At 3:39 p.m., the game clock in Kenan Stadium on the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's campus hit triple zeroes for the final time on the afternoon. The scoreboard read: “Carolina 62, Elon 0.” The Elon University football team had just been crushed by the North Carolina Tar Heels. North Carolina sophomore running back Giovani Bernard scored three touchdowns just 17 minutes and 44 seconds into the game, and even after Bernard left with soreness in his knee, the Tar Heels were well on their way to a rout.
Words like “overmatched,” “bigger,” “faster” and “stronger” were used consistently throughout postgame press conferences with Elon coaches and players. But then there were other words used. Words such as “fun,” “unreal” and “experience.”
Midway through the second quarter, Elon junior defensive back Ed Burns came up with one of the very few bright spots on the day for the Phoenix when he intercepted a pass from North Carolina quarterback Bryn Renner. Though Elon’s offense couldn’t build on the little bit of momentum provided by Burns, the interception, and the game as a whole, meant a whole lot more to Burns then just your average interception and your average game.
[box]Falling to the Heels Get a recap of Saturday's 62-0 loss to the University of North Carolina here.[divider_flat] [/box]
Burns is coming off surgery to repair a condition called "compartment syndrome” in his left leg. Skin tissue called fascia surrounds a small compartment of space filled with muscle tissue, nerves and blood vessels. Because fascia doesn’t expand, swelling leads to increased pressure in that area, which can lead to blood flow to the compartment being blocked. If not tended to immediately, muscles can die and limbs may need to be amputated.
“Being able to be with my teammates again and playing for the guy next to me, today was a huge positive for me coming off my surgery,” Burns said.
As for the score, Burns can see past it.
“We just have to keep practicing,” he said. “We’ve got to take what we learned from this game and build on it.”
For Burns, Saturday was more about the experience and being able to play a game in Kenan Stadium against a team like North Carolina.
“The experience was really fun,” Burns said. “Coming out of the tunnel and seeing the crowd and seeing my teammates jumping up and down screaming, it was real fun.”
The same rings true for sophomore linebacker Jonathan Spain, except he isn’t coming off an injury.
Growing up in Greensboro and having attended Greensboro Page High School, Spain made the trip to Chapel Hill “multiple times” to see both the Tar Heel football and basketball teams play. Now at Elon, Spain has had the opportunity to play on a field he grew up dreaming about playing on.
“Coming out of high school, I would’ve loved to play for Carolina, Duke or (N.C.) State,” Spain said. “The cards fell the way they did, and now I want to play against the best competition, and so does everyone else on this team. In the back of my mind, I don’t think anyone is better than me on the field, so I go in very confident and I want to see how I stack up against these guys that, a lot of them, will be in the NFL, so being able to play here and experience this crowd was awesome.”
[box]Snapshots See photographer Al Drago's best pictures from Saturday's game in our online photo gallery.[divider_flat] [/box]
Spain’s thoughts on the score are similar to Burns’. The way he sees it, Elon is still a good football team that will improve and learn from the game.
“We’ll keep our heads held high,” Spain said. “I’m still very confident in this team. This is going to push us to work harder. What happened today won’t happen again. We’ll bounce back from this.”
The final score might have read 62-0, but, in the minds of the players, the experience of playing in Kenan Stadium against the University of North Carolina trumps anything the final score could have been.
“I’m proud of my kids. They kept fighting and they played the game hard,” said Elon head coach Jason Swepson. “That’s a good football team with 100-whatever years of history (in Division I football) to our eleven years. I’m proud of my team and it was a great experience for all of us.”