I know I’m beating a dead horse, but I’m telling you guys, the MISTAKE Butch Davis made with Cameron Sexton is coming back to haunt all of us. I’m not saying Sexton is Sam Bradford, but his mobility would be such a plus this year.
PS. I know THF, it is what it is……..
Since we’re on the subject of QB’s and since this question keeps popping up; evidently Paulus really IS that bad. Reason I say this is if he were as good as he was made out to be wouldn’t he have transferred after all this time as a backup to the backup? If he’s a 4 star (if I remember correctly) QB recruit wouldn’t he be able to get more playing time somewhere else, maybe even start? Right now he seems to be third in the depth chart (I don’t know why but that just sounds funny given our QB situation) and would be fourth if Brenner wasn’t a RS.
All the talk about our QB situation just got me thinking about that. And I thought back to when he was being recruited and he basically said he wasn’t coming if BD wasn’t hired. Hard for me to believe that THIS is the guy that tried to hold the program hostage.
yeah, that’s what i was wondering. he was highly touted from the start, so i figured we’d see him pop into games and hear his name mentioned for the starting job now and again. but nothing. oh well…they don’t always pan out.
Let’s collectively chill on the idea of playing Bryn Renner this season — he’s got skills, but what he doesn’t have right now is a body that can withstand the punishment of Division I-A football. He’s far too skinny right now, and he needs at least a year of strength and conditioning to remedy that. Furthermore, there’s nothing worse for the development of a young quarterback than to throw him into the fire behind an offensive line as bad as ours; that’s a disaster in the making right there, and it’s got the potential to break Renner both physically and mentally. The best scenario, for the program and for Renner both, is for him to sit out this year while getting into college football shape, then get a shot to compete for the starting job come spring practice.
1. Mostly likely place to get from an item thrown would be heading into the tunnel – student section. The behavior would fit as well. Pretty poor treatment, like the boos I could hear on the ESPN broadcast and the reference by the announcers. I’m sure that went a long way toward recruiting, why not just cut your legs off, that will really help the program.
2. It makes sense to hold out Renner, it’s unfortunate that we lost Sexton but that was his decision as much as the coaches. I know he wanted to play but I think he’d be in there right now. I’m not going to second guess the coaches when they choose the starter after the Spring practice. I’m trying to think what other positions have the wrong players in place…this would be a problem all over the field not just in one spot.
I think we are at a big disadvantage coming into the VT game as they’ve had a week off and we are coming off a previous Thursday night game. Just how often does that happen? Aside from our difficulties in the game this situation doesn’t help. I’m disappointed in the season but my expectations were out of whack for this year, I think we did better than expected and Davis has been very cautious when speaking to the media from the start of this season. I was too caught up in what I wanted versus what is possible. There’s certainly room for improvement and I think we will get it, at least we didn’t have to go through two 1-10 seasons…I can only imagine what would be happening online with that reality.
There was reason to feel extremely optimistic about this season… until the offensive line attrition became downright silly. The losses of Stahl, Gaskins, Bryant, Dyer, etc. not only took several starters out of the equation, it robbed us of depth that was necessary in order to keep the line fresh and productive throughout a game. I believe that had our projected o-line from the end of last season stayed intact, we’d be 6-1 right now, even with the obvious growing pains at receiver. Yates would not be nearly as bad right now if poor protection hadn’t given him a seemingly permanent case of jitters.