Heels' successive flops cause for concern

A Champs Bowl dude was in the house Saturday at Kenan Stadium.

That’s the late-December game in Orlando which usually winds up getting a couple of 7-5, maybe 8-4, teams from the ACC and the Big Ten.

But based on everything that unfolded in Virginia’s 16-3 win over North Carolina, the scouting trip to Chapel Hill may have been a waste of money. There’s no compelling reason to assume either team will escape this football season with more wins than losses.

In Virginia’s case, that’s not unexpected. The Cavaliers began amid low expectations and had lived down to them through three straight losses.

But for Carolina, now 3-2 after successive flops against Georgia Tech and Virginia, the season is turning into into the sort of embarrassing shock that led fans to boo head coach Butch Davis and his offensive staff during both halves Saturday.

Those boos, though limited to isolated sections, were richly deserved, too.

Sure, there have been some pivotal injuries. Sure again, several key offensive players are inexperienced.

But bottom line - as Davis puts things occasionally - there’s no reason in the world for Carolina failing to score a touchdown (or even seriously threaten) against a winless visiting team that had given up 26 points to William & Mary, 30 to Texas Christian and 37 to Southern Miss -- the Southern Miss team that  Alabama-Birmingham routed a couple of days ago.

Carolina’s offense reeked from the word “hike.”  The blockers were confused and smothered by a 3-4 defense UVa has been running all season but apparently struck the Tar Heels as something from deep outer space.

Since no one could block, no one could run, although back-up Ryan Houston was big and mad enough to average 5.3 yards on three carries through sheer size and determination.

Houston didn’t have a big role in the game plan, but at least he got on the field. The same can’t be said for substitute quarterbacks Mike Paulus and Branden Hanson, who watched along with everyone else as T.J. Yates struggled yet again.

Yates said after the game that he didn’t think Davis and offensive coordinator John Shoop would turn to a reliever. Yates was right.

“We’re in the situation where you sometimes have to play your way through some bad performances,” Davis said. “[Yates] didn’t play as well as we’d have liked for him to last week at Georgia Tech. He hit some throws today, but he was under duress ... They blitzed or pressured something in the neighborhood of 10 of the first 19 plays.”

Yates, an experienced junior, threw for 135 yards and was intercepted twice, running his season total in that department to seven. That he’s a bright, tough, determined youngster who’s dedicated to the program isn’t in doubt. But it’s equally clear that Yates, in three of the five games, has floundered. Whether it’s his fault or not, the rest of the offense has followed suit.

The overriding story of North Carolina football, dating back to the early 1950s, has been an eternal search for quality quarterbacking. It’s a problem that’s befuddled every coach from Jim Tatum to Davis and led directly to the eventual release of some.

 Davis is beginning to track in a dangerous direction on that front, too. The economy is tight and his contract is a big, long one. But at a time when the school is planning yet another multi-million stadium expansion, nothing can undercut program interest more than a sterile offense.

Davis and Shoop obviously are committed to Yates. That much was apparent a year ago when they benched hot-handed Cam Sexton for Yates, who was returning from injury, going into a game at Kenan against N.C. State. The result was a 41-10 disaster that left both camps howling - one in protest, the other in delight - and opened the door for Sexton to transfer out of the program.

 The coaches are getting paid fortunes to make the best possible decisions for the program. They think Yates is the way to go, and maybe they’re correct.  But for now, it’s just not working well enough to rule out alternative measures.