North Carolina’s Sam Howell is a lot more than an elite passer
Slide, Sam, Slide.
That’s the only request North Carolina football coach Mack Brown has when prized quarterback Sam Howell takes off running this season. Brown thinks of it to the extent that, during Howell’s 62-yard touchdown run in their 59-17 win over Georgia State, he screamed “get down” until he realized that Howell was going to score.
Thanks to that run, and a 22-yard touchdown run in the first quarter, Howell had a career-high 104 yards rushing. And joined former signal-caller Marquise Williams as the only UNC players to throw for more than 300 yards and rush for more than 100 yards in a single game.
“He’s a valuable runner for us and that’s obviously going to be a huge part of our running game this year because of the two guys we lost,” Brown said. “That’s good and that’s OK. We had Vince Young and Colt McCoy both at Texas, who were valuable runners for us and ran for a bunch of yards.”
Brown said he just needs to get the 6-foot-1, 220-pound junior to slide more because, “he still likes to be physical, and I want him to go down.”
Howell leads the Tar Heels in rushing through two games with 139 yards, but he’s not exactly Lamar Jackson out there. He joked after the game that on his long touchdown run he was thinking, “Dang, someone hasn’t caught me from behind yet?”
In last year’s Orange Bowl, the Heels purposely added more runs for Howell to the game plan once running backs Michael Carter and Javonte Williams opted out to begin preparation for the NFL draft.
With UNC’s ground game struggling to find some consistency through the first two games, they’ve put Howell in a few more run-pass option (RPO) plays. And with an offensive line still looking for its continuity having had one starter out in both games, Howell has been more likely to take off instead of biding time on a scramble.
“He’s much more decisive about when he’s going to run,” UNC offensive coordinator Phil Longo said. “He’s getting through pass progression and he’s out, and he’s attacking grass now, we pull on an RPO and it’s not there, he’s attacking grass now.”
Howell’s 24 rushing attempts are the most he’s had in any consecutive games in his career. It won’t likely ever come to a game that he’s got more rushing yards than passing, but Howell is at least making defenses account for the possibility of him running.
“I definitely think I have a lot of value in the running game,” Howell said after the GSU game. “... I try to show as much as I can. I probably don’t do a great job of it at times. But yeah, I definitely think I’m a threat in the running game.”
Howell started out running more as a freshman, logging double-digit carries in his first four games. Then he had a total of six such games over his next 21 outings. That was partly because of the Heels’ couldn’t afford for him to get hurt so they asked him to throw the ball away more. But it was also because he wasn’t all that effective.
Howell had only rushed for more than 30 yards against a Football Bowl Subdivision opponent twice in his first two years. He had 53 yards in the Military Bowl win over Temple and 35 yards in last season’s win over Duke.
“He was a very successful runner in high school,” Longo said. “When he first got here that first year, he tried to pull some of that off against Miami and South Carolina and he took some hellacious hits... he learned quickly that it wasn’t going to be as easy.”
Howell’s offseason weight and conditioning regimen had this goal in mind. Carter and Williams were clearly the better option when it came to running last season. But with their departures to the NFL, Howell worked to increase his athleticism knowing that he needed to put himself in a position to run more when needed this year.
Brown’s concerns with getting the running game going does not include the fact that Howell leads the team in rushing yards. Howell establishing himself as a runner, it may actually help open things up for UNC’s running backs.
“People gripe because traditionally we’re supposed to have running backs making the yards and quarterbacks throwing the ball, and it doesn’t matter, you got to win,” Brown said. “Sam now has become an outstanding runner and that also should help his stock moving forward because he is not hesitant to take it down and run with it. We just want him to take care of himself.”
This story was originally published September 14, 2021 at 5:30 AM with the headline "North Carolina’s Sam Howell is a lot more than an elite passer."