There have been some classic Carolina-Duke football encounters over their 110 games in the last 136 years.
Some the Tar Heels deserved to win but lost, like Mack Brown’s first blueblood rivalry game in 1988, when they dropped an interception in the end zone that would have secured a victory.
Some they deserved to lose but won, like 2019 on Chazz Surratt’s impossible pick at the goal line in Brown’s first game back at UNC against the Blue Devils.
But there may never have been one like Saturday night in packed Wallace Wade Stadium that both teams deserved to win with amazing playmaking and both also could have easily lost with costly penalties and other mistakes.
Certainly, the opposing quarterbacks deserved to win with a battle royale of 825 total yards and accounting for five of the ten touchdowns scored in this epic back-and-forth affair to remember.
The near-capacity crowd, about half in light blue, featured towel-waving and raucous fans, rocking to blaring Cameron-Crazy music such as Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing” — although throughout the long night they didn’t know quite what to believe.
Each team built a 10-point lead that, at the time, seemed insurmountable because of how they were dominating on both sides of the ball.
After Blue Devils quarterback Riley Leonard escaped tackles by seemingly the entire Carolina defense, raced 74 yards to the end zone, and then capitalized on UNC’s self-imposed fumble by Drake Maye, Duke looked like a two-score leader at halftime.
The Marvelous Mr. Maye then led the Heels to 21 unanswered points at the end of the second quarter and the entire third behind spectacular catches by Caleb Hood and Josh Downs and a 20-yard burst by fourth string running back Elijah Green (his second of two touchdowns) while a renewed defense somehow shut out Duke for those 15-plus minutes.
North Carolina’s Drake Maye (10) scrambles out of the pocket during the first half of an NCAA college football game against Duke in Durham, N.C., Saturday, Oct. 15, 2022. (AP Photo/Ben McKeown)
“We had to stop letting them do what they wanted to do running the ball,” said Brown, “so it was a great adjustment by our coaches at halftime.”
Trailing 31-21, the Blue Devils were stopped on 3rd and 1 and on 4th and 1, giving the ball back to Carolina on the Duke 30 at the start of the fourth quarter. This is when the Tar Heel defense got foolishly cocky, jumping around in a circle of chrome helmets like they had locked up the game.
You should never do that against a Duke team in any sport…but kids will be kids.
Carolina did nothing with its field position that could have put the game away, part of blowing three straight possessions by missing a long field goal, going three-and-out and losing a second Maye fumble while he was cocking to throw.
“Horrible possession when we had a chance to go up by 17,” said Brown, who was particularly critical of Phil Longo’s called flea-flicker that failed. “We didn’t need a trick play in that situation. Just be strong with the ball.”
Duke promptly came alive on offense to score twice in two minutes and go ahead 35-31. The Blue Devils then drove to the shadow of the UNC goal line, looking for the touchdown that would have surely wrapped up their first victory over the arch-rival since 2018. But two penalties pushed them out of their kicker’s field goal range, leaving the Heels in the two-minute offense they practice every day.
Maye and his mates took the field with 2:09 on the clock and one timeout left. They hurriedly marched 74 yards to an improv throw and catch by another Green, Antoine (there are four of them on the team), who barely missed stepping out of bounds in the endzone before grabbing Maye’s dart.
“The coaches tell us that big-time players make big-time plays in big-time situations,” said Green — arguably the fastest guy on the team, who averaged 28 yards on his four receptions, the longest a 53-yard sideline sprint the first snap of the game.
Of course, that last play had to be reviewed by the officials who spent more time under the hood during the chilly night than the guys at Pep Boys.
“We knew it was a touchdown and just wanted to go over and ring that [Victory] Bell,” said the magnificent and elusive Downs, who had 9 catches in 11 targets against a constant double-team without scoring any points.
When the refs finally confirmed the decisive TD, 16 seconds were left, and desperate Duke just ran out of time. By then, a third of the stadium had emptied out, half of those people thinking they had won and the other half thinking they had lost.
And guess what they found out when they reached their cars?
Besides the game winner to Green, Maye’s other two TD passes went to Hood, who caught five balls and ran hard ten times for 80 total yards, and Kamari Morales, whose wide-open score in the end zone was the seventh by a UNC tight end this season. The rising star quarterback now has 24 passing touchdowns to his name, sharing the lead in college football with Ohio State’s C.J. Stroud.
Maye’s counterpart was almost as good, as Leonard led a slick option offense that bedeviled Gene Chizik’s defenders throughout the first half. Duke’s strategy was clearly to keep Maye off the field and succeeded by 10 minutes more time of possession.
On defense, Power Echols, Gio Biggers, DeAndre Boykins and Noah Taylor led the Tar Heels with 30 combined tackles, while ACC leader Cedric Gray missed some time with a second-half injury. He returned and played out the game.
Carolina is 6-1 for only the second time since 1981, when the 71-year-old Brown was an offensive coordinator at Iowa State. They lead the ACC Coastal Division with a 3-0 record: a product of being both good and lucky to this point, having won four close games on the road, all by a touchdown or less.
After another idle weekend, the Tar Heels face Pitt and Wake Forest, their two toughest remaining adversaries now that N.C. State has lost its starting quarterback for the season. The win over Duke (4-3) even got them enough votes to move into the AP rankings.
Back to the rivalry: UNC has now beaten Duke four straight and Brown ran his overall streak against the Blue Devils to 12. His fourth Tar Heels of the second stint aren’t quite a juggernaut at this point, they’re just making more good plays than bad plays.
And finding ways to win.
Photo via AP Photo/Ben McKeown.
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Great win! But stupid penalties as always and will continue to be in the future. Stupid play-calling on offense but Longo did have Maye pitch the ball a couple of times, rather than run straight up the middle as always. And a defense that is very talented but the defensive backs are told to play WAY OFF the line of scrimmage for some reason. But we are winning for three reasons, two of which are named Mark and Aimee for having the third one named Drake (actually the fourth child).
UNC was 6-1 in 1996, 97, and 2015.
Thanks, Brian, thr 1996 and ’97 teams started 8-0 but were never 6-1.