If you didn’t care who won, that was a great football game.
Two old, bitter rivals who have as much in common as they don’t. A master chess class on a grass board between N.C. State’s defensive coordinator Tony Gibson and Carolina’s Phil Longo. ‘Your move.’ ‘No, your move.’ ‘No, you go.’
We must also acknowledge the sub-plot between Gene Chizik and State’s play caller Tim Beck, who allowed and gained 681 total yards, almost split evenly. Both teams converted only 25 percent of their third downs, but strangely went 4-for-4 on fourth down.
The outcome (30-27 in N.C. State’s favor) in the second overtime came when UNC’s Noah Burnette missed his second field goal of the night that would have forced a third extra period, which according to the new rules is a contest of 2-point conversion attempts. There were other inflection points, but State had more of them if not as exciting as Carolina’s race with the clock to get into overtime on a fourth-down touchdown pass as time expired in regulation.
That was high drama, extended by the almost interminable TV timeouts that ABC has on its call sheet and State’s rash of on-field injuries that also stopped the clock. Those two constant stoppages helped extend the game to 4.5 hours.
The Wolfpack’s highly-ranked defense was seemingly everywhere in the first half, jamming up the box that held the Tar Heels to only 59 yards rushing. The Pack was also calling audibles according to Carolina’s offensive formations that limited and pressured quarterback Drake Maye to go 11 of 19 for only 68 yards.
Maye ran his streak of going without a touchdown pass to five consecutive quarters dating back to the Georgia Tech loss last week. UNC’s first half touchdown was by Elijah Green who slithered through the State interior for a 5-plus average, including his usually high-scoring team’s only TD.
UNC’s Elijah Green fights to get into the end zone against N.C. State on November 25, 2022. (Photo via Joe Bray/Carolina Athletics Communications.)
Both sides showed slightly more offense after State took the 17-10 lead into halftime as Maye passed for another 165 yards and the Heels put up 17 points to twice tie the score. He was still harassed but managed to break his touchdown pass drought in the most dramatic of ways as the fourth quarter unfolded.
Ben Finley, who is listed as a red-shirt freshman but has been in the Wolfpack program for three years, is the younger brother of former State star QB Ryan Finley. He nearly outplayed his high-profile competitor. Finley was 13 of 17 in the first half including a beautiful post pattern for State’s second touchdown.
State’s first TD was set up by Finley’s 52-yard pass to Devin Carter who was all alone after Storm Duck slipped early in coverage. When Finley found Terrell Timmons for his first college score, the Pack’s 14-3 lead appeared almost insurmountable considering its aggressive and experienced defense.
Finley was listed as the fourth-string “scout team” quarterback, which seems impossible considering how well he played in his first start. Getting to know the program while visiting during Ryan’s career, Ben was the first player to sign in his recruiting class. He is at least better than Jack Chambers, a non-thrower who scored the opening touchdown on his first carry and fumbled on his second.
Granted, the Tar Heels were playing severely handicapped in their secondary, already without an injured Tony Grimes and then losing senior Cam’Ron Kelly in the second quarter and junior Duck in the fourth quarter. That helped Finley complete 14 more throws and hit a late bomb at the goal line to put the No. 17-ranked Tar Heels in scramble mode to catch up.
“Storm falls down on one long touchdown and Cam Kelly pulls a hamstring covering the other guy,” a less-talkative Mack Brown said afterward. “We were still fighting our guts out. They missed one field goal, and we missed two, and that’s what the game came down to.”
Taking over with less than four minutes remaining, Maye completed seven passes and drove the Heels deep into the red zone when a lengthy review and a long TV TO unnerved the crowd before tight end John Copenhaver’s acrobatic catch in the end zone was overturned and ruled incomplete.
The Pack bench exploded over an apparent victory, but officials put two seconds back on the clock and gave the Heels a fourth-down at the State 4-yard line. Maye got good protection and waited patiently for Antoine Green to break free across the back of the end zone to catch his laser. Burnette’s PAT with no time left sent the game into the first overtime of the season for both teams.
Noah Burnette takes a kick during Friday’s game against N.C. State, where he went 2-4 on his field goal attempts. The misses were the sophomore’s first since October 15. (Photo via Eli Melet.)
Burnette had already missed a 27-yard chip shot in the fourth quarter when Brown sent him back on the field for a 35-yard attempt to forge a fifth tie. It was a high-pressure kick against a bulldozing defense, and Carolina might have been better off letting Maye try to pick up the first down from the State 18-yard line.
