Art's Angle: From The Couch

Once it started raining heavily Saturday afternoon, my angle for the football game against Idaho was from my couch, clicker in hand, to watch Carolina’s record-breaking 66-0 win and a few other things tangential to the Tar Heels.

Good choice because it turned out to be a great, as well as dry, day in that position. Carolina wiped the wet Kenan Stadium turf with the Vandals from Moscow (Idaho) as we figured would happen, but denying a touchdown for four more quarters (now 10 in a row) and setting a school record for most points (by one) in a game were welcome bonuses. Most everyone not only played well, but most everyone played, which means the 3-2 team will be well-rested for when the ACC season starts in earnest this week with Va. Tech coming to town.

But it was also a great day because N.C. State lost in a most-embarrassing manner, with all-star cornerback David Amerson letting a Miami receiver slip behind him for the winning touchdown with merely seconds to play. That will have Wolfpack coach and ex-Marine TOB chewing glass. And Duke winning was also good, because the Blue Devils beat Wake Forest for the first time in 12 years, which puts Carolina back in the picture to win the mythical state championship and only title we can claim to win this season.

Now if the Tar Heels can beat Duke on October 20 and State the next week (for the first time since John Bunting was coaching here), we can all hang banners anywhere we want saying we cheer for the best college football team in North Cackalacky. And no one could stop us, not even the N-C-double-A.

Another reason it was a great day for Carolina was captain Davis Love’s USA team continued stomping the Euros in the Ryder Cup being played outside of Chicago. And, yes, the answer to the pre-game trivia question: there WERE more people cheering the USA golfers at Medinah than in Kenan Stadium watching the Tar Heels. Once the rains came, the over-under number on that was 40,000.

(Davis Love, you may recall, played golf at UNC about 30 years ago before joining the PGA tour and winning enough jack to build his own compound in Sea Island, Georgia. The easy-going Love is also the first Ryder Cup captain with the nads to sit Tiger Woods for one of the sessions; Tiger, who does not seem to play as well when there is no money at stake, still hasn’t won a single point among the 10 the USA has accumulated so far. The Ryder Cup ends Sunday, by the way, and is great theater from the couch, even if you don’t know a niblick from a mashie).

Back to the game, which wasn’t much of a game once Carolina scored 28 points in the first quarter and 45 by halftime, when everyone was either gone, half naked in the Tar Pit or toughing it out in rain gear (except Larry Fedora, who kept coaching in a soaking golf shirt because he refuses to let the weather be a factor for him or his team).

Fedora, by the way, looked like he was going to wring the neck of one of the officials when they ignored Gio Bernard having his head turned around and helmet ripped off during a punt return in favor of a block in the back somewhere else. Bernard is okay, but for a second he looked like that little girl in the Exorcist.

For the first time since the Elon opener, Carolina played better in the first half than the second, when guys were in the game who weren’t even on the printed roster. The Tar Heels are 3-2, but if they could have made one defensive stop at Wake Forest and completed one more drive at Louisville, they would be 5-0 and all the rage in Fedora’s first season. So we’ll see what happens from here.

If you’re still keeping that cumulative score, Carolina is (ironically) now also 66-0 in the 3rd quarter and 100-10 in the second half against all opponents. Despite Fedora’s frankness and the general apathy toward football around here, it’s getting to the point where you can’t deny that the Tar Heels are pretty darn good running that fast break offense and attacking 4-2-5 defense. Not until we beat State, you say?

So why was 0-5 Idaho even on the schedule? Well, the Vandals found out it was a good weekend to rob Chapel Hill. They got $800,000 to play here one time.

Art's Angle: From The Couch

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