On a rainy Saturday night at Kenan Stadium, the Tar Heels gave their fans just what they wanted.
En route to a 53-14 blowout of the North Carolina A&T Aggies, senior quarterback Marquise Williams went an efficient 15-for-20 throwing the ball, picking up 211 yards and two touchdowns–while throwing no interceptions. Elijah Hood picked up a tough 58 yards and a pair of red zone touchdowns, and the defense looked much-improved for the second straight game.
Williams also ran for 52 yards and a score, adding an extra dimension to the offense which was missing in last week’s loss to South Carolina.
The win is the first for the Tar Heels this season, and moves them to 1-1. The Aggies drop to 1-1 with the loss, coming off a 61-7 win against Shaw a week ago.
Dynamic Aggie running back Tarik Cohen finished with 89 all-purpose yards (69 rushing and 20 receiving) to lead the way for head coach Rod Broadway’s squad. Starting quarterback Kwashaun Quick was kept under wraps, as he completed just seven of 19 passes for a grand total of 78 yards.
Still, though, UNC head coach Larry Fedora was able to find some complements for his opponent.
There was plenty of celebrating going on for the Tar Heels on Saturday. (UNC Athletics)
“Give them a little bit of credit, now,” he said in his post-game press conference. “Coach Broadway’s done a heck of job with that team. And I thought they did a really good job defensively, I really did. If you notice, we didn’t really have any explosive runs.”
Unfortunately for Broadway, a UNC alum, that’s about the only silver lining he’ll be able to take from the game–as the talent disparity between the two teams was evident right from the opening kick. Explosive runs were just about the only thing missing from the Tar Heel offense early on.
After the defense produced a three-and-out on North Carolina A&T’s first drive, Hood capped off a nine-play drive with a 1-yard touchdown run to put UNC in front. Most importantly, it appeared the Tar Heel coaches heard the demand to get Hood more touches down by the end line–as they handed it to him three straight times before he finally crossed the plane.
“That’s our goal-line package,” Hood said. “We usually run it. We were running it during training camp and everything, so we’re very comfortable with it. I was happy that we finally started using it, for sure.”
From there, the carnage just kept on coming.
Williams found senior tight end Kendrick Singleton streaking down the right sideline for a 47-yard touchdown bomb on the very next drive.
In a bit of a strange development on the following Tar Heel offensive possession–following a fumble return to the Aggie 2-yard-line from senior safety Sam Smiley–Fedora sent backup quarterback Mitch Trubisky into the game. His duty? Two handoffs to Hood, giving the Charlotte native his second 1-yard touchdown of the game (and fifth carry inside the 10-yard line).
“I had already made up my mind going into the game that I was gonna do it, but nobody else knew it,” Fedora said. “Because I wanted to get [Trubisky] in early. I wanted him to get some meaningful reps, and I didn’t want to tell him that he was going. So that if the situation happens like that in the season, he’s prepared and ready to go.”
He completed five of his seven passes in the game for 37 yards, including a second quarter touchdown pass to redshirt freshman tight end Brandon Fritts, who caught two touchdowns in the quarter–one from each quarterback.
In all, the Tar Heels scored touchdowns on five of their six first-half offensive possessions. Defensively, the team forced three turnovers–after producing none last week–on the way to a 36-0 halftime lead.
Mitch Trubisky finishing up his 35-yard touchdown run in the third quarter. (Smith Cameron Productions)
The second half was just a formality, as the backups took over mid-way through the third quarter with the game no longer in doubt.
On his first drive of the half, Trubisky broke through the stingy Aggie run defense for a 35-yard touchdown dash–putting the Tar Heels ahead 53-0, which was their biggest lead of the night.
Not until there was just over a minute left in the third quarter did the Aggies put points on the board, as the signal-caller, Quick, ran it in himself from the 1-yard-line against the UNC backups.
By the fourth quarter, a large portion of the crowd had filtered out of the exits–moving on with the rest of its night as the team closed out the victory.
Any quarterback controversies will have to wait, though, as Williams recovered from last week’s woes to put together a clean all-around performance
“I was able to, you know, just relax and have fun tonight,” Williams said. “My main key was just to come out here and have some fun. I was excited on the way here. My body felt great. And I was more pumped today. I think I didn’t have that edge last Thursday. I didn’t have that edge like I usually have, going out, having fun and competing.”
Up Next:
The Tar Heels will remain at home next weekend, as they host the Illinois Fighting Illini–a team which fired its head coach, Tim Beckman, a week before the season began, but has responded well with back-to-back wins in its first two games of the year.
Game Notes:
- UNC kicker Nick Weiler connected on a career-long 48-yard field goal in the third quarter, his third of more than 30 yards this season. Last year the team did not split the uprights from longer than 30 yards a single time.
- Quinshad Davis, the Tar Heel senior wide receiver, was the only player on the team to catch at least four passes in the romp, hauling in four for 40 yards on the night.
- This was the sixth time in Fedora’s tenure that the Tar Heels have scored 50 points or more.
- Fritts’s touchdown catches were the first two receptions of his career. He is a high school teammate of Mitch Trubisky (Mentor High School in Ohio).
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