UNC Tar Heels Football Team Outmatched by the Fighting Irish

by Derrick Isaiah Clyburn

The North Carolina football team faced off against Notre Dame on Saturday afternoon. The Tar Heels got off to a quick start with an opening touchdown drive and a 3 and out on the Heels’ first defensive possession. The UNC defense played well early on and held Notre Dame scoreless in the first quarter.

However, after that, UNC’s defense got back to its old habits and fell completely apart defensively, allowing Notre Dame to score on their next six drives. Blown coverages, missed assignments, poor tackling, lack of communication on the field, and other miscues allowed Notre Dame to explode on offense and outscore North Carolina 38-7 from the second quarter to the 4-minute mark of the third quarter. As the defense struggled, the offense started to struggle and could not get anything going.

Offensively, the Heels tried to get their run game established, but failed to and got away from their passing game that had early success against the Notre Dame defense. It was a massive mistake by the offensive coaching staff. The Heels didn’t recover from it until it was too late and the game was out of reach.

Starting in the second quarter, Carolina was completely outplayed on both sides of the football by the Fighting Irish. Notre Dame completely dominated the Heels in the trenches on both offense and defense and there was nothing the Heels could do about it. The Fighting Irish dominated in the run game with 287 yards rushing, and over 550 yards of total offense, and exploited UNC’s poor secondary play by getting the ball to their star tight end Michael Mayer early and often.

The Tar Heels did try to fight back late in the game after finally getting a key stop defensively on fourth down. However, by that time, they were down by 38-14 and would need to play almost perfect football to complete a comeback.

UNC would score on the offensive possession to cut the lead to 18, but due to penalties and missed assignments on defense, the Heels couldn’t get the necessary stop to give the offense back the ball. Notre Dame would push the lead back to 25 and basically put the game out of reach. The Tar Heels would score two more touchdowns before the game ended, but it would not be enough as they were handed their first loss of the season.

UNC Game Stats

UNC Total Offense– 367 yards

Rushing 66 Passing 301

UNC Passing: Drake Maye 17-32-301 yards 5TDs

UNC Rushing: Drake Maye 13-36 yds

UNC Receiving: Antoine Green 3-150 yds 2TDs, JJ Jones 2-71 yds, Josh Downs 5-32 yards 2TDs, Omarion Hampton 1-4 yards 1TD

Notre Dame Total Offense– 576 yards

Notre Dame Passing: Drew Pyne 24-34 289 yards 3TDs

Notre Dame Rushing: Audric Estime 17-134 yards 2TDs, Chris Tyree 15-80 yds 1TD, Logan Diggs 10-50 yards

Notre Dame Receiving: Michael Myer 7-88 yards 1TD, Lorenzo Styles 5-69 yards 1TD, Logan Diggs 3-65 yards

UNC Bright Spots

Drake Maye threw for 301 yards and five touchdowns.

Antoine Green had 3 catches for 150 yards and two touchdowns

Josh Downs had 5 catches for 32 yards and two touchdowns

JJ Jones had 2 catches for 71 yards.

Omarion Hampton had one receiving touchdown.

Needs Work

The offensive play calling needs to be better, In this game, Phil Longo called too many complex plays that were unnecessary and it put the offense behind the sticks. Plays were called trying to establish the run game and the offense got completely out of rhythm. When the play caller doesn’t make it simple for the offense, it puts more pressure on your freshman quarterback to make plays, which is completely unnecessary.

The defense as a whole need to be better in every aspect. Blown coverages, blown assignments, poor tackling, poor communication, and miscues are all issues plaguing this defense. The defensive line needs to be better with their pass rush, getting off blocks, and getting in the backfield to blow up plays more often. The linebackers need to be in a better position to stop the run and make more plays. The secondary needs to break on more balls, be better in coverage, and not blow assignments so often. Offenses have dominated the Tar Heels in three of the four games played so far so adjustments must be made to get their problems corrected.

Final Observations

The North Carolina football team moves to 3-1 on the season. This was not the kind of performance you would want after a bye week. The Heels got off to a great start, but after the first quarter played a poor game on both sides of the field. The North Carolina defense went back to their old habits that plagued them before the bye week.

Blown coverages, missed assignments, poor tackling, lack of communication on the field, penalties, and other miscues are all reasons the defense is struggling right now. These things have been issues in the three of the four games played so far and it is a huge problem for the Heels.

At some point, they need to show some kind of improvement and show that they are working to resolve these issues in practice to produce better results come game time. The coaching staff has some work to do in that area.

Meanwhile, the North Carolina offense will be fine and are playing high-level football. Drake Maye has a tremendous rapport with his receivers and tight ends and is playing outstanding in his first year as a starter. However, Phil Longo and his offensive coaching staff need to stick to their strengths and continue to call plays that are being successful on the field.

In this game, they got caught up in establishing the run game and it threw the whole offense off after the success they had in the early part of this game. When your defense is struggling and is not playing well, that type of miscue on offense cannot happen. If the Tar Heels want to be successful going forward, they will have to lean on the offense. The defense has shown little improvement on that side of the football and is a work in progress. UNC’s offense is totally capable of carrying this team, but the play-calling cannot get in the way. Next up is Virginia Tech on Saturday, October 1.