Well, the debate over whether Carolina’s football team was both lucky and good or just lucky was answered Saturday in Miami.

The Tar Heels seemed to be improving in a narrow loss at Notre Dame and comeback wins against Georgia Tech and Virginia.  They were the subject of some bad luck (code word for officiating), or they might have pulled off the upset in South Bend. But they clearly had some good fortune in rallying to defeat the Yellow Jackets (who scored too early at the end) and Cavaliers (who turned the ball over near the end).

Against the unranked Hurricanes, UNC was neither lucky nor good. A lack of fortune was joined by a lack of execution that allowed Miami to score 21 points in the second quarter while the Heels got zippo. Trailing 30-6 at the halftime, it was game over for Larry Fedora’s team.

Meanwhile, Duke was unbelievably lucky to win at Pittsburgh and keep its lead in the ACC Coastal Division race for who gets slaughtered this year by Florida State in the ACC Championship game. Pitt duck-hooked the winning chip shot field goal with two seconds left in regulation and lost in overtime to the No. 20 Blue Devils, who are 7-1 and 3-1 in the ACC.

[If you want to know where all of UNC’s luck went, N.C. State won it first ACC game in two years without scoring an offensive touchdown for three quarters at woeful Syracuse, which was driving to go ahead by 10 points when the Wolfpack ran an interception back 82 yards to reclaim the lead. The 5-4 Wolfpack is now one game closer to a bowl bid than the 4-5 and 2-3 Tar Heels.]

Mathematically, Carolina still has a chance to finish in a three-way tie for first in the Coastal and own the tie-breaker. But at this point, if the Heels can’t stop Miami’s on-again-off-again offense, imagine what Jameis Winston would do to them. Let’s leave that to Duke again while Fedora’s team tries to win six games and qualify for a second straight bowl game.

It did not look the part Saturday.

If you have Miami pinned at its own 10-yard line and Duke Johnson Jr. has already rushed for more than 100 yards, you know who is getting the ball up the middle, right? Let the Canes throw over the top all they want and jam the box to stop Johnson, who took the first down snap and ran for 90 yards to the house  — the longest rushing touchdown ever allowed in the history of UNC football.

Then, with 26 seconds left in the half, veteran Tim Scott had no chance against 6-4 Miami tight end Clive Wolford in the corner of the end zone. Wolford had also caught the Canes first touchdown in the second quarter to begin the beat down after a 9-6 opening period. We knew the Tar Heel defense was bad, but it was the offense that couldn’t keep pace.

Begin with an embarrassing 6 net yards of rushing offense for the entire game. Carolina actually rushed for a big whoop of 61 yards but lost 55 of them behind the line of scrimmage. Miami rushed for 295 yards, 177 from the fast and elusive Johnson Jr., whose senior must be a very proud papa.

So the one-dimensional Heels had to stay in the air most of the game, which they did for 252 yards on catches by 10 difference receivers (including quarterback Marquise Williams, who caught one of his own batted balls for a 6-yard loss). But Carolina couldn’t finish most of its drives, trailing at one point 44-6 before two Williams rushing touchdowns made the score look half-way respectable.

Miami, now 6-3 and 3-2 in the ACC, has lost to Louisville, Nebraska and Georgia Tech by an average of more than two TDs  a game and beaten one Power 5 team with a winning record, the Dukies. If Carolina was ready to be prime-time players, a road game with a soft crowd against a so-so team was the place to do it. Instead, the Tar Heels failed miserably in all three phases of the game, including special teams where they missed an extra point, gave up two more when the snap flew over punter Tommy Hibbard’s head in the end zone and had Ryan Switzer’s punt return for a touchdown nullified by a penalty.

“Atrocious,” Fedora said when asked about his heretofore special special teams. Carolina did have one good game-changing play, as Fedora calls them, when Mikey Bart forced a fumble and Cayson Collins ran it in 39 yards for a touchdown, the first time that has happened for a UNC team in five years.

Williams failed to throw a touchdown pass for the first time in five games, but his two on the ground increased his school record to 16 and kept moving up on the list of UNC rushing quarterbacks. With what was supposed to be a bevy  of fast, talented running backs, the Tar Heels were turned into what Fedora himself lamented as “one-dimensional.”

And unless The Hat uses the forthcoming bye week to restore the second and third dimensions to his team, it will have to be very lucky to win another game.