If you just enjoy watching sports, it was a dawn-to-dusk smorgasbord of games that began with a double-overtime win by still undefeated Kentucky and ended with what might have been the last time we see one of the greatest quarterbacks in football history.
If you had a dog or two in any of the fights, you might have found yourself slumped on the couch early Sunday evening in need of a 90-minute massage and two hours in the whirlpool. There was action from dramatic comebacks, controversial calls and big, spectacular plays.
And, of course, there remained inaction from UNC on what is turning out to be the longest hire of an assistant coach in collegiate history. But more on that later.
Despite being only its third ACC game of the season, Carolina against No. 5 Louisville seemed like a must win after last Monday’s one-point loss to Notre Dame, both in the Smith Center. Whereas Marcus Paige missed the winning shot against the Irish, his underhanded scooper against the Cardinals completed a 13-point rally that is still hard to explain. The Tar Heels, who have had trouble scoring when they needed to all season, scored enough points and turned it over once over the last 16 minutes against one of the toughest defensive teams in the country. Paige’s winner, a loping, sweeping left handed layup high off the board, was reminiscent of the shot he made at the buzzer to beat N.C. State in Raleigh last year. The Smith Center crowd, which tried desperately to keep its team in the game, exploded with unexpected joy at the end, as it stayed a few extra minutes to celebrate a win that restored hope for the rest of the season.
The NFL playoffs began less than 30 minutes after the Carolina game ended, and New England’s nemesis Baltimore seemed from the start like it was going to win its third playoff game in the Patriots’ house and douse the Super Bowl favorite’s chances of making it to Glendale, Arizona, on February 1st. No NFL team has ever rallied from 14-point deficits in each half, but 37-year-old Tom Brady did it by throwing 50 passes that made up for a non-existent rushing attack. The game had a little of everything, mostly hard knocks and trick plays, with the Pats getting the winner on Brady’s third TD pass (he also ran for one) to former Panther Brandon LaFell with five minutes to go.
LaFell’s old team played admirably against the defending Super Bowl champions in the NFL’s loudest stadium. And through three quarters, the Panthers stuck in there with Seattle and magical quarterback Russell Wilson. But one menacing statistic lingered as the teams entered the final 15 minutes of the nail-biter: Seattle had outscored opponents in the fourth quarter of recent games something like 46-0, and the Seahawks’ 17 points spelled the end of the Panthers’ resilient season that looked like it had ended more than a month ago. If the same team that walked off the field in Seattle returns intact in 2015, and begins like it ended, the Panthers will be Super Bowl contenders.
Sunday started early with second-ranked and undefeated Duke playing at N.C. State, where the Dukies had lost three of their last four games in their Kryptonite crypt, PNC Arena (including the upset to Mercer in the 2014 NCAA Tournament). And, from the get-go, it looked like the Blue Devils would be in trouble again. Something transforms the Wolfpack when its sees those Royal Blue and black uniforms, and State seems to run, shoot, go inside and dunk like Phil Slamma Jamma against Duke at home. The Pack proved that by neutralizing freshman Jahlil Okafor, showing that the Devils are thin inside and will have trouble with bigger teams in the paint all season. State, meanwhile, greased the skids for its next home game – Wednesday night against the suddenly resurgent Tar Heels.
Meanwhile, on Fox, the Cowboys and Packers were engaged in the best-played football game of the weekend, as Tony Romo took on his gimpy counterpart Aaron Rodgers in a battle for who goes to Seattle this weekend. Clearly hampered by a torn calf muscle, Rodgers was good in the first half and pretty much perfect in the second, when he hardly missed a pass and moved around better than he had all day. In the end, it went down to what never should decide such an important game – a booth replay of a reception by the ‘Boys Dez Bryant, who went up to make an astonishing catch on the Packers’ 1-yard line and had complete and total possession of the ball before hitting the ground and bobbling the ball. It will be a play debated throughout the off-season, and the rule will be reviewed by the NFL brass because of this point: If the ground cannot cause a fumble on a running play, how can it cause an incompletion of a clearly completed pass? The nuances of the rule notwithstanding, it has to go.
So with the Packers advancing to Seattle, the fourth NFL Final Four spot was determined Sunday afternoon when the Indianapolis Colts and the quarterback who succeeded Peyton Manning took on Denver and the Hall of Fame QB who signed with the Broncos three years ago. The Colts, led by former UNC assistant coach and cancer survivor Chuck Pagano and with one-time Tar Heel receiver Hakeem Nix, showed how much their offense had grown behind Andrew Luck and their defense had improved to flummox the aging and obviously declining Manning all afternoon in the Mile High City. Despite two long field goals by Carolina’s Connor Barth, the Broncos managed only a first-quarter touchdown and the 24-13 final moved Indy on to New England and Manning to hedge on whether it was his last game.
And for those UNC fans who spent part of the weekend working Twitter and their texts to find out what the heck was going on with the supposed hiring of Gene Chizik as Larry Fedora’s new defensive coordinator, all indications pointed to an internal debate: Those who want to win – basically the same bunch that favored hiring Butch and Blake – versus those who want to clearly demonstrate a new, squeaky clean direction and thus do not favor hiring any coach from any school with a tainted past.
The wild weekend ended with clear, if controversial, outcomes on all fronts but that one.
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