UNC’s Mack Brown left the Tar Heels’ rain-soaked overtime loss to Pitt with one regret
North Carolina football coach Mack Brown listened to advice on their final drive in regulation.
Pitt’s Pat Narduzzi ignored the suggestions he was hearing.
And it was Brown who left Heinz Field with regrets after the Tar Heels’ 30-23 overtime loss to the No. 25 Panthers on Thursday.
Brown lamented kicking a game-tying field goal and not going for the win at the end of regulation.
“I should have gone for the fourth-and-3 because the way it ended up, the rain was really hard and put us in an awful position in overtime, you’re on the road,” Brown said. “The reason I didn’t do it, I got talked out of it. But also we hadn’t made fourth-and-3 or fourth-and-two. But I still looking back, I would have been better off going for the fourth down at that point.”
There’s still no guarantee that Carolina would have scored a touchdown and won the game. That’s what Narduzzi was counting on happening.
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The Panthers’ defense entered the game leading the ACC having allowed just two fourth down conversions in 13 attempts. But someone on his staff pondered out loud that maybe they should let UNC score in order to give their offense more time to score on a final drive.
“There was talk about letting them score and we would go down and score,” Narduzzi said. “I was, like, I can’t do that. We’re going to stop them here.”
Pitt held Carolina to just 1-for-4 on fourth downs including the game-clinching interception by M.J. Devonshire in overtime.
Howell said he understood the reasoning in kicking the game-tying field goal. Howell said he had a lot of faith in the way the defense was playing, so he was “indifferent” about playing for overtime.
“Pitt on defense was doing a really good job down there on the goal line,” Howell said. “And that was an area where we struggled kind of throughout the game on the goal line. So I stand behind what we did. That’s probably what I would have did. So I have no regrets about the decisions we made.”
The way the game started, there was little reason to believe the game could be decided by one play. Carolina (5-5, 3-4 ACC) played arguably its worst first quarter of the season. Pitt (8-2, 5-1) jumped out to a 17-0 lead and took a 23-7 advantage into halftime.
Similar to last week’s win over Wake Forest in which the Heels faced an 18-point deficit, they didn’t panic. They actually seemed destined to rally for a second straight double-digit comeback.
Howell led a 92-yard scoring drive in the fourth quarter, highlighted by a 46-yard reception by Josh Downs. Howell’s 1-yard run on fourth down made the score 23-20.
On Pitt’s first play from scrimmage afterwards, linebacker Jeremiah Gemmel intercepted a pass tipped by Pitt running back Israel Abanikanda and UNC safety Giovanni Biggers. It gave UNC the ball at the Pitt 35 with 5:26 left.
Those two drives summed up both the reason to play for overtime and the reason why Brown would be justified playing for the win.
The defense had limited Pitt quarterback Kenny Pickett to just 83 yards passing in the second half. The Panthers’ high-powered offense, which led the ACC averaging 45 points per game, had been shut out in the second half for the first time all season.
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“I mean, the defense had been playing so great in the second half,” Gemmel said. “Like why would you not kick it and going into overtime with how our defense was playing?”
Carolina’s offense had come up short on its first two fourth down attempts in Pitt territory in the second half.
Even still, when the Heels faced fourth-and-goal from the Pitt 3 with a chance to take the lead with a minute left. Brown’s initial inclination was to go for the touchdown.
Pitt called timeout, wanting the officials to review Ty Chandler’s one-handed reception that moved the ball to the 3. After the play was confirmed by replay, UNC also took a timeout to and in the process Brown decided to send kicker Grayson Atkins on the field instead of his offense.
That’s when the rain became more than just steady. It was a downpour. And the wind made it swirl.
Howell endured five, first-half sacks but still managed to throw for 296 yards and two touchdowns and run for another score. But in overtime he threw two incomplete passes and an interception on a fourth down desperation heave.
“It (the rain) definitely does make it harder, but you know, I can’t make any excuse,” Howell said. “At the end of the day, the game is on the line, we got to execute to win the game.”
Gemmel said the players weren’t second guessing Brown at all. They spent postgame in the locker room discussing the plays they should have made. One of those moments came right after Carolina tied the game at 23.
UNC strong safety Cam’Ron Kelly, who leads the team with four interceptions, nearly had a his fifth. Kelly anticipated Pickett would look for his leading receiver Jordan Addison and Kelly jumped the route, but dropped the ball. A pick there would have again given Carolina the ball in Pitt territory with enough time left for a game-winning field goal attempt.
There were also the 12 penalties for 104 yards that the Heels accumulated including a costly false start penalty by Josh Ezeudu when Carolina had a second down from the Pitt 2 on their final drive in regulation.
Brown wasn’t pointing the finger at anyone else but himself. And the fourth down he didn’t play for the win.
“Well, that’s my fault, I can’t get talked out of it unless I don’t want to do it,” Brown said. “So I changed my mind. If I’d known it was going to rain like that and put our kids in such a bad position, I sure wouldn’t have.”
This story was originally published November 12, 2021 at 7:00 AM.