Film Study: Assessing Sam Howell's first start for the Tar Heels

Shortly after being named the ACC’s Rookie of the Week following his first collegiate start, Sam Howell had plenty of thoughts on what he could have done better in leading North Carolina to a 24-20 victory over South Carolina.

After completing 15 of 24 of his attempts for 245 yards with two touchdowns, coaches had plenty of praise for the freshman as well as a few coaching points they’re looking to drive home as the Tar Heels prepare to host Miami at Kenan Stadium on Saturday night.

Here’s a look at the positives from his performance against the Gamecocks and the areas of improvement offensive coordinator Phil Longo and Howell himself pointed out.

The Deep Ball

It takes two to tango, and the Tar Heels got both parts of the dance correct on Saturday.

Not only were the receivers excellent when they were given chances, but Howell put several big-time throws on the money.

"I think he’s very accurate, (on the) deep ball," Longo said. "I think he’s an accurate intermediate guy. Early in camp, he was not an accurate automatic throw guy. He was struggling with what I call the automatics, the easy stuff, but that’s a tribute to him; he took care of his footwork. "

His first deep shot to Dyami Brown was well-placed, but Brown couldn’t haul it in.

From there, Carolina’s receivers rewarded their quarterback’s trust in them as Newsome kept a drive moving, while Brown and Beau Corrales each snagged touchdown grabs.

The first was especially encouraging for a true freshman, as bringing Carl Tucker into motion helped Howell identify that the Gamecocks would have man coverage on Brown with a single high safety shaded toward the other side of the field.

He didn't hesitate for a second.

"I’ve seen them do that ever since I got here," Howell said. "I have all the confidence in the world in all those guys. They’ve been making crazy plays like that ever since I stepped in the room here; I have all the confidence in the world. What everyone saw on Saturday, I’ve seen ever since I got here."

Not only did Howell deliver two perfect strikes for touchdowns, teammates say he never flinched during the course of drives that covered 98 and 95 yards in the fourth quarter.

"Howell is a quiet guy but he just oozes confidence," left tackle Charlie Heck siad. "You can just feel that playmaking swag about him and just being able to see him run around and make plays, it was awesome."

On the run

After rushing for 3,621 yards and 60 touchdowns at Sun Valley High School, Howell won't shy away from an opportunity to run and he certainly won't shy away from contact.

"I never slid one time in high school because I could break plenty of tackles," Howell said.

After one college game, Howell knows it's a whole new ballgame.

"It’s obviously different at this level, so it’s something we’ve got to work in practice," he said. "It’s definitely an adjustment."

Although Howell was an effective runner Saturday, he put himself at risk far too many times, taking big hits and looking to extend plays when he could have thrown the ball away or gotten down.

"Watching the film, I definitely need to be smarter about the hits I’m taking," Howell said. "I definitely need to get myself down in some different situations. Sometimes, it’s OK to fight for the extra yard, but watching that game, I definitely shouldn’t have taken as many hits as I did."

On one such play, Heck bailed out the Tar Heels with a fumble recovery.

"If Sam were on defense, he’d be a middle linebacker; that’s his mentality … he’s physical and he’s used to running people over in high school and he’s used to getting the extra yard and he’s a competitor, but there’s health management in the game with a quarterback," Longo said. "You want to live to play another day, so as the game went on, I don’t know if you noticed, but he slid a few more times and I think he kind of learned that lesson as well and it’ll be something we keep preaching."

Indeed, there was a slide. Perhaps the first of Howell's career?

Feeling the pressure

Sometimes, quarterbacks who have the ability and confidence that Howell has in his legs comes a tendency to overuse it.

Longo praised Howell's handling of what he called "legitimate pressure" on Saturday, but both agreed that he occasionally moved a bit too much in the pocket.

"We moved maybe a little too much when there wasn’t legitimate pressure; we’d get a little bit of a flash of color or we stepped up too much into some pass rush, when maybe it was a healthy pocket," Longo said. "We’ll work at keeping him at the top of the drop so that we can get to the next look in the pass progression. I think those are just typical things you’re going to get out of a competitive freshman."

This play wasn't terrible because Howell used his athletic ability to escape and made a wise decision to throw it away, but seeing the blitz coming from the outside, he stepped up a bit early and created that trouble for himself.

An early instance of stepping into pressure in what should have been a healthy pocket.

Can't teach that

You don't become a high-school All-American and a top-ranked recruit without some special ability, and Howell showed that on several occasions beyond the deep balls on Saturday.

He's embraced the label as a gunslinger since he got to Chapel Hill and there's no better example than this, as Howell was about a quarter-second from calamity on two separate instances.

Instead, it goes for a big gain.

"(Longo) hopes I probably wouldn’t make that throw again, which, looking at on film, I probably wouldn’t make it again, either," Howell said, "but you know..."

The "But you know" is the key part of that sentence, because as much as both he and Longo know he shouldn't make that throw again, the confidence in his ability to do it might outweigh the negative of a turnover.

One of the big missed opportunities of the game will ultimately reappear for the Tar Heels in the very near future.

For some of the hits that Howell probably should have avoided in the game, his feet also gave him the opportunity to complete this pass to Antoine Green, which caused Mack Brown to reference both Vince Young and Colt McCoy in the postgame press conference.

"I still feel like he’s most impressive when he’s out of the pocket and he’s running toward the line of scrimmage," Brown said. "He’s fast enough to make yards and strong enough to break tackles, but when people come up, he’s got that really good awareness to throw the ball downfield like he did to Antoine Green.

"He just didn’t have his feet under him enough to get it to him, or that’s a touchdown throw and I think he’ll be so much better this week than he was last week."

Conclusion

A fantastic debut for the freshman quarterback, and the numbers could have been even more explosive if he'd been given more opportunities to throw the ball downfield early in the game.

That's over now, and Howell will be unleashed from the opening drive on Saturday night.

"We were a little bit more conservative than I’m used to being because we wanted to make sure we came away with points," Longo said. "We had a couple opportunities in the red zone with Sam and the offense to maybe take a shot; there was a run option and a pass option on the play and we chose the run option when maybe we could have thrown one or two of them."

Longo put things in perspective for the first true freshman to ever start a season-opener for the Tar Heels.

"For a true freshman who was sitting in a high school class in December and now had to face an SEC defense on opening day, I think we’re all pretty happy with his overall performance," he said.