UNC’s nonsensical loss to Virginia actually also made perfect sense, given the history
What’s the old saying? You can take ACC football out of a divisional format but you can’t take the Coastal Division out of ACC football? Something like that. The latest proof: North Carolina’s inexplicable, confounding, nonsensical, what-on-Earth defeat against Virginia on Saturday night.
Nothing about that game, or result, made sense given everything we thought we knew – or, really, given everything we’d seen with our own eyes for a little more than half the season. UNC’s defense, until Saturday night, had been a feel-good kind of story — not a worst-to-first kind of thing but certainly from the incompetence of last season to competence of this one. Drake Maye had been Drake Maye. The Tar Heels offense, overall, looked about as formidable as any in the country.
And then? Well, and then came Saturday.
The defense reverted to 2022 form. Maye played perhaps the worst game of his otherwise mostly-stellar two college seasons. He received little help from a receiving corps that one could have argued was the ACC’s best. And then there was Virginia, which arrived at Kenan Stadium as arguably the worst team in the ACC and left with the kind of victory that reminds us of the best of what sports can be, given the horror that program has endured for much of the past year.
You had to feel good for the Cavaliers, whose performance undoubtedly provided a catharsis that was about a lot more than football. No program in the country has gone through more turmoil and grief than Virginia, after three players died in a shooting almost a year ago. This wasn’t so much a moment of healing — for that has to happen individually, in time — as it was a moment for a wounded and hurt team to come together and celebrate. That part of Saturday was special.
For UNC, though, this was an abysmal defeat.
All that good mojo the Tar Heels had built throughout a 6-0 start? Gone. All that positive national media coverage, that started to hype UNC as a darkhorse national title contender? Gone. The top-10 national ranking? Gone. The hope that this season really was different, and the one that long-suffering UNC football fans had long been awaiting? Gone.
Nothing about this result made sense. Which, in a way, meant that it made perfect sense, given both the Tar Heels’ football history and that it shares with its local rivals — and with the ACC, at large. The ACC’s Coastal Division no longer exists, but UNC losing to Virginia was right in line with the long-cemented ACC Coastal Division identity. Divisions can go away but the Coastal never really died, did it? The ethos is still there; the unpredictability is still ready to strike the unsuspecting.
One minute you’re strolling along, in the midst of your best start in more than 25 years, undefeated and in the top 10, getting the kind of national pub you and your fans have long craved. Then, boom: you’re trapped in the carnival midway, being hustled into the funhouse with those crazy mirrors and skinny hallways and strange-tilting floors sliding this way and that, and nothing is as it seems; reality itself blending into a dream.
And when you walk out, you’ve lost to Virginia, and there’s a clown laughing at you. And he says: “As penance for this, your next game is on the ACC Network.” And, well, that’s pretty much how it was for the Tar Heels Saturday night. Shocking, yes, but ... was it?
We’ve seen this show before, after all. Many times. UNC fans of a certain age undoubtedly went back in time to another loss against Virginia, in 1996, that came with similar vibes (though this was worse). In their joy at their rival’s defeat, N.C. State fans may have been reminded of their own 9-0 start, followed by an inexplicable loss against Georgia Tech in 2002. This is what college football often does around here: It breaks hearts and disappoints and confounds so often that when the bubble finally bursts the question is often not how, but what took so long?
ONE BIG THING
Well, Saturday wasn’t the best of days for North Carolina’s two best teams. There was the UNC debacle in Chapel Hill. And, in Tallahassee, Duke lost quarterback Riley Leonard, who re-injured his ailing ankle, and then quickly lost ground in defeat against Florida State. UNC’s loss, especially, meant that N.C. State enjoyed its best Saturday of the season (the Wolfpack was off, remember).
Despite the defeats, though, there’s still a good chance that Duke’s game at UNC on Nov. 11 goes a long way toward deciding who winds up in Charlotte in the ACC championship game (against Florida State, as seems a foregone conclusion now). That is, of course, unless the losses UNC and Duke suffered linger – though certainly that’s never happened for either of these teams.
REALIGNMENT RUMBLINGS
OK, hear me out: two things about Saturday further reinforced the insanity of these times in college athletics, amid the insatiable quest for more (more money, mainly).
For one, UNC’s defeat against Virginia should remind those UNC fans who can’t wait to leave the ACC (of which there’s a large number) that if the Tar Heels can’t beat one of the ACC’s worst teams at home, while ranked in the top 10, while having one of the best quarterbacks in school history — then maybe, probably, it wouldn’t fare all that well, either, in either the Big Ten or SEC. You can’t go around thinking you’re too good for the ACC while losing at home to Virginia. It’s against the rules.
Second, the environment at Florida State, for Duke, was electric. At least it looked that way on TV. Which, there goes the argument a lot of FSU fans like to make that they simply have a hard time getting up for these games against the Tobacco Road “basketball schools.” Didn’t look like that was a problem at Doak Campbell Stadium Saturday night, did it?
