It was Sept 15, 2012. Not March 2, 1974. This time Walter Davis missed. OK, it would never have supplanted “8 down with 17 seconds to play” regardless. 
 
It was not in Carmicheal. It was in a stadium named for a pizza mogul in a city more famous for a horse race. It was not against Duke. It was against Louisville and only remnants of a crowd of 55,000 were there at the end.
 
(Did you know that Papa John Stadium is the ONLY college stadium in America where all 55,000 seats are individual chairbacks? Bubba, can we do that in Kenan some day?)
 
Speaking of chairbacks…. our Good Sports pre-game show on WCHL Saturday was “Best Ever” with Shows One & Two being tied for second just a smidgen behind. Catch it in archives somewhere on this website. You can skip over Chansky’s parts.
 
By last count, 138,662 die-hard Carolina fans were in Carmichael in March 1974. That number will go up after this. Every time I ever write about “8 down with 17 seconds to play” I hear from yet another “I was there”…. or “my dad was there and he swears that….”. 
 
BobLee, Carmichael only held 9,000. Yeah, I know. You tell those other 129,000 who have ticket stubs swearing they were there. Many of those 138,000 were also in Wrigley Field when Babe Ruth “called his shot” versus Charlie Root too. 
 
Did I channel Charles Dickens’ one week to soon. Surely Saturday in Papa John was “The Best of Halfs – The Worst of Halfs” or vice versa. I’m assuming most reading this are fans of the team that scored 34, not the team that scored 39. 
 
Carolina lost the game. Let me make that clear. Carolina lost the game. Larry Fedora did not come to Carolina to almost win football games. Larry Fedora did not come to Carolina to give “Don’t get your daubers down men. You played hard. You gave it your all. We’ll get’em next week by golly” post-game speeches. 
 
To paraphrase George Patton, Larry Fedora came to Carolina so the opposing coaches will give “we’ll get’em next week” speeches.  Make those other SOBs give up their lives for their cause….. Larry Fedora came to Carolina to WIN (and build character, integrity, yadda yadda yadda….) and in Louisville on Saturday last his team did not win. Larry is not a happy Fedora today. 
 
If a tie is like “kissing your sister” and a “moral victory” is another way of saying “we lost” then an incredible comeback that just falls short is still an L in a young season that now has two of those Ls to just one W with the Purple Pirates coming to Kenan next Saturday.
 
I watched the entire game. Yes I was flipping back & forth across the plethora of color & pageantry available “on any given Fall Saturday” but I was watching until 00:00. Were you? 
 
That’s a rhetorical question to which I don’t expect an honest answer.  If a third of the Louisville fans left Papa’s at the half, how many of “our fans” hung around in TV Land to watch Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse scalp Custer’s 7th Cavalry. I mean REALLY! 
 
So sue me. I like to watch massacres. Besides my sock drawer was already sorted and my car was already washed or whatever most of you chose to do around 5 PM on Saturday. Hey, I don’t blame you. 
 
The last time TeamRamses went into Papa John was October 2005.  That one really was a massacre – 69-14 in favor of the home team.  That one was two of yesterday’s first halfs without a second half.  Ouch. The only sound we “harked” that day was that damn train whistle those goobers blow after every score. 
 
As our boys trudged off the Papa John greensward yesterday I “harked” a sound of the seed of optimism germinating.  Optimism that Larry Fedora is “the man” to lead the Carolina Tar Heels to many more Ws than Ls in the months and years to come.
 
Whatever he said at halftime worked…. almost. “Almost” means “not quite” but gosh-darn it I liked what I saw in that second half. 
 
I like Larry Fedora a lot and I’m sure glad he’s the head coach of my alma mater.
 
Bryn Renner had great stats yesterday. OK, stats are for losers but five TDs and 363 yards is a lot. 
 
In the pantheon of UNC QBs, Bryn Renner had a whole lot better week than Matt Kupec did.