Well, Tar Heel fans, go find a hard hat or your old football helmet, because it’s all about to come down on your head. And it starts right here, where the truth hurts.
Mack Brown even said so after his team’s lame last three periods against Florida State, when he backed and filled by declaring, “Our publicity got ahead of our program.”
Let’s start with just the facts, as Dragnet’s Joe Friday used to say.
Carolina has now suffered three losses this season to teams with under-the-radar quarterbacks who had career games against the favored Tar Heels, all likely psyched to outplay the sensationalized Sam Howell.
Like Virginia Tech’s Braxton Burmeister and Georgia Tech’s Jeff Sims, both of whom had underrated run-and-pass ability, Florida State’s red-shirt sophomore Jordan Travis (or is it Travis Jordan?) beat Jay Bateman’s defense where he wasn’t supposed to, namely through the air.
Travis entered the game with modest passing stats, but on a drizzly day in Chapel Hill he completed his last 11 throws on the way to 11 of 13 for 145 yards and three touchdowns and added 121 yards on the ground and two more scores.
He was well-known as a good runner, surpassing several school records set by Charlie Ward, but the Tar Heels were supposed to contain him on the edges and got beat at the worst times, like on third down where the Seminoles converted 7 of 10 (a week after Duke went 2-for-15) in a Kenan Stadium that was far from full thanks, literally, to fair weather fans who stayed home.
Howell is long gone from the Heisman Trophy race but is still the first quarterback on most NFL mock draft boards. After earning that rep throwing and handing off to four guys who got drafted, he has been reduced to a one-trick pony named Josh Downs who has now been targeted 72 times in six games.
That Downs has caught 49 balls (including 9 Saturday) speaks for how good he is and what a miserable failure Phil Longo’s offense has been at developing a full receiving corps with speed and sticky hands to offset the loss of two 1,000-plus-yard backs and All-ACC stretch and slot receivers.
Howell has become the team’s defacto leading rusher by going over 100 yards for the third time this season. Ty Chandler and D.J. Jones had their moments against a fired-up FSU defense, but those were more like seconds as Howell ran the option and scrambled for the longest gains of the day and an average run of nearly 10 yards, plus tossed two more touchdown passes for a career total of 84.
Maybe the oddsmakers will wise up after making Carolina an 18-point favorite over Florida State and a 14-point pick over Georgia Tech, teams that combined for 48 unanswered points to take control of both games. The bigger question is how did FSU lose three times at home and almost a fourth?
Mike Norvell’s ridiculed Noles out-hit, out-skilled, out-schemed, out-executed and, after falling behind 10-0 in the first quarter, obviously outplayed an opponent that had more yards and first downs but only scored two touchdowns when the game was still in doubt. Travis represented 70-percent of their offense. Two running backs who juked through the UNC line accounted for another 133 yards on 25 carries.
“You can’t allow them to run the ball and you can’t allow the quarterback to be confident and have success, and we allowed all three,” Brown said.
Brown will catch some heat for his questionable decision not to take three points in the fourth quarter with the Heels trailing 35-17. Even Brian Simmons, the all-everything linebacker who does color for Jones Angell on the radio, was saying “I’d kick the field goal” to make it a two-score game. Instead, the Heels gave up the ball on downs.
After Grayson Atkins had bailed out a stalled drive with a 51-yarder and Howell hit Downs in the end zone in the first quarter, Carolina didn’t make enough good plays on both sides of the ball and committed way too many penalties (12 for 100+ yards) to make a serious comeback.
Howell killed one drive by throwing a bad interception in the end zone in the second quarter and sophomore Khafre Brown’s dropsies continued with a ball that hit him on his No. 1 in the second half that would have been at least a big gainer if not a much-needed touchdown.
Gladly, most of the Tar Heels did not run down to the student section after the third quarter as, ironically, Bon Jovi’s Living On A Prayer blared from the stadium speakers. Behind by 18 points, they needed far more than a prayer.
Carolina is now 3-3 and must win three more games to reach an ordinary bowl, and look only 50-50 to do so after starting the season as the runaway favorite to capture the ACC Coastal Division.
And with Miami, who will likely have well-known quarterback D’Eriq King running the Hurricanes offense, Notre Dame in South Bend, undefeated Wake Forest, at Pitt and at N.C. State (both 4-1), would you bet on taking two of those games to go with a sure-win over Wofford?
Mack is now 0-11 against Florida State in his coaching career. He praised the late, great Bobby Bowden before 35-25 loss kicked off and even had a picture of him and Bowden before the Judgment Day game of 1997 shown on the video boards in Kenan. And Bowden’s signature was neatly illuminated on a side brick wall next to a big brigade of FSU fans who began cheering in the second quarter and didn’t stop until the upset that wasn’t really an upset got rolling.
Brown told his team and coaches to go back to work to get better and said that fans will be making fun of them, but to keep their heads down and just do it.
Truth is, and it should have been better articulated before the season, the program’s dilemma is this: almost all of the good players inherited from Larry Fedora are gone and most of the studly recruits signed by Brown have not grown into the players they hopefully will become someday.
Mack might have called it a “gap year” and tamped down improbable preseason national media expectations because that’s what it has turned out to be. It’s not exactly wait-till-next-year time, but it’s getting close.
Featured image via The News & Observer
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees. You can support local journalism and our mission to serve the community. Contribute today – every single dollar matters.
Comments on Chapelboro are moderated according to our Community Guidelines