UNC’s Chazz Surratt and Jeremiah Gemmel now feel like salty veterans at linebacker
University of North Carolina coach Mack Brown was “absolutely scared to death” when his team traveled to take on South Carolina last season.
Not only was it his first game back as a coach following a five-year break, he was also starting two players at inside linebacker who had never played the position before in a college game.
“I’ve never thought about being a head coach and going into a game with two linebackers who have never played in the game at linebacker in college,” Brown said. “And one of them’s a quarterback. I mean I thought it might be a disaster.”
This year, Chazz Surratt and Jeremiah Gemmel are poised to be two of the UNC defense’s most vocal leaders.
“They’re bigger, they’re stronger, they’re responding quicker because they’ve gotten so many reps and they’ve seen so much and studied so much video that their instincts are better right now than they were,” Brown said. “ And they’re confident. They’re actually helping those young linebackers.”
The two have spent the offseason watching film together and learning to work as a duo within the defensive unit rather than as individual players. Just five practices into the season, they can already sense a difference this season from last.
“I think just in all aspects of the game I’ve improved so much,” Surratt said. “Like from this time in camp last year to now in camp I’m not even the same player.”
A large factor in that shift for Surratt is that prior to 2019, he hadn’t played linebacker. He was recruited by UNC as a quarterback and appeared in 10 games under center between 2017-18.
“Moving from quarterback to linebacker, it’s two different spectrums of the game,” defensive back Myles Wolfolk said. “Not in terms of play calling almost, but in terms of physicality and athleticism. [Surratt]’s always been a great athlete. So just seeing him progress and seeing how hard he’s worked to be that great player he’s about to be, it’s good to see him do it.”
Surratt finished last season as the runner-up for ACC Defensive Player of the Year. He and Gemmel combined for 199 tackles, 22.5 tackles for loss, nine sacks and four forced fumbles.
Gemmel said that by going to the film room together and studying last season’s games, they’ve been able to see their mistakes through each other’s eyes.
“I mean, after one year of playing by [Surratt] and him going to look back on it, we look back at it now and like laugh because he’s like, “Dang I could have easily been inside out on him and made the tackle right here,’” Gemmel said. “So I mean it’s good for us to go back and look at that thing so we can learn from it.”
Brown has also noticed the difference Surratt and Gemmel’s film sessions have made.
“One of the biggest things is that they can adjust to things more quickly on the field because they get their terminology together,” he said. “Jay [Bateman’s] defense is very complicated. So, it really, really helps to have those two out there. They can adjust to anything. They’ve seen everything.”
While Surratt and Gemmel will certainly feature prominently on defense and start most — if not all — of this season’s games, Brown and the pair themselves are equally concerned with building up the younger guys to be able to take snaps for them.
“What we’ve got to do is get it where the young linebackers can take pressure off of Chazz and Jeremiah that they don’t play every play, and then we’d love to have guys like those two be superstars on special teams,” Brown said.
Gemmel said two players that coaches are confident in being able to step up are Khadry Jackson and Eugene Asante.
“First off, they’re both really really athletic,” Gemmel said. “They could both run, they could both take three down the middle of the field if they wanted to, but for me it was them understanding the calls and seeing like what does Bateman, coach Bateman want on third down, what does coach Bateman want on second down. And I think that’s where they took the step of understanding Bateman’s defense, instead of just going out there and playing a call. They’re understanding why Bateman’s calling the call instead of just going out there and playing the call so I think they’re starting to understand the defense.”
Both Jackson and Asante appeared in all 13 games last season between linebacker and special teams. They had a combined 23 tackles.
Freshmen Cedric Gray and Ethan West have also already made an impression on their older teammates. Gray, a four-star recruit from Audrey Kell High School in Charlotte, was the No. 30 player in North Carolina according to ESPN. West, also a four-star, is the state’s No. 11 player and eighth-ranked inside linebacker in the country according to ESPN.
“Those guys are really really, really high character guys and they’re always in the film room, always trying to get better,” Gemmel said. “Always trying to meet with us, and so I think we’ll be able to go through deep if we really wanted to.”
This story was originally published August 11, 2020 at 2:39 PM.