UNC Tar Heels Football Team Slips and Slides to Another Loss to Its Instate Rival to End the Regular Season

by Derrick Isaiah Clyburn

The North Carolina football team played their final game of the regular season against NC State on Saturday night. The Tar Heels came out and looked unprepared to play, which was completely shocking since it was a rivalry game. There was no urgency, energy, or extra effort to anything the Heels did throughout the first half. UNC just looked out of sorts and out of sync on both sides of the ball. On offense, North Carolina was horrendous and did absolutely nothing on their first four offensive drives. Three of their first four offensive series ended in a three and out and the fourth offensive possession ended in a fumble.

Meanwhile because of UNC offense’s struggles, NC State dominated time of possession in the first half, possessing the ball for 22 of the 30 minutes. The Wolfpack defense rewarded their offense with short fields on four of their six first-half offensive drives and State capitalized on it with 16 points on those drives. The Tar Heels defense couldn’t stop anything NC State was doing offensively, especially in the passing game, which exploited the Heels ‘weak secondary play. The Wolfpack scored points on each of their six first-half offensive series and led 26-7 going into halftime. Late in the first half, Carolina finally got on the board after a touchdown drive, but overall UNC played their worst half of the season on both offense and defense in the first half, resulting in a double-digit deficit heading into the second half.  

After halftime, North Carolina continued to struggle to defend anything NC State was doing offensively as the Wolfpack scored another touchdown to open the second half. NC State was having their best offensive game of the season against the Tar Heels and showed no signs of slowing down. The Heels would respond with two touchdown drives to open the second half as the offense finally started to find rhythm in the passing game. However, NC State did a tremendous job of limiting the Tar Heels’ run game, making the run game nonexistent throughout the entire game and holding Omarion Hampton to under 30 yards rushing. Even though Carolina was starting to find success offensively, it was still an uphill battle to get back into the game because of the poor play of UNC’s defense. The North Carolina defense got their first stop of the game and forced a punt for the first time all game with about 3 minutes left in the third quarter after the Wolfpack had already scored 39 points. It would prove to be a tough task for the Heels to find a way back into this game while being down by 19 points because they would have to just be about perfect on both sides of the ball for the remainder of the game to complete the comeback.  

The Tar Heels would indeed be unable to complete the comeback as the Carolina offense couldn’t quite put together a drive after their two touchdown drives early in the third quarter. Receivers couldn’t get open consistently and the lack of run game for the Heels put too much pressure on Drake Maye to make plays against a feisty NC State defensive line that was dominating North Carolina’s offensive all game long. Defensively, Carolina had problems all night defending NC State wide receiver Kevin Concepcion, who had 189 total yards, 55 rushing and 131 yards receiving. The Wolfpack completely dominated the Heels in this game outgaining them 504-384 and time in possession 40 minutes to 20 minutes. UNC finishes their season 8-4 and ends it in the worse way with a disappointing, embarrassing 39-20 loss to NC State. 

UNC Game Stats 

UNC Total Offense- 384 yards 

Rushing 254 Passing 130 

UNC Passing: Drake Maye 22-38-254 yards 2 TDs 2INTs 

UNC Rushing:  Drake Maye 9-106 yards 1TD 

UNC Receiving: John Copenhaver 5-64 yards, JJ Jones 4-62 yards, Tez Walker 2-29 yards 1TD 

NC State Total Offense- 504 yards 

NC State Passing: Brennan Armstrong 22-31-334 yards 3TDs 

NC State Rushing: Kelvin Concepcion 11-55 yards, Delbert Mimms III 14-44 yards 1TD 

NC State Receiving: Kevin Concepcion 7-131 yards 2TDs, Keon Lesane 5-66 yards, Dacari Collins 3-46 yards 1TD 

UNC Bright Spots 

Drake Maye threw for 254 yards and two touchdowns. He also ran for 106 yards and one touchdown 

John Copenhaver had 5 catches for 64 yards 

Needs Work 

Offensive coordinator Chip Lindsay called his worst game of the season in this game. The offense was completely inept for most of the first half and by the time they started to get it going, they were already down by double digits. He needs to do a better job of sticking with plays that are successful and needs to get the tight ends more involved in the passing game because they are a matchup nightmare for the opponent. Too many times he went away from his best playmakers in this game and had very questionable play calls throughout the game, which ultimately hurt the Tar Heels’ offensive success in this game. The lack of offensive success also puts too much pressure on the defense and leaves them on the field entirely too long.   

Drake Maye needs to be more accurate in throwing the ball down the field and the offensive line needs to be completely better in pass protection. The combination of both issues is hurting the offense’s success and causing them to sputter in games.  

This was the worst performance of the season for the UNC defense. They weren’t good against the run or the pass. The linebackers and defensive backs are overrunning the play and are out of position too often. Combine that with the lack of pressure the defensive line is getting up front and the missed tackles in space and it results in the opponent going up and down the field on your defense all game long.  

The defensive coaching staff must be better with their in-game adjustments. Opponents are doing whatever they want against them, and players are getting caught out of position on too many occasions. It would help if they were put in different formations to stop some of the offensive success late in the game and that’s something the defensive coaches must be better at. The coaching staff can also help the defense be more effective by rotating more of their defensive players off the bench so the defensive starters can be fresher late in games.  

Final Observations 

The North Carolina football team finishes their regular season with a record of 8-4. To say this is a disappointing end to their season would be an understatement. The Heels were a completely different team from the first six weeks of the season when they started 6-0 and the last six weeks of the season finishing 2-4. Both the offense and defense regressed in the last half of the season, which is totally acceptable. They should’ve been getting better each week and building towards being an ACC championship contender instead the North Carolina football program is looking at a complete rebuild.

This season they possessed the most talent on both offense and defense they’ve had since Coach Mack Brown returned to UNC to coach. However, the play on the field could never match the talent for an entire season. That right there is on a coaching staff because they wasted a conference championship roster. There is no other way to put it. The coaching staff always says the right things throughout each week about having their guys prepared and ready to play but we will never see it on the field consistently.

In every loss late in this season, they were outcoached and outplayed not because they weren’t better than those teams but because they had so many errors and mistakes from both the coaching staff and the players. That shouldn’t happen with an experienced team and coaching staff. It is time for the Tar Heels to be more than just an 8 or 9-win team. The talent they are bringing in from recruiting classes and the transfer portal should result in better seasons for the Tar Heels. They’ve had two NFL-caliber quarterbacks as their quarterbacks over the last three years and have no ACC Championship to show for it. Drake Maye probably played his last game as a Tar Heel as he looks to declare for the NFL draft. Maye was arguably the best quarterback UNC has ever had and will be missed. 

In the bigger picture, Coach Mack Brown has done a good job helping the Carolina football program get back to relevance but hasn’t hired the right people around him to take this program to the next level. As a result, the North Carolina football program is at a crossroads with the state of the program and the direction they want to go in.

One option that will definitely be considered is bringing in a whole new coaching staff with younger, bright coaches who have experience, will bring innovative ideas and schemes to make both the offense and defense better, but are also hungry to take a program to the next level. That is the direction they should probably go in for the success of the football program going forward. The Tar Heels will play in a bowl game in late December, and their opponent and what bowl games they will be a part will be announced on Sunday, December 3rd.