UNC Football Moments After – UNC vs. Clemson 38-10 Loss 

UNC Tar Heels Football Team Lays an Egg Against the Clemson Tigers

by Derrick Isaiah Clyburn

Coming off their bye week, the North Carolina football team returned to action against Clemson on Saturday afternoon. Both teams are coming off disappointing losses with struggling offensive performances, as one of them looks to get back on track this week. The Tar Heels got off to a disastrous start at the beginning of this game. On the very first play of the game, Carolina’s defense surrendered a 75-yard touchdown. This would be just the beginning of UNC’s struggles defensively. Clemson scored touchdowns on all four offensive drives in the first quarter, and they all came off explosive pass plays, including a 75-yard touchdown pass, a 45-yard touchdown pass, a 35-yard touchdown pass, and a 23-yard touchdown pass. All those plays were easy pitch-and-catch, as it looked like North Carolina had never played defense before in those instances. The Tigers scored more points in the first quarter of this game than they have in an entire game this season. Clemson’s 28 points in the first quarter were the most a Carolina football team has allowed in the first quarter since 2001.

North Carolina’s defense just showed no resistance to anything Clemson was doing offensively. The Heels had blown coverages, blown assignments, missed tackles, no pass rush, and were just out of position on far too many plays in the passing game. It was the worst the Carolina defense has looked all season, and that’s after surrendering 41 and 34 points this season to TCU and UCF. Meanwhile, offensively, after driving down the field on the first drive and having to settle for a field goal, the Tar Heels punted on 5 straight offensive possessions. Four of those offensive possessions ended in a three-and-out for UNC, including 3 of those drives having negative yards. After the first offensive drive, North Carolina had a total of 36 yards on their next six possessions in the first half. The Tar Heels’ offense was atrocious. There was no rhythm or flow to the offense, and everything for the Heels looked difficult to execute. Carolina generated hardly any positive pass or run plays, with most of the play calls being swing passes or flare screens because of the lack of trust in the offensive line’s ability to block.  

In the second half, Carolina’s offensive struggles continued as they just couldn’t find themselves in this game, scoring only 10 points. The Heels’ defense played better and only surrendered three points after halftime, but Clemson looked like they were much more conservative because of the big lead. The Tar Heels’ only touchdown of the game came in the 4th quarter from an 11-yard run by Benjamin Hall after Clemson’s backups were in. It was just an all-around bad game for UNC today after allowing 35 points in the first half and 488 total yards, and the offense being a no-show. North Carolina came out unprepared, never made anything difficult for Clemson offensively or defensively, and played underwhelming football against a hungrier Clemson team, leading to their third straight blowout loss to a Power 4 team.  

UNC Game Stats  

UNC Total Offense- 270 yards  

Rushing 57  Passing 213            

UNC Passing: Max Johnson 26/42 213 yards 

UNC Rushing: Benjamin Hall 5-24 yards 1TD 

UNC Receiving: Jordan Shipp 5-41 yards, Jake Johnson 3-30 yards 

  

Clemson Total Offense- 488 yards 

Clemson Passing: Cade Klubnik 22/24 254 yards 4TDs 

Clemson Rushing: Adam Randall 8-30 yards 

Clemson Receiving: TJ Moore 5-108 yards 1TD, Adam Randall 4-73 yards 2TDs, Christian Bentancur 2/53 yards 2TDs 

  

UNC Bright Spots  

Benjamin Hall had his first rushing touchdown of the season. 

Quarterback Max Johnson threw for 213 yards. 

Defensive Tackle CJ Mims and Linebacker Andrew Simpson each recorded a sack 

Needs Work  

The offensive system, game plan, playcalling, and whole operation completely change. It does not work, and there has been zero success against the Power 4 schools. The offense is basic, elementary, generic, and just plain too easy to defend. This team is on its way to becoming one of the worst offenses in UNC’s football history. They have no identity, and there is no rhythm and flow to the offensive play calls. The offensive coaching staff just hasn’t put the offense in a position to succeed. They are unable to establish the run game, and the passing offense is nonexistent. They are not playing to the strengths of the offense. The offensive line is not blocking well, and the coaches have no confidence in them. There needs to be drastic changes with this offensive system, and they must find a way to put together a game plan for this offense to at least look decent.  

Defensively, today it was a travesty. Bill Belichick, Steve Belichick, and the entire defensive staff should be ashamed and embarrassed by that performance today. The defense didn’t even look like a college defense. The defensive players were always out of position and caused absolutely no disruption or made anything difficult for Clemson. That is just unacceptable. The coaching staff must get on the same page with the players and implement a scheme that will help this team play its best football. 

  Final Observations  

The Tar Heels fall to 2-3 on the season. The Heels have not shown the ability to compete with any Power 4 opponent this season, and that’s unacceptable. UNC has been outscored 120-33 against its three Power 4 opponents this season. Not only was this a disappointing and embarrassing loss, but it’s much worse because it was coming off a bye week, where they had an extra week to prepare for Clemson. Now this team has a lot of roster turnover with 70 new players, but no one thought it would look this bad. Coach Belichick and his staff look unprepared, in over their heads, and have not put their players in the best position to succeed. Their plan hasn’t translated to have success at the college level. It was more than likely a mistake to try to bring in 70 new players and think they were going to have a successful season.

It’s too hard to do that in college football right now. You need more time to establish a culture, identity, system, and chemistry with the team because none of these players have played together, and the key players on the team were not the best players on their previous teams, let alone the captains or leaders of those teams. Coach Belichick and his staff must regroup. They must focus on making sure they are just putting together a game plan that will allow their players to play their best football. The coaching staff needs to focus on their players’ strengths and get away from trying to make these players play their scheme or system they’ve established in the NFL. That NFL system is not working with these players, and the coaching staff must adjust if they want to have any success this season. Carolina has another bye week this upcoming week, so they have some time to change some things up.  Next up is California on Friday, October 17.