Art’s Angle: The Lucky Charm

“I’m a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.”

— Thomas Jefferson

What a weekend to be a Tar Heel.

From basketball to field hockey to soccer to tennis to wrestling, athletes and teams won all over the place.

Football, of course, must be the highlight. The Tar Heels earned their second ACC Coastal Division title (first came in 2015) by beating a Wake Forest team that has been almost unbeatable in Winston-Salem.

Their sixth straight road win after going 0-6 away from Kenan Stadium last year (an unprecedented turnaround in UNC football history) was so much like the first five, all one-possession games where big plays at the end pulled out the victories.

Like the 2-point tackle by Kaimon Rucker and Noah Taylor kept the game at App State from going into overtime; like Omarion Hampton’s two second-half touchdowns finished the comeback at Georgia State; like DeAndre Boykins’ interception ended the last rally at Miami; like Drake Maye to Antoine Green pulled out the thriller at Duke; and like Josh Downs’ diving catch secured the W at Virginia, UNC’s third straight win over Wake Forest had more game-saving theatrics.

With a rare lead at halftime, when Maye passed for 263 yards and three touchdowns, the second half was less offensive due to critical mistakes and stalled drives by both teams. While the yardage consumption kept growing (Carolina finished with 616), the Tar Heels failed on two fourth downs including one from the half-yard line, and the Deacons had the ball and a 34-33 lead late in the fourth quarter. It again looked bad for the white-clad visitors.

But Wake quarterback Sam Hartman, who had nine turnovers in his prior two games, made his only mistake of this one when he didn’t see senior defensive back Cam’Ron Kelly cutting across the field toward his intended receiver. Kelly, who had two crucial picks in the 58-55 win over Wake last year, made the clean interception at his own 29 and returned it 23 yards across midfield with 4:20 left.

On first down, Maye hit the last of his 31 completions when he found Downs for his 11th catch on the left sideline to the Deacons’ 5. Downs had already caught three touchdown passes despite going in and out of the game with cramps in his lower back.

From there, Carolina couldn’t quite figure out what to do with the ball, since it wanted to score and run out the clock at the same time. A sack, a false start and two throw-aways by Maye resulted in a fourth down and a makeable field goal attempt by Noah Burnette who missed an extra point in the first half that affected the scoring flow and led to a bunch of missed 2-point conversions.

Whereas Burnette’s kicks are usually line shots or majestic end-over-enders, this one looked more like a wounded bird wobbling to Earth, but it split the uprights for a 36-34 lead. The game was far from over.

Hartman, who threw for 320 yards and four touchdowns, hit a 44-yard pass into field goal range, but Wake was called for offensive holding and the ball came all the way back to the 15, from where two pressured incompletions gave Carolina its sixth straight win and Wake’s third consecutive defeat. The two best offenses in the ACC combined for more than 1,200 yards and both left points on the field.

No. 15 Carolina is now 9-1 overall for the first time since ’15, 1997, 1980 and 1972 and, despite what happens the next two weeks against Georgia Tech and N.C. State in Chapel Hill, will face Clemson again in the ACC championship game at Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte on Saturday, December 3. The Heels lost a tough one to the Tigers in 2015, and they have the chops this year to reverse that.

“The defense stepped up at the end to make three plays to win the game,” Mack Brown said afterward while attending to a case of pink eye. “I trust Gene Chizik, he kept making adjustments during the game to figure it out.

“There’s so much we can fix and do better. You gotta score from the six-inch-line, oh my God, that’s unbelievable. I got mad at the offense because we should have scored three other touchdowns. They had more than 600 yards and scored 36 points, and I’m still mad.”

After the game, Brown and his players were presented with the ACC Coastal trophy, which will be the last one since the ACC is eliminating divisions next season. They can’t afford to relax with a possible 12- or 13- win season in sight.

“I’ve talked to them the last two weeks about the Coastal,” Brown said. “I didn’t want to back in. I didn’t want them talking about it or looking at someone else losing. This team has accomplished some amazing things and still has some left.

“When you’re winning and still making a lot of mistakes, they’re so much easier to coach. They’re going to be so motivated to start working on Georgia Tech and get better.”

Maye was interviewed on the field by ESPN after the game, gave all the credit to his teammates and was anxious to get back and celebrate with them.

He doesn’t play for a team that will make the College Football Playoff, but his three TD passes and one on the ground (for 519 total yards) keep him in the conversation among the national media about a red-shirt freshman winning the Heisman Trophy.  He is tied for the NCAA lead in touchdown passes with Ohio State’s C.J. Stroud (34), leads in total yards (3,996), and is tied with Oregon’s Bo Nix in points responsible for (236).

“I said if he goes to Winston-Salem and plays great on the road in what’s been a tough game for us, then he deserves all the credit in the world,” Brown said. “He’s been one of the best quarterbacks in the country, so I can’t imagine him not being in New York [for the Heisman Trophy ceremony on December 10].”

And, after all, he is Carolina’s lucky charm.

 

Photo via AP Photo/Chuck Burton.

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