UNC Drawing on Experience From Last Year's Six-Overtime Loss for Top-25 Showdown Versus Virginia Tech

The biggest test of the young season awaits the 8th-ranked UNC football team on Saturday at Kenan Stadium, as No. 19 Virginia Tech comes to town for a rematch of a game the Hokies won last season after an ACC-record six overtimes.

Both teams head into the top-25 showdown with 2-0 records after having the early portion of their schedules disrupted by COVID-19.

Despite having to play without 21 players and two coaches last weekend against Duke, Virginia Tech still managed to pull out a win. The Hokies were missing the majority of their top defensive backs for that game, which could end up playing a large role on Saturday should they end up having to sit out against the Tar Heels.

UNC will be looking to jumpstart a passing attack that has yet to break out with the type of explosive plays expected of them heading into the year.

Expectations are also something UNC head coach Mack Brown is trying to keep from distracting his players, as the Tar Heels get set for their first game between two ranked teams since the infamous hurricane game against Virginia Tech in 2016—a game that ended in a 34-3 loss at home.

“Our program is really a little bit publicly ahead of where I think it is,” Brown said. “We’ve still got some work to do, we’ve still got some youth. We’ve gotten a lot of credit. I’m still not sure we know who we are yet. So, we’ve got to improve and we’ve got to continue to work.”

The main reason the Tar Heels have received so much hype is the play of quarterback Sam Howell, whose 38 touchdown passes last season ranked third in ACC history.

Last season’s six-overtime loss to Virginia Tech was a chance for Howell to earn a signature road victory in his debut campaign, but a number of critical errors and missed field goals down the stretch kept that from happening.

Although UNC would ultimately close the season out strong, the chance for revenge is something Howell can’t wait to take advantage of this weekend.

“The main thing I remember from that game is we had so many opportunities to win the game and we didn’t make the play,” Howell said. “There were so many times where there’s a lot of people that weren’t positioned to make a play to win the game, and we just didn’t make the play. So definitely, we do want to get that one back, because that’s one that slipped away from us last year.”

That marathon affair between the Tar Heels and Hokies last season was emblematic of how the whole year went for UNC, with seemingly every game coming down to the final seconds. Another overtime loss to Pitt came later in the year, before the team finally reversed course and started its current five-game winning streak.

Last week’s road win at Boston College saw a change of fortune for the Tar Heels, with Trey Morrison’s game-sealing interception putting UNC on the right side of the late-game heroics.

The painful experiences from last season have helped this current group gain confidence in those situations, with this week’s showdown against the Hokies providing the perfect opportunity to show just how far they’ve come.

“I like to look at history,” Brown said. “I like to look at who we are and what we’ve done. And I told the guys, ‘If we were ready to have won the game at Virginia Tech last year, we would have won it.’

“We were ready to win at Boston College in a similar situation,” the coach added. “But we weren’t ready at Pitt [last season]. We weren’t ready for whatever reason. I told them, ‘If we’re ready this weekend, we’ll do our best and win the game.’”

Photo via ACC Media

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UNC Drawing on Experience From Last Year’s Six-Overtime Loss for Top-25 Showdown Versus Virginia Tech

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