At 6-0, UNC can start imagining the possibilities – and now they’re realistic
Longtime college football followers around here know all about the power of hope, the lure of next year, because more often than not those are the only things keeping fans going. The hope that maybe one day will be the day of arrival. The belief that, yes, next year will be the year. Just wait.
And then mid-October rolls around and the cycle repeats. N.C. State fans are going through that now, ready to write off the 2023 Wolfpack (and, really, who can blame them?) after a demoralizing 24-3 loss at Duke on Saturday night, and after a month and a half of large-scale ineptitude on offense. You can hear the familiar refrain.
Well, this year isn’t going to be the year for State. That much is clear.
Maybe next year. Have to hope things will get better. Can’t get worse (or can they?).
Every so often, though, the present becomes more tantalizing than the future. That’s a rare thing for college football teams in the Triangle because, let’s face it, the history around here isn’t all that great (or good), is it? It has been 33 years and counting since Duke, North Carolina or N.C. State won even a share of the ACC — and more than 40 since any of them won it outright.
Heartbreak has often defined autumns around here, and that’s in the good years. In the bad, there’s just been disappointment and apathy and that resilient hope that it’ll get better — because it has to, right? And then, always, the distant draw of next year, the faint promise that maybe it’ll be the one. Or, if not, maybe the one after that. Or after that. One day. Keep hope alive. Just wait.
But now, for UNC, the moment really has arrived. This is the year. Or, if it’s not, it’s the cruelest illusion yet for people who’ve been waiting for this kind of season for a long time. The Tar Heels are 6-0 for the first time since 1997 (when they won their first eight games) and they’re in the top 10 of the national polls and all those crazy dreams fans conjure are becoming realistically possible.
An ACC championship? It’s within reach for UNC, which can score with anyone and whose defense has, against the odds, transformed into a force. A College Football Playoff appearance? Still sounds a little crazy, yes, but you can start to see the path. At the least, it’d be stunning if UNC wasn’t 9-0 entering its game against Duke in Chapel Hill on Nov. 11. And if the Tar Heels get there — if they win their first nine games — it’ll be their best start in ... 109 years.
That speaks to the rarity of something like this, both for UNC and for the Triangle’s three ACC teams, at large. Duke hasn’t started a season 6-0 since 1994, when it won its first seven games. State hasn’t won its first six games since 2002, when it won its first nine.
We’re in our 70th year now of ACC football, which gives us a combined 210 seasons among Duke, State and UNC. And during those 210 seasons, how often has one of those schools started 6-0? Ten times. About once every 20 years, on average, for any of these teams.
It doesn’t come with any guarantees, a start like this. N.C. State lost three consecutive games after that 9-0 start in 2002. UNC lost Judgment Day, against Florida State, after the 8-0 start in ‘97. Duke lost by 39 against the Seminoles after that 7-0 start in ‘94. And sometimes teams can overcome an early loss or two and finish with a memorable season, as UNC did in 2015.
Still, there’s something about entering the second half of October undefeated. As the winning streak grows, so do the possibilities. Years of deferred hope, of wait-til-next-years, finally offer a return on the investment. Those crazy dreams fans carry around forever suddenly don’t seem so crazy anymore.
ONE BIG THING
But no, really, it’s all possible for the Tar Heels after their 41-31 victory against Miami Saturday night in Chapel Hill. UNC has the offense. It has the defense. In what is becoming more and more apparent, it has a palpable and growing mojo. Maybe that’s because Tez Walker is eligible. Maybe it’s attributable to Drake Maye, and whatever aura the Maye family has brought to UNC.
Whatever the case, everything seems to be aligning. The final three games will be difficult, especially against Duke (presumably with Riley Leonard back by then). But so often UNC has failed the kind of test it encountered Saturday night, against a good team on a national stage. This time, the Tar Heels met the moment.
REALIGNMENT RUMBLINGS
It was a big weekend for future ACC members SMU (which won in Greenville — more on that later) and Stanford, which delivered Deion Sanders perhaps his most humbling experience yet in his first season as Colorado’s head coach. You can almost see Stanford’s big comeback victory the other night making it onto one of those Great Moments in ACC History lists the league likes to put together every so often. It can be celebrated alongside future ACC Legend John Elway who, with little question, will be remembered as one of the finest quarterbacks in ACC history, once Stanford becomes an ACC member.
THREE TO LIKE
1. The Tez Walker Show. Well, turns out Walker can play, indeed. Who knew? (Suppose the governor and attorney general wouldn’t have lobbied for the eligibility of just anyone.) Walker, to be clear, should’ve been eligible from the start at UNC regardless of his athletic merits. But it was nice, nonetheless, to see him shine the way he did Saturday night, with three touchdown receptions and several highlight moments. He’ll remember that night for a long, long time.
