UNC football: Complete game and domination of Miami worthy of Orange Bowl bid?
This was the complete game North Carolina coach Mack Brown had been wanting from his team all season.
This is what voters were thinking of the potential the Tar Heels had when they reached No. 5 in the nation back in October. And this was the game the Tar Heels absolutely had to have just to have a chance at potentially receiving an Orange Bowl bid.
No. 20 UNC so thoroughly dominated No. 9 Miami in its 62-26 victory — its first over a top-10 team since beating the Hurricanes in 2004 — it even surprised some of the Tar Heels.
“I really feel like this is the first time we’ve ever played a complete game,” UNC running back Javonte Williams said in his postgame remarks. “Both sides, playing together, playing for all four quarters, it showed just how special we could be when everybody’s working together, and I’m I feel like tonight is the first time that’s happened.”
It took until the regular-season finale for it to happen, but the victory positioned the Heels (8-3, 7-3 ACC) to possibly receive an Orange Bowl bid. The highest-ranked ACC member not playing in the College Football Playoff will receive the invitation. So they need Clemson to beat Notre Dame in the ACC Championship Game, for the CFP to take both the Tigers and the Irish, and to finished ranked higher than Miami in the CFP poll.
Based on the 36-point beatdown, the Tar Heels can at least feel comfortable about jumping from No. 17 in the CFP poll ahead of however far back the No. 10 Canes fall after the loss.
“I think we got our ass whooped all night,” Miami quarterback D’Eriq King told reporters in his postgame remarks.
That certainly is one way to put it. Or he could have said the Hurricanes (8-2, 7-2) got run over to the tune of Carolina’s 544 rushing yards. Michael Carter led the way with a career-high 308 yards and two touchdowns. Williams finished with a career-high 236 rushing yards and three touchdowns.
No single play summarized the entire game more than Williams’ 43-yard run in the third quarter.
Williams jumped over an attempted tackle from cornerback Te’Cory Couch, got hit from behind by defensive end Jaelan Phillips, which sped him up, and he exploded through a would-be tackle from safety Amari Carter. He spun out of a tackle from linebacker Bradley Jennings and was finally brought down by safety Bubba Bolden pursuing at an angle.
“I just told him that, ‘We ‘bout to do numbers today,’ ” Carter said he told Williams during his postgame remarks. “So we expected to have a good game, but I don’t know if it amounted to this.”
How could he have expected to rush for more yards as a running back tandem than anyone in Football Bowl Subdivision history?
Miami had a pretty tough run defense, ranked fifth in the ACC. The Canes had only allowed nine rushing touchdowns all season and their opponents averaged just 139 yards per game. Carolina nearly had that by the first quarter.
Carter and Williams surpassed 1,000 yards rushing for the season, marking just the fifth time in program history two backs have accomplished the feat. It was the first time since Leon and Curtis Johnson did it in 1993.
“Our two running backs are not good players, they’re great players,” Brown said. “And when they run the ball, when they get opportunities, when we can get them the ball in space, then we can throw it when we want. Our whole thing is based on the success of a running game.”
And for most of the season Carolina’s outcomes were based on the success of its offense. They nearly had to play a perfect game in order to win — think 44-41 loss at Virginia and 59-53 win over Wake Forest — because the defense was unreliable.
That wasn’t the case in Hard Rock Stadium on Saturday. UNC linebacker Jeremiah Gemmel said they were well-prepared for the Canes’ offense that’s predicated on tempo.
“Sometimes when they (went) tempo, we didn’t even look to the sidelines,” Gemmel said in his postgame video conference. “We already knew we were in a certain check to get lined up and get the play call and so on. Yeah, absolutely, I think it started early in the week just with the guys being locked in and communicating.”
Linebacker Chazz Surratt, whose last appearance in Hard Rock Stadium in 2018 was as the Heels’ quarterback in a 47-10 loss, helped set the tone by stopping Donald Chaney Jr. on a fourth-and-1 with the score just 14-3.
The Heels allowed the Canes to gain 50 yards on their opening drive that ended in a field goal. On the next five consecutive drives, the Canes had a combined 46 total yards. King, whose highlights this season include 430 yards passing and 105 rushing yards in a win over N.C. State, never made much of an impact.
The game turned into a national showcase for Carolina’s freshmen defenders, including nickel back Ja’Qurious Conley, who had six tackles, a sack and a pass breakup, and cornerback Tony Grimes, whose third-quarter interception was the first of his career.
“I thought the defense will be overshadowed by the offense tonight because of the numbers and just the sheer number of big plays,” Brown said. “But I thought the defense really got it all started.”
Brown said he didn’t think the Heels were confident enough as a team in the second half of their loss to Notre Dame. But that experience helped them win at Miami. Now he hopes they’ll get a chance to do it again on Jan. 2 with a return trip to Miami for the Orange Bowl.
“I hope it works out where we get to go to the Orange Bowl,” Brown said. “We haven’t been to a major bowl since the ‘40s, so this would be a an unbelievable accomplishment for these guys.”
This story was originally published December 12, 2020 at 11:14 PM.