It’s high time the Tar Heels took back the rivalry with N.C. State.

Recently, Mack Brown recalled the first year his Carolina football team defeated N.C. State. It was 1993 after five straight losses to the Wolfpack of Dick Sheridan. After the game, Brown was informed that one of his assistants had body-slammed a Wolfpack coach to the turf at Carter-Finley Stadium. Brown shrugged, as if to say he understood the frustration.

UNC won four more and Brown left for Texas with five straight victories over State. He has a chance to make it six on the same field where the body slam happened. Mack carried a holdover eight-game winning into the game here with Duke on October 26, and now that is nine in a row.

Over the last 21 years, Carolina has a 9-12 record against State, losing the last three and four of the last five. Three of those defeats came right here in Kenan Stadium, including the last one that ended with a brawl and the next morning ended Larry Fedora’s seven-year tenure.

During that period of semi-domination, State went to five straight bowl games under Coach Dave Doeren and took control of in-state recruiting away from Carolina. Two Tar Heel bowl teams with quarterbacks named Marquise Williams and Mitch Trubisky even lost to the Pack at home. This season, despite both entering Saturday night’s game with losing records, the worm has begun to turn. State is having the same quarterback problems that plagued Carolina after Trubisky was the second pick in the 2017 NFL draft, as red-shirt freshman Devin Leary is no great shakes.

Bottom line is that Brown’s newest UNC edition is not quite there yet, but still has more to play for than the Pack, which has its Senior Night but little else. And two days after Thanksgiving, the stadium in the Raleigh Fairgrounds is unlikely to be completely full and carry the same howling home-field advantage State has enjoyed in better autumns.

While the Wolfpack, 4-7, has lost five straight and won’t be bowling for the first time in six years, Brown’s 5-6 team can get to .500 and return to post-season play, if Sam Howell can keep throwing touchdown passes and the Carolina defense is good enough to disrupt Leary and State’s stumbling offense.

Like Fedora’s Tar Heels had the odds stacked against them in recent games with State, it seems like this is Carolina’s year. The home team can play spoiler and would love to do that, but the visitors wearing the color blue that makes the Wolves howl just has to play its game. Go do it.

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