2. Local rivals getting together. Well how ‘bout that? Duke and N.C. State, about a 30-minute drive apart, got together and played a football game (not much of one, admittedly). This was the first time the Blue Devils and Wolfpack had met in Durham since 2013, which speaks to the foolishness of the ACC’s previous scheduling format. The good news is they’ll be playing annually from here on out (maybe that’s bad news for State), or at least as long as the ACC remains solvent.
3. Blue Devils prove their mettle. It was such an easy win for Duke Saturday night that it might’ve been easy to forget it came amid the undesirable circumstance of Leonard’s absence. No matter. Duke did what good teams do against not-so-good teams, which is to say the Blue Devils took advantage of State’s mistakes and didn’t make too many of their own. A pretty game it wasn’t but under Mike Elko Duke is miles ahead of N.C. State, in its 11th season under Dave Doeren.
THREE TO ... NOT LIKE AS MUCH
1. What was that, N.C. State? The Wolfpack on Saturday night looked like a team that might not win another game. Yes, there’ll be chances to get to six wins, with Wake Forest and Virginia Tech on the schedule. But those teams are also looking at State as one of their dwindling chances to win, too. Drops, penalties, blown assignments on defense — it was all bad for State at Duke. Well, not all bad. State fans showed up, at least. But the team? The coaches?
2. State of the state. Don’t look now but, outside of Chapel Hill and Durham, it is fast becoming wait-til-next-year season throughout much of North Carolina. State is a mess, with an offense so bad it didn’t threaten to score for the final 59 minutes Saturday. Wake Forest has its worst team in a long time. Natives are growing restless in Greenville, where Mike Houston is growing more and more unpopular, and in Boone, where Shawn Clark is running out of the goodwill that comes with being an Appalachian State alum. Outside of Duke and UNC, it ain’t good out there, folks.
3. But it’s bad at ECU, especially. The Pirates are winless after two games in the AAC and 1-5 overall, with the lone victory coming against Gardner-Webb. The defense has been good enough (usually) but the offense has been abysmal (does that sound familiar to anyone?). There are a bunch of teams on the schedule that ECU fans expect to beat, including some who’ve already dealt the Pirates defeats. But if you think things are bad now, imagine how worse they’ll be if ECU loses at home against Charlotte this week.
THIS WEEK’S BEST PROGRAM IN THE STATE
Well, it certainly isn’t in Boone, where App State suffered an embarrassing home loss against Coastal Carolina (and this isn’t exactly the Coastal of a couple years ago). Feel free to send those emails referencing the time you read in this space that App State had the best program in North Carolina. We digress. This week, the award goes to ... (building anticipation and suspense) ... Duke. For winning what was almost a road game, at home, and for doing so without its starting quarterback. Congratulations to the Blue Devils for being This Week’s Best Program In The State.
CAROLINAS RANKING
1. North Carolina; 2. Duke; 3. Clemson (and a big gap here); 4. South Carolina (and still another gap here, bigger than the last — a big gap, still gapping, really big, size of the Grand Canyon or another similarly-spacious gap); 5. N.C. State (?); 6. Wake Forest; 7. Coastal Carolina; 8. Appalachian State; 9. ECU; 10. Charlotte
FINAL THOUGHTS, IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER
-I think as rough as this season is shaping up in North Carolina outside of UNC and Duke, the state’s FCS teams deserve some attention, particularly Western Carolina and N.C. Central. They’ve lost just a game apiece (NCCU’s defeat was at UCLA, Western Carolina’s was at Arkansas) and they’re both among the favorites to win their conferences. That’s more than a lot of North Carolina college football teams can say.
-I think this is an interesting thought exercise: Is it more likely that UNC makes the College Football Playoff, or that N.C. State wins two more games to become bowl eligible? Outside of the narrow victory against App State, UNC has been in control of every game in the fourth quarter. State, meanwhile, just cannot score or move the ball against a competent defense.
-I think this is the storybook scenario for the Tar Heels: They show up in Charlotte undefeated at the ACC championship game. There, they meet Florida State, also undefeated. To lead UNC to its first ACC title since 1980, Mack Brown has to beat his alma mater — and a school he’s never beaten, in several tries.
-I think if you’re Duke athletics director Nina King, you sit down with Mike Elko and ask him to name his price to secure him for a long, long term deal. “Whatever you want,” you say, and you hope he doesn’t answer with, “a consistently full stadium.” As strong as Duke’s home environments were for Clemson and Notre Dame, the showing at Wallace Wade Stadium for N.C. State on Saturday was a reminder that there’s still a long way to go in that department.