THREE TO LIKE
1. Riley Leonard’s heart. His numbers weren’t great and he wasn’t 100 percent, but Leonard’s presence clearly provided Duke an intangible boost at Florida State. With him, the Blue Devils held a 20-17 lead midway through the third quarter. Without him, after Leonard left upon aggravating his ankle injury, the Blue Devils melted down. The question now is how effective Leonard can be from here. With him, Duke might just be the leading contender to face FSU (again) in Charlotte.
2. A game so bad, it was good. Sometimes something is so bad it can’t help but be admired; the atrocity of it transforming into art, in a way. So it was with Charlotte’s 10-7 victory at ECU. This was a terrible football game in every way, and its awfulness will be passed down from generation to generation, like a folktale but, hey: the 49ers won, somehow, because someone had to. A fun stat from this game: the teams were a combined 5-for-29 on third down, and punted 15 times.
3. Local rivalry pettiness. The joke wrote itself not long after Virginia completed its stunning victory at Kenan Stadium: that, with UNC losing, it was the best Saturday of the fall for N.C. State. And the Wolfpack didn’t even play. This is the kind of petty fun that makes the Triangle the best college sports market in the country. A team can be off, out of action, and its fans can enjoy their most satisfying weekend of the season by virtue of what happened (or didn’t) down the road.
THREE TO ... NOT LIKE AS MUCH
1. UNC falters as a top-10 team ... again. The Tar Heels have played six games as a top-10 team since 2015. After Saturday, they’re now 1-5 in those games, with the lone victory coming against Virginia Tech during the pandemic-stricken, spectator-less season of 2020. The defeats have often been shocking and difficult to explain, as was the case this time against Virginia.
2. But no, really, ECU – what is going on? As noted in this space last week, if you thought things were bad before, just wait and see what happens if the Pirates lose against Charlotte. And then they lost against Charlotte. It’s not as if Mike Houston just forgot how to coach — and he has had some solid teams in Greenville — but it has become clear ECU just doesn’t have a quarterback, or an offense (10 first downs and 2.5 yards per play against the 49ers). This could be the kind of defeat, at home against Charlotte, that’s just a point of no return for Houston and a disillusioned fan base.
3. Six-day holds for television. An evergreen complaint, yes, but (and let’s pause here to yell at those kids to get off the lawn and to shake a fist at a cloud) it is becoming more and more difficult to plan ahead these days with how often TV execs wait until the last possible minute to announce kickoff schedules. Seems like every game time now is decided six days in advance. That’s good for TV, perhaps, but terrible for fans trying to plan.
THIS WEEK’S BEST PROGRAM IN THE STATE
Charlotte! Come on down: You, by default, are this week’s Best Program in the State, by virtue of winning what was arguably the worst college football game played in North Carolina this season. (Wake Forest’s almost-equally-ugly victory against Pitt on Saturday was considered but, ultimately, that contest could only hope to commit the kind of crimes against football that thousands witnessed in Greenville). This was the 49ers’ first American Athletic Conference victory and, yes, there was some poetry that it came in a game that put the “Ack!” in AAC.
CAROLINAS RANKING
1. Duke (moves up with a respectable loss — it was that kind of week); 2. North Carolina (just can’t remain in the top spot after losing at home to Virginia); 3. Clemson (where else to put the Tigers, really?); 4. South Carolina; 5. N.C. State; 6. Wake Forest; 7. Coastal Carolina (these last four spots are truly a land of despair); 8. Appalachian State; 9. Charlotte (49ers out of the basement for the first time this season); 10. ECU (it’s bad, folks. Real bad).
FINAL THOUGHTS, IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER
-I think, after watching the UNC-Virginia game on The CW, that ESPN is cheating the ACC with the ACC Network. The production quality is subpar, and not getting better, and it’s striking how much better the viewing experience is on The CW. We made fun of it, but The CW’s broadcast quality has been refreshing. The ref cam, for instance, provided a striking view of the interception that sealed Virginia’s victory.
-I think if you’re UNC, a game at Georgia Tech is about the last thing you’d want in a “get right” kind of game. The Tar Heels’ misery in Atlanta is well-documented. It’s just one of those places where few things ever seem to go right for UNC. And now it’s almost a must-win, to ensure a promising season doesn’t go off the rails? What could go wrong?
-I think outside of Florida State’s relative dominance, things have been wacky enough in the ACC that it wouldn’t be surprising in the least to see N.C. State resurrect itself with a victory against Clemson this weekend. And if it happens that way, is there a scenario in which the Wolfpack could get back in the ACC race? It’s conceivable, given the chaos in this league.
-I think, after what happened at Kenan Stadium over the weekend, the regular season finale in Raleigh looms even larger. A possible and perhaps even likely scenario entering that game: UNC is 9-2, and needs a victory at N.C. State to clinch a spot in the ACC championship game. The Wolfpack could do nothing but lose until then, and Carter-Finley would still be a house of insanity.
