Thirty seconds remained in a game knotted at 35 in Kenan Stadium when N.C. State lined up to punt on its 25-yard line. Giovani Bernard was back to return.
The rest was history.
The electrifying Tar Heel playmaker, who had 19 touchdowns in 2012, scored the biggest touchdown of his UNC career by breaking the team’s five-year losing streak against the Wolfpack.
This season, Bernard will not be returning punts for the Tar Heels — he was drafted by the Cincinnati Bengals in April.
Now, coach Larry Fedora is faced with the daunting task of finding a return man to replace the All-ACC talent during training camp.
“We’ve got three guys that are working out there on punt returns right now,” Fedora said Aug. 1, the first day of training camp. “Just in the little bit I saw today, we’ll be able to find somebody out of that group.”
Among the candidates to replace Bernard is an equally undersized true freshman who has proven himself to be a playmaker in his own right.
“He’s telling me he’s 5-foot-9,” sophomore T.J. Thorpe said of Ryan Switzer. “I know good and well he’s not 5-foot-9.”
Switzer, who doesn’t yet have an assigned position, has broken onto the scene during camp and shown that he could be what Fedora is looking for in the return game.