Aug. 8, 2008

By Adam Lucas

Life on the scout team is a unique kind of football purgatory. It guarantees the coaches will be watching intently--but they'll often be watching the other side, not your side. It's a low-pressure place for young players to catch a coach's eye, but it can also be a frustrating home for more experienced players who realize scout duty means gametime opportunities will be limited.

For that reason, some players see serving time on the scout team as a punishment.

For others, it's an opportunity.

That's the approach taken by Cooter Arnold last fall when he returned from an early-season suspension. The depth chart had already taken shape in his absence, so he was limited to special teams duties and a scout role. He picked up three tackles covering kicks, an area emphasized by Butch Davis. Arnold also found a way to make the coaches notice on the scout squad, where he saw time at tailback for the first time since his freshman season.

Back then, in 2005, Arnold was a revelation. He started at tailback against Georgia Tech that year, becoming just the second Tar Heel freshman to start the season opener since Charlie Justice in 1946. This was heady stuff for the Mocksville native. Grand pronouncements were made about his future, about Arnold perhaps being that back who could finally break Carolina's tailback drought.

But he gained just 187 yards on 48 freshman carries and moved to safety during spring practice in 2006.

He spent two years trying to tackle ballcarriers instead of being the ballcarrier, but showed impressive instincts when given the chance to once again play in the offensive backfield as a scout team member.

"When I came back from my suspension, I said I wanted to move back to running back," Arnold says. "They said they'd try me there and while I was on the scout team, we didn't have enough receivers and needed somebody with speed. They liked the way I was practicing, so they moved me to receiver."

Four years, three different positions. But this time, his teammates believed Arnold might have found a home.

"When he was on the scout team, we all saw that Cooter has tremendous speed," says safety Deunta Williams, who occasionally is matched up with Arnold during practice. "He will run right by you. He has incredible moves, and that speed gives him a cutback ability that other guys don't have."

Of course, he's also playing a position where the Tar Heels are stacked with talent. The wide receiver trio of Hakeem Nicks, Brandon Tate, and Brooks Foster won't cede many snaps, even with talented younger players like Rashad Mason and Todd Harrelson enjoying solid training camps.

Arnold's mission, then, is to find a package or a personnel grouping that allows him to utilize his assets. Davis and offensive coordinator John Shoop have consistently shown a willingness to tweak their offense to provide more touches for game-changing players. That's how Greg Little evolved in 2007 from seldom-used true freshman to a breakout performance against South Carolina at midseason to the starting tailback by the end of the year.

Not all the offensive transformations will be that dramatic. But Arnold already knows what his initial role could be.

"My thing is some of those `run-around plays,'" he says. "They can hand the ball off to me, but I can run deep routes too."

"Run-around plays" is football-speak for some of the trickier wrinkles in an offense, plays designed to isolate a slippery player in space against an overmatched defender. Some of Arnold's new teammates have already imagined him in that role.

"He's good at making people miss," Nicks says. "He's like Tate, because he is elusive. He's been outrunning corners and chasing down deep balls."

Making people miss and using his speed. For Arnold, it's a familiar role. After four years at Carolina, he's poised to end his Tar Heel career exactly where he began it.

Adam Lucas is the publisher of Tar Heel Monthly. He is also the author or co-author of four books on Carolina basketball.