Carl Torbush, good man, good defensive coordinator, tapped to succeed Brown

Does anyone remember "King Carl"?

Carl Snavely, also known as "King Carl", was the Head Football coach of the Heels during the Charlie "Choo Choo" Justice years. It would be hard for anyone to conclude that the Heels had a better 4 year period than in 1946-1949. 2 Sugar Bowls and 1 Cotton Bowl appearance in these 4 years are unprecendented in Tar Heel Football lore.

Welcome to the Carl Torbush years. Carl wasn't a King, but he was a good guy. His defenses were hard for any team to penetrate, especially after the first couple of years (1988-89). He was a good (not great) Defensive Coordinator. He was a likable fellow, and the football players loved him. He took over a shaken program who had their coach, Mack Brown, leave after the 1997 regular season. Carl took over and led the Heels to a 49-7 victory over Virginia Tech. Not a bad way to start off. Too bad it was the pinnacle of his success.

At the beginning of the 1998 season, most pundits had the Heels around 10th in the nation. I know I thought that the Heels may actually improve because Mack's Achillies Heel was with special teams. Too many blocked punts, field goals, fumbles on special teams for my liking. The Heels started off with an easy opener against Miami (Ohio), but unfortunately our offense sputtered. Too many incomplete passes, not enough of a running game, plus poor execution on Defense left us with a 13-10 defeat. After that game, we go to Stanford and lose to a mediocre Cardinal team. We come back to UNC and lose to a decent GT team by a score of 43-21. 0-3, not a good way to start the season. We rebounded, defeating Clemson, Pittsburgh, and Wake, but none of these teams were very good, and none of the scores were blowouts. We head off to Tallahassee and lose to the Seminoles by a score of 39-13 (not the worse score...FSU only lost to 1 team-Virginia, in its first 6 seasons in the ACC). We come back the Chapel Hill and defeat a mediocre Terps team by a score of 24-13, and then we lose to the Wahoos by a score of 30-13 (at UVA, a place where we haven't celebrated victory since 1981). We then defeat a poor Duke team by a score of 28-6. So we are now 5-5, and we head to Charlotte to play the Pack. The game was probably the best game of our season, and we pulled off a win by a score of 37-34. We receive a berth to the Las Vegas Bowl, and we defeat the Aztecs by a score of 20-13. Tough year, but we did win a Bowl game, right? But the telling stat for 1998 was that the Carolina D allowed, on average, 24 points a game. Remember, we haven't allowed one opponent to score more than 20 points in 1996 and 1997. Our offense averaged 24 points a game, so we didn't have the luxury of allowing that many points.

1999 was a disaster. We start off the season against a good UVA team, but lose by a last minute field goal (final score 20-17). We go to Indiana and defeat a poor Hooiser team by a score of 42-30. We then have to play a double dose of the Bowdens, and we were handed 2 more defeats from the Seminoles and the Tigers. And then, we play a great game against the #9 team of the nation, the Yellow Jackets of Georgia Tech. I was at the game with my wife, my sister, and brother-in-law, watching in amazement while we handled the Yellow Jackets. And then the injury of the decade occurred--Ronald Curry is done with the season on a freak accident. We still almost won the game, but GT came back and scored in the last moments of the game, sending us to OT. We end up losing 31-24, more symbolic than most games, I guess. We come back to Chapel Hill and lose to a mediocre Houston team by a score of 20-12. And then, playing the worst game of the decade, we are handed a defeat by the Terps by a score of 45-7 (this same team shared the ACC basement with us in 1999). We then lose to a Division I-AA team (Furman) by a score of 28-3. And it's not like Furman was a powerhouse: they lost to Elon the same year. The Deacons then defeat the Heels for the first time since 1989 by a score of 19-3. Heading in the Wolfpack game (again played in CLT), our team had (a) no offense and (b) not a good defense. But something happened: the Heels played inspired and defeated a decent Pack team by a score of 10-6. The next week, the Heels were the underdog against Duke, but the Heels came out on top, winning by a score of 38-0. These last 2 victories gave Torbush a reprieve...he would be back in 2000. On average we scored 17 points per game and allowed 25 points a game.

2000 was a better year. We started out with 2 solid victories over Tulsa and Wake Forest. After getting demolished by FSU (63-14), the Heels defeated a marginal Marshall team by a score of 20-15. We then lost the next 4 games, going down against GT, NCSU, Clemson, and UVA. Again, just like 1998 and 1999, we go out with a blast, defeating Pitt, Maryland, and Duke. We averaged 24 points on offense and allowed 26 points on defense.

So why did Torbush not succeed? I have several theories:

1. Recruiting. The last 2 years under Mack Brown was mediocre (sans Curry), and Torbush had to compete against a resurging NCSU team. Also, Terry Bowden of Clemson was a good recruiter, and he tapped into North Carolina on several occassions.
2. Injuries. But that is part of the game, right? Well, when you have injuries, you should have the depth to recover, but because of mediocre recruiting, our depth chart was weak.
3. Torbush was not a self-promoter. To be a successful NCAA head coach in the state of NC, you have to be able to reach out to the high school coaches. Torbush could not, and his personality was too reserved to make a deep impact.
4. Defense. Torbush tried to be his own defensive coordinator, and it didn't work, and by the time he gave this duty up, it was too late.

Again, Torbush was a good guy, and he was a good defensive coordinator, but he wasn't a successful head coach. With an overall record of 17-18, you might think he was due another year. However, the AD did not concur. Looking back, I know that UNC football needed a change.