UNC football continues roller coaster of ‘so good, so disappointing’ in FSU loss
The stumbles on the road, as bad as they were for North Carolina, could be explained away. Road games in college football are never easy, especially after crowds returned a year after COVID-19 virtually eliminated all attendance and diminished stadium atmospheres.
But Saturday’s 35-25 loss to Florida State? At home in Kenan Stadium, where the Tar Heels had dominated foes this season? As 17.5-point favorites against a one-win FSU team? This was the kind of loss that could stomp out optimism for the rest of the season. It was the kind of loss that could make Carolina fans wonder when basketball tips off.
Deflating. Disappointing. Frustrating. UNC (3-3, 2-3 ACC) could sum it up with any one of those words.
“Obviously, no one thought would be 3-3 at this point in the season,” UNC quarterback Sam Howell said.
That wasn’t the case when the season started. The program seemed poised to take the next step in Year 3 of Mack Brown’s second tenure as head coach after reaching the Orange Bowl last season. Turns out, that progress is stuck in neutral.
“Sometimes we look so good, and it’s so exciting for the future,” Brown said. “And then sometimes, we’re so disappointing.”
It’s hard to tell what was most disappointing for Brown and the Tar Heels, but let’s start with the self-inflicted mistakes that undermined an otherwise sound offensive performance. UNC outgained FSU 432 to 383 in total yards.
The Heels’ offensive line that had allowed 22 sacks kept the ACC’s sack leader in check. FSU defensive end Jermaine Johnson didn’t get the lone sack of the game until Carolina’s last possession of the game.
Six of UNC’s 11 total penalties came on offense, some of which stalled out drives in FSU territory. Dropped passes prevented the potential for a couple of explosive plays. An interception in the end zone ultimately all added up to the Heels coming up short. And a goal-line stand in the fourth quarter also prevented the Heels from mounting a rally.
“Offensively, we ran up and down the field,” Brown said. “But penalties and the one turnover killed us, kept us from scoring.”
Carolina’s defense was harder to figure out how it went from arguably its best performance of the season in last week’s 38-7 win over Duke, to making preseason mistakes against the Seminoles.
UNC senior linebacker Jeremiah Gemmel said communication was the “biggest deficit” for the defense to overcome on Saturday. Gemmel said on one of FSU’s touchdowns, one half of the defense was playing in a different coverage than the other half.
It was similar to the defensive breakdowns Carolina had in its loss at Georgia Tech. FSU quarterback Jordan Travis took full advantage, completing 11-of-13 attempts for 145 yards and three touchdowns. Travis also rushed for a career-high 121 yards and two touchdowns.
“Just being able to play one week so good, so sound and be able to communicate so well and then go to the next week and not be able to communicate as well, I mean, it’s extremely frustrating,” Gemmel said. “It’s not like we can’t do it because we’ve shown on the field that we can communicate and play at a high level.”
Gemmel said the senior leaders on defense were calling a meeting on Sunday after they complete their regularly scheduled session in the weight room. He vowed that they would go over every play that beat them to figure out what went wrong so that they would not make the same mistakes next week at home against Miami.
“I believe on the defensive side of the ball, we got athletes everywhere,” Gemmel said. “We got players, we have playmakers and I don’t think we should be getting beat the way we are when (co-defensive coordinator Jay) Bateman’s calling a good game. We just have to get into checks and be able to run them.”
It’s not an outlandish expectation that the Heels should be able to run the right plays, especially six games into the season. But that’s what it’s like for the average college football team. And if the Heels have proven anything thus far, it’s that they’re just like the rest of the teams outside of the Top 25.
Brown wryly suggested that it was the media’s fault for projecting them as a top-10 team in the first place. He was poking fun at preseason polls, but he wasn’t laughing with the Heels staring at a .500 record in a season that started full of promise.
“There’s nothing we can do about it now,” Howell said. “All we can do now is control what we can control and now all we can control is our effort and our mindset moving forward. For the rest of this year, we have six games left. And like I said, we’re gonna give everything we got for us last six (games).”
This story was originally published October 10, 2021 at 6:00 AM.