It had been less than an hour since Carolina lost to Wake Forest last Saturday, and receiver Jordan Shipp was already thinking about Duke.
The sophomore from Charlotte is no stranger to the rivalry dynamics in the Triangle, and he knows the importance of this game to anyone who calls themselves a Tar Heel. Still wearing his smeared eye-black in Winston-Salem, Shipp said his focus for the coming week was making sure the senior leaders, such as receiver Kobe Paysour, don’t end their careers with a loss to the Blue Devils.
“I’m playing for Kobe,” Shipp told reporters. “This game is for Kobe. Whatever I want to do, I’m doing it for Kobe. Because I want him to get the [Victory] Bell back in his last game at Kenan. I want him to walk off of his last game at Kenan with a W, especially against Duke. Everything is for those seniors, but in my heart, Kobe for sure.”
Last season saw UNC lose the battle for the Victory Bell, the trophy given to the winner of the Duke-UNC game, for the first time since 2018. Carolina’s senior class has had to play a year without the Bell in the building for the first time in their collegiate careers. Defensive back Will Hardy, himself a senior who will play his final home game this week, said he appreciated Shipp’s passion.
“He recognizes the importance of this game,” Hardy said, “even at a young age. He’s a great guy and selfless in the way that he prepares and the way he plays. I really appreciate that about him. I know when I was a freshman, I was up here speaking before Duke week. We had the same mindset as freshmen and younger players: you want to win it for the seniors.”
But while Shipp and Hardy have each competed in UNC-Duke games, many players and coaches in the Kenan Football Center have not. Chief among them is head coach Bill Belichick, who got his first taste of the hostility on Tobacco Road last week at Wake Forest. The Demon Deacons pulled no punches against the Tar Heels, and it’s unlikely Duke, which has lost two straight contests and needs a win to reach a bowl game, will hold anything back either.
At his introductory press conference in December, Belichick famously claimed his first words to his parents as a young child were “Beat Duke.” At that time, Bill’s father Stephen Belichick was an assistant coach at UNC – though it should be noted that during Belichick’s three years on staff, Carolina lost three straight games to the Blue Devils. Bill said his father didn’t talk much about the rivalry later on, but also said he was still able to register its importance.
“It was the game,” Belichick told the media at the Kenan Football Center Wednesday. “I don’t think it’s Army-Navy, but it’s that type of game. Here you’ve got a couple of other in-state games like Wake Forest and NC State, and obviously those are big rivalry games too. But Duke? That’s it.”
Of course, UNC will need to beat Duke this week and NC State next week in order to qualify for a bowl game. But traditionally, the UNC-Duke matchup in football has never carried much weight in the bigger picture. Let’s face it: neither team is exactly a college football dynasty. From the Tar Heel perspective, all that’s important is that the Victory Bell is currently the wrong shade of blue. Hardy, whose senior class feels the Bell’s absence more than anyone else on the team, said that is more than enough to raise the stakes.
“It’s just another motivator,” said Hardy, “to get that back and have it here at Carolina. My first three years here, it spent its time in this facility painted Carolina blue. So we want to get that back and keep it here. I’m looking forward to having a chance to ring it Saturday.”
Featured image via UNC Athletic Communications/Jeffrey A. Camarati
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