Carolina football took a turn for the worse Saturday and is now in jeopardy of doing more long term damage to the program. UNC may have a hard time selling out its remaining three home games, which is never good for recruiting or morale.

The mistake-prone Tar Heels, with little senior leadership on the field, fumbled the first snap at their own 16-yard line and went on to a dismal day that cheated the sun-soaked capacity crowd that had come all fired up for their school’s turnaround game of the season. The anti-climactic loss to Virginia Tech effectively took Carolina out of the ACC Coastal Division race and seriously jeopardized its chances for a second straight bowl bid and third straight winning season.

Kedrick Davis, Mack Hollins and Ryan Switzer try to get in sync during the half.

How could the prognosticators have had it so wrong, picking the Heels in the preseason top 25 and second in the Coastal? As of today, you would have to put Carolina among the worst teams in the entire ACC.

The 34-17 final score was symbolic of the fact that Virginia Tech was twice as good as the Tar Heels, whose play from one game to the next is so spotty on both sides of the ball that it is hard to find another win on the schedule, let alone the four needed for bowl eligibility.

In that regard, the grid Heels are beginning to a look bit like the 2002 UNC basketball team that was cut short on talent and senior leadership and plummeted to an 8-20 record, the worst in school history. As that forgettable season wore on, fans found it hard to imagine enough good play to produce a victory over anyone.

At 2-3 with four road games remaining, Carolina now faces offensive problems to match the defensive lapses that allowed 120 points in the prior two games. This time the defense played admirably, giving up only 13 points on sustained drives, while the offense committed three blundering turnovers that led to three Tech touchdowns.

In a game that many fans (including me) predicted the Tar Heels would win, they instead disappointed an excited crowd from the get-go, as the first-snap fumble gave the Hokies the lead they never lost. From there it seemed like the home team could not keep the ball, and the time of possession also ended up about 2-1 in favor of the 4-2 visitors from Blacksburg.

The offense gave VaTech two more touchdowns, the fatal blow coming on freshman Mitch Trubisky’s pick-6 in the second quarter that basically put the game out of reach for the struggling home team whose headline players are not performing nearly as advertised.

Carolina has four talented running backs – from freshman Elijah Hood to junior Romar Morris – but the leading rusher Saturday was quarterback Marquise Williams, whose draw plays from a short pocket gained more than a hundred yards (minus about 40 he lost being sacked in the backfield). Williams ran the ball twice as much as the four running backs combined, while his 17-for-33 completions included some poor throws and dropped balls.

Marquise’s mediocrity showed up in a post-game stat that he has now thrown for 2,974 yards, surpassing Matt Baker for 13th on the all-time list of UNC quarterbacks. Really, now, who among us can remember Matt Baker and when he played?

The Tar Heels’ longest pass play was to Quinshad Davis, who scored a late touchdown that tied him at 18 career TD catches with All-America Art Weiner (who we should remember) and provided a slim chance for a miracle comeback. That dream ended when Ryan Switzer tried to catch a punt with a bandaged sprained hand and dropped the ball at his own 10-yard line, sending what was left of the groaning crowd to the exit ramps.

Carolina's offensive line had trouble protecting both quarterbacks.

Carolina’s offensive line had trouble protecting both quarterbacks.

Indeed, it seemed like the whole team could never hang onto the ball, as Virginia Tech had it for 41 minutes compared to 19 for Carolina. Significant in that one-sided stat was UNC’s horrendous third/fourth down inefficiency of 2-for-17 compared to Tech’s 10 for 24.

And penalties continued to plague the team, with 10 for 62 yards that often created unmanageable down and distance. Not as fatal as embarrassing were two offside infractions that came after the Tar Heels had held Virginia Tech on fourth-and-one plays.

As three-day bashes went on all over Mississippi for its state schools’ upsets of Alabama and Texas A&M, the Carolina crowd never lets a loss get in the way of a good time. Our fans retreated to lawn parties at frat houses and the Carolina Inn, where one gulp washed away memories of a truly putrid performance by their team.

The abysmal effort fell between two Chapel Hill traditions. First, the official opening of basketball practice with Friday’s Late Night with Roy, creating another fork in the road that generally sends most fans down the round ball path toward the sport with more tradition and history of success at UNC.

And then on a similarly beautiful Sunday afternoon, Festifall filled West Franklin Street with music and vendors hawking their wares. A few of the hundreds of attendees still had a Heel decal stuck to their cheeks. And there was one woman who wore the Carolina blue T-shirt with the slogan appropriate for any season.

It read, “Calm Down and Beat Duke.” Looking ahead, that game and N.C. State the following week may be all that’s left to a football season going south fast.