Let’s get one thing straight: Carolina’s chances at bowl eligibility are slim. But with the Tar Heels at 4-5 with three games to go, the team has at least given itself a puncher’s chance at playing one more football game in December.
It’s thanks to two straight wins against Syracuse and Stanford, plus some truly dominant play by the Carolina defense, that UNC finds itself in this position. Saturday’s win against the Cardinal was the first of four consecutive games to close out the regular season in which the Tar Heels will not leave the state of North Carolina. But the final three will all be much more difficult: at Wake Forest this weekend, followed by a home date with Duke and a visit to NC State. Needing to win at least two of those games to secure a bowl berth, UNC projects to be the underdog in all three.
That Carolina is even “in position to be in position” is something of a minor miracle. The Tar Heels’ chances of winning even one more game looked bleak after their blowout loss to Clemson in early October. It was during the ensuing tumultuous bye week, said linebacker Khmori House, that the team locked in.
“We know we’re a good team,” House said. “It just comes with attention to detail and things like that. Just deciding to flip the switch, and let’s get this thing rolling how we said we were gonna do.”
And when wins become winning streaks, it’s only natural to look ahead. Carolina hasn’t missed out on a bowl game since 2018, well before any player on the roster began his college football career. You can bet nobody in the Kenan Football Center wants to be known as the team which reset that statistic. Receiver Jordan Shipp, whose school pride has been one of the highlights of the season thus far, said the Tar Heels are aware of what’s at stake, but aren’t letting themselves get distracted from their short-term goals.
“We couldn’t get to a bowl game without beating Stanford tonight,” Shipp said Saturday. “It’ll be the same thing next week. We can’t get there without beating Wake Forest. Of course it’s in the back of your head, but we’re worried about going 1-0 every week. That’s our biggest thing.”
Then, there’s quarterback Gio Lopez, whose visions are so short-term that he isn’t even thinking about the Demon Deacons.
“For us, we’re just worried about tomorrow,” he said. “We’ve got sprints and we’ve got 30 squats. Just doing good tomorrow and showing up for those is what we’re worried about.”
It’s safe to say the Tar Heels will need to up their game from Saturday’s showing against Stanford if they want to earn a road win in Winston-Salem. Wake Forest has already clinched bowl eligibility in head coach Jake Dickert’s first season, having upset Virginia on the road last weekend.
Bill Belichick knows the challenge ahead, and also knows how much his team will have to improve in order to reach the postseason. The head coach was self-reflective after the Stanford game, acknowledging there were times this season when he could’ve put his players in better positions. But he wouldn’t go so far as to let the Tar Heels completely off the hook.
“It’s just an inconsistency in every area of the game,” Belichick said. “We’re just not as consistent as we need to be. We do enough good things. We’ve done enough good things to be competitive in the last four games and win two of them, lose two of them with a turnover inside the one-yard line. We’re competitive, but to play better, we just need to be more consistent across the board.”
That inconsistency is why, barring some extraordinary developments over the next three weeks, UNC will be underdogs in each of its final three games. At the same time, the team’s undeniable improvement is why Carolina has any chance at all.
Featured image via Associated Press/Chris Seward
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