Run, kick, play defense: How UNC escaped Minnesota with a season-opening victory
North Carolina’s Mack Brown promised a lot would be known about his football team by late Thursday night, after playing Minnesota.
Turns out, it was very late Thursday night in Minneapolis after a thunderstorm delay before the season opener, and the veteran coach was right about lessons learned.
The Tar Heels went on the road to begin the 2024 season, into Minnesota’s home stadium, into Big Ten country, and came away with a 19-17 win against a quality opponent.
It took a missed field goal by the Gophers to decide it, a wide-right kick as time expired, but no complaints from the Heels. They found a way to win when they didn’t play their best, Brown said. That was enough.
“That was a traditional, old-timey Big Ten football game where you had to run the ball, you had to fight for everything you got, your kicking game had to be great and you had to play great defense,” Brown said.
They did it with a strong second half, with so many playing and contributing, especially on defense. They did with it Noah Burnette kicking four field goals, including a career-best 52-yarder.
They also did it after the scare of seeing quarterback Max Johnson injured and carried off the field in the third quarter. Brown had stuck with Johnson in the second half after a shaky first half by UNC that had the offense out of sync and struggling.
But suddenly, Johnson was down on the field after a pass, grabbing his right leg, his teammates gathering around him. Conner Harrell was up quickly, throwing a football, the redshirt sophomore ready to come in.
“I just had to play confident,” Harrell said. “I worked for it. I know what to do. The guys have confidence in me.”
Brown had been mum on a starter all through fall camp, a coach’s ploy, but said the game might dictate using two quarterbacks in the opener. It did dictate that.
“Conner never pouted about not starting,” Brown said. “He was all-in and when he came in off the bench he said, ‘Let’s go, I’m ready to play.’”
Brown said after the game that Johnson was transported to a local hospital and said that his parents — his father, Brad Johnson, was a Super Bowl winning QB — were with him. Brown could not say how seriously the Texas A&M transfer was injured.
“I hate that Max got hurt. I thought he was getting his confidence and coming into his own in the third quarter when he got hurt,” Brown said.
As a team, the Tar Heels did all that was necessary to win at Huntington Bank Stadium. Burnette was four-for-four on field goals, his 45-yarder with 1:44 left proving to be the winner. Minnesota’s Dragan Kesich missed twice — the second the 47-yarder to end the game. Burnette did not miss and that was the difference.
Omarion Hampton was, well, Omarion Hampton. The junior running back, a preseason All-America, was a workhorse with 30 carries and ran for 129 yards against a Minnesota defense geared to stop him.
Brown brought in coordinator Geoff Collins to give his defense an aggressive look and different mindset, and it showed. Minnesota, with New Hampshire transfer Max Brosmer at quarterback, had 244 yards in total offense and just 78 rushing.
“We played great defense, in the first half and throughout the game,” Brown said. “Tough defense, especially against the run.”
Did it hurt Minnesota that the Gophers’ best back, sophomore Darius Taylor, was injured and did not play? It did, although Marcus Major was a capable-enough replacement in the opener.
A year ago, UNC’s Drake Maye dissected the Gophers for 414 yards passing in a 31-13 win in Chapel Hill. The Heels had 105 passing yards Thursday — Johnson with 71 before his injury and Harrell 34 after it. Together, they completed 14 of 23 throws.
The longest completion went for 32 yards and also was the most timely for UNC. Harrell, on an option play left, found wideout J.J. Jones on a sideline throw and Jones did the rest to get Burnette in position for the go-ahead field goal. The senior from Raleigh had made a 52-yarder in the third quarter. His last one was the winner.
“It was two evenly matched teams in my opinion and it went back and forth, back and forth,” Minnesota coach P.J. Fleck told the media after the game. “That’s the kind of game you wish you could play for 60 more minutes because it was such a great game,”
Three and a half hours on a Thursday night was more than enough for Brown.
This story was originally published August 30, 2024 at 6:00 AM.
