Tenor of UNC football’s season changes after another disappointment against NC State
On the wall inside a North Carolina meeting room in the Kenan Football Center, there’s a large outline of the state and, next to it, the words “STATE CHAMPIONS” written in vertical Carolina blue letters. That’s always among the Tar Heels’ goals, to defeat every team in the state, and it has been an emphasis during both of Mack Brown’s head coaching tenures at UNC.
Within the outline, there are four schools placed roughly where they fit geographically. Appalachian State, to the west. Wake Forest, a little farther east. Duke, a little farther east of that. Those three schools on Friday had their names covered with Carolina blue logos, a symbol of UNC’s victories against all of them earlier this season.
There was one more name left uncovered, and after Friday there will be no crossing through N.C. State with interlocking light blue “NCs.” Brown walked past that map Friday night, after the Tar Heels’ 30-27, double-overtime defeat against the Wolfpack, and for a few moments before he began speaking he looked as stunned as many of those who’d packed into Kenan Stadium to witness the latest dramatic installment in a bitter rivalry.
A couple of weeks ago, the Tar Heels were 9-1, with hope of possibly crashing the College Football Playoff. Just close out the regular season with victories against two teams with worse records — one without a permanent head coach, the other without much of an offense — and who knows what might’ve been possible.
A couple weeks ago, too, UNC’s freshman quarterback, Drake Maye, had entered the Heisman Trophy conversation. Some of the pundits even considered Maye among the favorites for the award and, at the least, he appeared a near-certainty to wind up in New York City next month as a finalist. Now, the entire tenor of the Tar Heels’ season has changed.
They will play next week in the ACC Championship Game, in Charlotte against Clemson, and yet their Coastal Division championship suddenly feels hollow. They’ve lost the momentum and good will they spent months building, and Brown on Friday was left to do something he’s loath to do: acknowledge an in-state rival’s success against his program, and for the second consecutive year.
And not just any in-state program, but the one in red. The reviled Wolfpack.
“Losing always eats at me,” Brown said afterward, when asked to what degree this particular loss would remain with him.
Even if that were true for Brown — if every defeat haunted him the same kind of way — it most assuredly is not true for UNC’s supporters. They celebrated in boisterous fashion when the Tar Heels tied the game in the final moments of regulation, and then stood stunned, silent, when Noah Burnette’s 35-yard field goal attempt sailed wide in double-overtime. Had he made it, the game would’ve headed for a third overtime. As it was, Tar Heels walked off the field with blank expressions of despair.
“Guys are mad,” Cedric Gray, the UNC linebacker, said afterward. “Guys are pissed off. You can see it on everybody’s faces. ... Guys are definitely feeling the pain about this loss, for sure.”
It was a loss with blame to go around. For the second consecutive game, following a defeat against Georgia Tech that was even more shocking, the Tar Heels’ powerful offense fell flat. Maye came through in the final seconds of regulation with a 4-yard touchdown to pass to Antoine Green, but was largely outplayed by N.C. State’s Ben Finley, who began the season on the fourth string.
Finley passed for 271 yards and two touchdowns, to Maye’s 233 yards, one touchdown and one interception. The past two weeks Maye, who so often made it look easy during the first 10 weeks of the season, has looked more pedestrian. It hasn’t helped UNC that, both weeks, has had few answers for opposing defenses, which have out-schemed and out-executed Carolina’s offense.
Friday was a game that matched strength vs. strength — the Tar Heels’ offense against the Wolfpack’s defense — and weakness vs. weakness. The Wolfpack’s offense had been as anemic and unable to score as UNC’s defense had been unable to stop teams. State’s weakness proved stronger. The Wolfpack on Friday averaged 5 yards per play, a mark it had not hit in any of its previous seven games. The Tar Heels’ defense held throughout much of the second half, but not when Finley connected with Devin Carter for a 26-yard touchdown with four minutes remaining in regulation.
Brown, whose UNC teams defeated the Wolfpack seven consecutive times to end his first tenure in Chapel Hill, has now lost two in a row against State. Both defeats came down to the final moments; a play here, a play there — a what-if or two away.
Aside from a one-sided defeat against Notre Dame in September, “every other game’s come down to the last play,” Brown said. “And we’ve made the plays before. And we haven’t made the plays the last two weeks. Still, we’re the champions of the Coastal. For the second time in school history.”
The first time, in 2015, the Tar Heels lost their season-opener and won 11 consecutive games before losing against Clemson in the ACC Championship Game. This time has a different feel. Two straight defeats has taken the Tar Heels’ luster, and dulled their shine just when they were beginning to receive national attention.
In the moments after a missed field goal that will be remembered for quite some time — on both sides — Brown said he hadn’t yet had a chance to talk with Burnette, who entering Friday had made 10 of his 12 field goal attempts. Maye, though, had found Burnette afterwards, and Maye said he told him, “Things happen, and keep your head up. And we put you in a tough spot.”
“There was a lot of pressure, they called timeout and tried to ice him,” Maye said. “That’s tough for a first-year starter, just like me.”
UNC had come through in pressure-filled moments so many times before. It won games in the fourth quarter against Miami and Duke, Virginia and Wake Forest. Six of the Tar Heels’ nine victories have been decided by a single score. The past two weeks, it is as though their good fortune has run out. Not coincidentally, so has their ability to control a game with Maye and the passing game alone.
Maye and his teammates on Friday were left to look ahead to next week, to the conference championship game, instead of reveling in a close victory against UNC’s most despised football rival. Brown, meanwhile, was left looking for answers. It was unfamiliar territory for him. He hadn’t been a part of consecutive losses against N.C. State since 1991 and ‘92, early in his first tenure in Chapel Hill. Back then, he had the Tar Heels on the way up. He was building something.
As nightfall came here Friday, while some UNC fans remained where they stood, as if unable to move, the direction of Brown’s program felt less certain. Two weeks after riding the high of highs, UNC had come crashing down.
There will be no state championship, and though UNC is playing next week for its first ACC championship in 42 years, that suddenly appears less probable than it did, too.
This story was originally published November 25, 2022 at 10:16 PM.