“I thought about going for the 4th-and-3 at the end,” Brown said, “but we were playing really good on defense, so I felt like we were in good position. I thought we were a little more fresh because we had the ball so much in the fourth quarter.”
The tough defeat gives Carolina three losses (9-3) all at home and to opponents playing their reserve quarterbacks. And State’s game plan of controlling the line of scrimmage and throwing play-action passers was like what Notre Dame and Georgia Tech had used to beat the Tar Heels at Kenan.
Brown praised State’s defense, and justifiably so, holding down one of the most prolific scoring teams in the country. “They were either blitzing or dropping eight and did a good job of keeping us confused, so give them some credit,” he said.
“We’ve come down to a play or two in almost every game, and we usually made them but not in the last two weeks.”
UNC head coach Mack Brown converses with the sideline referee during a stoppage of play during Friday’s game vs. N.C. State. (Photo via Jeffrey A. Camarati.)
Still, one game remains to be played against Clemson for the ACC championship Saturday in Charlotte. Normally, two losses each on the last possession would be deflating going in, but this loss seemed different than the one to 21-point underdog Georgia Tech.
“When your team plays as hard as it can, that’s all you can ask for,” Brown said. “I’m not going to sit around feel bad about nine wins, we’re still the champions of the Coastal for the second time in school history.”
And, you know what, Clemson also lost to its archrival at home – and will play with its starting quarterback.
So, give Carolina a chance to win its first ACC title in 42 years.
Featured photo via Eli Melet.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
It ain’t over til Chansky Chants. One of the other prominent sports writers for Tar Heel football mentioned this week that after 4 years, Mack Brown is still laying bricks for the football foundation, and needs more time to complete his mission of pushing the boulder up the Hill. Like many Tar Heel fans, the sports writer has a hard time with agricultural and construction metaphors. Mack is not laying bricks, Mack is laying eggs. Mack is not laying bricks, he is shooting bricks. Mack is quoted as saying that he he was not going to mope around feeling bad about his 9 win season. For perspective, the combined won-loss record of the nine teams the Heels have beaten is 45 wins, 51 losses, for a winning percentage of 46%. Of the nine teams the Heels beat, only 3 have winning records, with the 9-2 FAMU Rattlers leading the pack. I am not certain exactly what Mack is building at UNC. I think he is building character. But, the objective fact is that Mack’s 9 wins comes against a bunch of losers, and all the smoke and mirrors of Mack’s charming PR skills cannot overcome the facts that when real teams with winning records show up [Notre Dame] the Heels get crushed. Mack left the Heels in shambles to pursue the Texas job. Since then the coaches have been:
Carl Torbush 0.485 W-L %
John Bunting .375%
Butch Davis 0.342 %
Interim Everett Withers 0.538%
Larry Fedora .511 %
Mack’s reward for leaving the Heels in shambles was 25 years of the Heels wandering around in the desert. Mack was rewarded by Bubba for his act of disloyalty with a multi-million dollar contract.
Bubba made a mistake. Bubba needs to fix his mistake.
I’m very thankful this Thanksgiving season: Thankful that we’ve only lost 2 games to first year coaches (ND and Georgia Tech) and thankful that we’ve only lost 2 games to 3rd string quarterbacks (Ga Tech and NCSU) and thankful that we almost made the top 10 before falling completely out of the top 20. And of course I’m thankful that we’re playing for the ACC title against a team whose quarterback completed less than 30 percent of his passes against an unranked team. Four years ago (most) everyone said, “Mack is Back!” But now are these folks still saying that or could they be saying, “Mack is slack and has a knack for a quarterback sack and loses to the Pack, whose QB is no Dak (Prescott), that’s a fact Jack!”?
UNC has an unlimited budget! Go out and get a coach who has energy and can inspire effort and discipline and can coach the talent we have before we stop getting 4 star recruits! And get an Offensive Coordinator who can have his running backs (who are talented) do something other than (try to) run up the middle 99 percent of the time!
Mack is there as long as he wants, just like other coaches (softball for instance), no matter how bad they are. We are a sweet, kind, liberal institution and don’t want to offend anyone by kicking their butts (“elitist” as Doeren said). But we have rich folks in The Rams Club that get to hob-knob with the coaches and administration, and Mack is a UNC guy, who ran the Texas program into the ground; and without Sam and Drake, we would be no better off than when Fedora was here. I wish the back-up running backs, the back-up receivers, Jacolby, etc. the best in their future endeavors. I would encourage Drake to leave but he’s not that kind of guy. He’ll stick it out and hopefully make a lot of money in about 2 years! But if Mack is interested in transferring, I would certainly wish him the best too; and I would offer to help him pack.