After injury-riddled season, UNC trying to make sure it doesn’t happen again

The injury bug bit the North Carolina football team last season like mosquitoes at a lake during a hot and humid summer.

It was an anomaly, as UNC athletic director Bubba Cunningham put it earlier this month. UNC coach Larry Fedora said in all his years, he’s never had an injury-riddled season like 2017.

Multiple players went down throughout the season. Many of their injuries were severe enough that they missed the entire season. And the Tar Heels finished with a 3-9 record, the worst record under Fedora in his six seasons at UNC.

“You got 18 guys go down for the season,” junior wide receiver Anthony Ratliff-Williams said. “That’s not realistic. That’s a thing you don’t want to take place because those things, you don’t have a plan for.”

Cunningham said the same. He said in the offseason the team conducted a study to learn why so many injuries occurred.

“We looked at everything,” Cunningham said. “Whether it happened at practice, whether it happened in games, whether it happened on grass, on turf, how fatigued somebody was, what their lifting habits were, what their eating habits were, sleeping habits.

“Whether their GPS readings, from how hard they’re exerting themselves in practice and games. And all of those factor into fatigue and whether or not you’ve been previously injured, to determine how likely it is that you can be injured in the future.”

Cunningham said the team is taking all that data and working with the exercise and sports science department at the school, the trainers, and strength and conditioning coaches to decide how to best prevent injuries heading into this season.

Whether UNC can figure this out this year, and have a bounceback season, likely could have a impact on its success in the future. UNC’s record last season, coupled with N.C. State’s success -- the Wolfpack finished with a 9-4 record -- seemed to have a domino effect on recruiting in particular.

UNC had been the best at recruiting the top in-state prospects in recent years. But N.C. State had a good recruiting year, grabbing five of the top 30 prospects in the state from the Class of 2018, according to 247Sports.

And in a rare move, Payton Wilson, a top linebacker in the state, decommitted from the Tar Heels and signed with the Wolfpack last year. UNC had four of the top 30 in-state prospects from the 2018 class. However, one later signed a professional baseball contract after he was drafted in the first round of the MLB draft.

For now, N.C. State is currently on pace to dominate the 2019 recruiting class. It has commitments from 10 of the top 30 in-state recruits. UNC has commitments from just one.

Exactly how many players were injured last season, and the nature of their injuries is unclear. UNC declined to release its injury report. But it was a significant number, and it left the Tar Heels depleted and having to rely on its younger players to step up.

Among the players injured last year were quarterback Chazz Surratt; linebacker Andre Smith, who was recently drafted by the Carolina Panthers, and wide receiver Austin Proehl, who was drafted by the Buffalo Bills.

Each of those players were key contributors on the team prior to their injuries. The latter two missed significant time.

Last week at the ACC Kickoff, Fedora wouldn’t get into the specifics of what the study found, but he said he learned that it wasn’t one common denominator as to why so many injuries occurred.

“It wasn’t the field conditions,” Fedora said. “It wasn’t the actual training that we were doing. It was a variety of things.”

Ratliff-Williams said the players knew they had to make changes after last season to help in injury prevention. He said this year, players are trying to take better care of their bodies.

“Guys taking care of themselves and understanding that being in the training room is the best thing for you rather than just relaxing and being off your feet at home,” he said. “You can be making sure your hamstrings feel better, your knees are iced. Things like that.”

This story was originally published July 25, 2018 at 11:09 AM with the headline "After injury-riddled season, UNC trying to make sure it doesn’t happen again."