North Carolina Tar Heels: Greg Warren Snapping to Playoff Victory
The North Carolina Tar Heels were well represented in the Steelers-Bengals game, but the key alum was snapper Greg Warren.
The Pittsburgh Steelers had a secret weapon when they defeated the Cincinnati Bengals yesterday. They had ten year veteran North Carolina Tar Heels alum Greg Warren doing the long snapping. Warren has been solid throughout his career and Pittsburgh plainly needed it yesterday.
The Steelers would have lost the game if sheer numbers of Tar Heels were considered. The Bengals had running back Giovani Bernard, center Russell Bodine, and returner Brandon Tate to use. One of the ugly plays of an ugly game was the Steelers hit on Bernard than took him out of the game.
Warren, however, is the stuff of ugly games. That is the time when he gets to show his stuff. Even then, you would never hear about it unless the snapper screws up. No long snapper wants to be the one that is remembered for a mistake.
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So Warren has seen field goals in bowl games. He was the beginning of the best North Carolina victory of the Bunting era when he snapped the ball that would be booted through by now Tampa Bay Buccaneer Connor Barth. That kick beat a top five ranked Miami Hurricanes team.
With the Steelers, Warren was initially paired up with Jeff Reed, the kicker from his freshman year at Chapel Hill. He has now been through Reed, Shaun Suisham, and now the young kicker Chris Boswell is on the receiving end of his snaps.
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Boswell saw plenty of action yesterday, since he was responsible for four of the scoring plays that the Steelers had. That put the premium on a solid performance by Warren. For three of those snaps, there were no complaints. Young Boswell nailed three kicks for a 9-0 lead into the third quarter.
Then the long snapper got one more chance to make the difference in the game when the Steelers trotted out for a final field goal with :18 left on the clock. Another solid snap led to the winning kick and the Steelers are headed to Denver next week.
Most likely we won’t hear Warren’s name next week either.