With 4-1 NC State up next, UNC football still in ACC race but lost its wiggle room

North Carolina watched its positioning in an ACC race where every team is chasing Clemson evaporate in a cool night in Tallahassee in a 31-28 loss to Florida State on Saturday.

The Tar Heels don’t have to be perfect to regain their standing, but the Tar Heels know they can’t play more incomplete games like their FSU loss. A week ago, their upcoming matchup against N.C. State didn’t seem as big. Now, the Heels can’t lose a second-straight game and still expect to reach the ACC championship game. For the rest of the season, they have to play the version of their team that played the second half, not the first.

“The second half is the team we want to be,” UNC coach Mack Brown told reporters in a postgame video conference. “In fact, that’s the best we probably played as a team all year in the second half and as poorly as we’ve played together in the first half.”

UNC (3-1, 3-1 ACC) allowed 31 points in the first half, which was punctuated by a pick-six interception; and allowing a touchdown-producing, two-minute drill with just seconds left before the half. The Heels outscored the Seminoles 21-0 in the second half.

“That’s what we should have been like the whole game,” Brown said. “We’re not good enough, at this stage in our program, to take a half off.”

UNC entered as a two-touchdown favorite. It was likely to be favored in all its games until facing Notre Dame (4-0, 3-0) and Miami (4-1, 3-1) to close out its conference schedule. The loss dropped the Heels into a three-way tie with Miami and Virginia Tech (3-1, 3-1) for fourth place in the ACC.

N.C. State (4-1, 4-1) is alone in third place, a half game ahead of Carolina, which sets up huge stakes for their meeting on Saturday. The game will be televised nationally on ESPN. A two-loss team would almost certainly be all but eliminated from reaching the league’s championship game. UNC quarterback Sam Howell said they weren’t concerned with where they could end up in the conference race.

“We’re not worried about that right now,” Howell told reporters on a postgame video conference. “We’re just worried about evaluating this film and get better to try and beat a good N.C. State team next week. We know if we take care of our business then we’ll be where we want to be.”

Taking care of business in the second half amounted to Howell throwing 283 of his season-high 374 passing yards. It was receiver Beau Corrales taking advantage of his 6-foot-3 frame and just outjumping defenders en route to a career-high 141 receiving yards and a touchdown. It was the Heels securing their first interception since the season opener and shutting the Seminoles out.

There’s an amount of confidence Carolina took from its second half performance. The Heels didn’t quit playing hard even though their outlook at hafltime was bleak. Corrales said that’s something they can carry going forward.

“We can’t keep putting ourselves in those situations,” Corrales told reporters in a postgame video conference. “We can’t keep doing the stuff that we were doing last year, like, this is stuff we got to learn from.”

There are plenty of areas that need to be cleaned up. Special teams have been a concern all season and the loss showed why. FSU twice deflected Ben Kiernan punts — the first of which set up its first touchdown. Grayson Atkins missed a 44-yard field goal just a shade to the left that would have brought them within a touchdown in the fourth quarter.

Tackling was, at times, a problem for the Heels defense both in players taking poor pursuit angles and an inability to bring runners down on first contact. The Noles had both La’Damian Webb (109) and quarterback Jordan Travis (107) topple the 100-yard mark. It was the first time since Notre Dame in 2017 that UNC allowed two rushers 100-plus yards in a game.

Pass protection was also troublesome for the Tar Heels. In the first half, quarterback Sam Howell didn’t have much time to throw. They gave up four sacks to an FSU squad ranked last in the ACC, which entered with just three sacks in four games.

Carolina overcame those miscues and still had the ball for a final drive with a chance to tie or to take the lead.

“The goal is win every game,” UNC linebacker Chazz Surratt told reporters after the game. “We didn’t do that (Saturday) so we’re just going to have to go back and work hard to get better and come out next week and perform.”

This story was originally published October 18, 2020 at 9:09 AM.