The Tar Heels just may have made history in South Florida.
Carolina won a football game Saturday that is potentially the most important victory the program has had since the ACC was formed in 1953, which is to say the modern era of the sport.
And the way the No. 17 Heels demolished tenth-ranked Miami will stand on its own, but if the College Football Rankings and results of the ACC championship game fall the right way, UNC will be headed to its first major bowl game since the 1950 Cotton Bowl.
First, the CFP committee must use the 62-26 slaughter of the Hurricanes to move Carolina above Miami in the next poll, which was considered a long shot before the game. But the 60-minute dominance and record-shattering performance from the offense and early shutdown defense certainly warrants that.
Second, let’s all pull hard for Clemson to defeat Notre Dame for the ACC title this Saturday in Charlotte. That would put both the Tigers and Irish into the CFP final four, opening up the Orange Bowl for Mack Brown’s Tar Heels (the spot would likely go to Clemson if it loses).
Those two happenings would make the win at Miami historic during an equally memorable season of the novel coronavirus, in which Carolina somehow played 11 games while almost a hundred others were either canceled or postponed.
The 69-year-old Brown acknowledged after the epic victory that UNC hadn’t played in a traditional New Year’s Day Bowl since January 1, 1950, and added, “I wasn’t there, although some people think I was.” Brown was actually born eight months after Rice defeated Carolina in Dallas. In prior years, the Choo-Choo Justice-led Tar Heels lost twice in the Sugar Bowl. So getting to a major bowl and winning it would be two great goals and Tar Heel football firsts.
The final score (62-26) represented the mirror image of two teams in Hard Rock Stadium in front of a COVID-restricted crowd of about 13,000, almost all of the fans long-faced from very early in the game.
Nationally televised on ABC, the game proved a sports showcase of the day, as the University of North Carolina is a brand name unto itself and Miami is the same in football. So plenty of people were watching from the 3:36 pm kickoff. What they saw was, literally, a shocker.
The simple description is the Tar Heels did not punt a single time and scored on 10 of its 11 full possessions, coming up empty only on a 37-yard wide-left field goal.
The team was obviously ready to go emotionally, and it appeared the coaching staff benefitted from playing Western Carolina last Saturday and, essentially, having two full weeks to correct what went wrong against second-ranked Notre Dame and prepare for a Miami team that was coming off its first ACC road shutout and biggest road win by clobbering 2-9 Duke (for what that’s worth).
The complete control of the game began and ended with Michael Carter and Javonte Williams shredding the ‘Canes defensive front and linebackers for a college-football record of 544 combined rushing yards, many of them through massive holes opened by the offensive line and finishing by outrunning, juking and/or bowling over the Miami secondary.
Williams scored three touchdowns to give him 22 for the season and surpass Don McCauley’s UNC record of 21, which was 50 years ago and once thought unbeatable. And it’s significant that both bruising running backs did it in their third years, as No. 23 was a senior headed to the NFL in 1970 and No. 25 is a junior whose stock will never be higher to enter the pro draft next April.
It was also strange that almost every drive of the game on both sides had one critical play.
On the opening possession, Miami quarterback D’Eriq King had a receiver wide open for a touchdown in the middle of the field before Carolina corner Tyler McMichael reached in to tap the ball away. The Hurricanes settled for a field goal and its only lead of the game.
On the Tar Heels’ first series, Sam Howell hit Dyami Brown with a 51-yard bomb to the Miami 12, setting up Williams’ first touchdown three snaps later.
Carolina freshman nickelback Ja’Qurious Conley’s blitz for a seven-yard loss put the Hurricanes behind the chains and forcing them to punt.
Howell’s poor throw for an interception was nullified by Miami having too many men on the field, and the 13-play drive ended with Williams’ second touchdown on a fourth-down option pitch.
The U, now down 14-3, moved to the Tar Heels’ 35 and faced a fourth down, when Chazz Surratt filled the gap and stuffed the run for no gain. The last time Surratt had been on Miami’s home turf, his career as a college quarterback effectively ended with a pick 6 in Carolina’s 47-10 loss in 2018.
Carter stunned everyone watching by going off tackle and up the sideline on first down for a 65-yard touchdown and 21-3 lead on the last play of the first quarter, during which Carolina had 208 yards of total offense and was on pace for 832 (the Heels finished with a measly 778, another school record).
After a Miami three-and-out that started with an offensive holding penalty and ended with a sack of King by Jeremiah Gemmel and Tomon Fox, Williams scampered 65 yards down the right side that set up Grayson Atkins’ 21-yard chip shot and a 24-3 lead.
The home team gave up field position again with a false start and punt, after which the Tar Heels capped a 67-yard march with Carter’s 25-yard blast, breaking Miami tackles and its spirit. Senior Carter was on his way to 308 yards rushing, second in UNC annals only to Derrick Fenner’s 328 against Virginia in 1986.
It was then that you knew Miami’s Orange Bowl hopes were slipping away.
Another blitz by Conley resulted in a Miami punt, another Howell bomb to Brown, this one for 87 yards, and another Atkins’ field goal to make it 34-3.
Gemmel’s questionable face mask call on King got the Hurricanes close enough to score just before the half ended at 34-10.
Second half, more of the same.
Carter’s 19-yard run overcame two holding penalties as Howell sneaked in for a 41-10 lead. The U used a 79-yard pass to set up its second touchdown. Javonte’s spectacular 43-yard run in which he jumped over one defender, spun around another, bowling-balled a third to the ground and dragged two more tacklers five yards moved the ball to the Miami 17, from where Atkins pulled it left.
Freshman Tony Grimes’ sensational interception, taking the ball away from a Miami receiver, led to another 58-yard run by Williams and the surprise play of the day – a double reverse that started with Howell and ended with Rontavius (Lefty) Groves throwing to Howell, who made a fine catch in the end zone for a 48-18 lead. Call it the “Chapel Hilly Special.”
Brown and Phil Longo “ran up” the final score by calling only two more pass plays, the second for a touchdown to freshman tight end Kamari Morales that kept Howell’s streak in tact of tossing for at least one score in every game he has played as a Tar Heel.
There will be one more this season, hopefully on the same field for all the Oranges.
“For the first time against a really good team, we played a full 60 minutes,” Brown said. “I wanted to win this game so badly for the players and, hopefully, get to the Orange Bowl.”
Photo via ACC Media
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