Mack Brown calls it a trap game, and indeed it could be.

His Tar Heels are a 21-point favorite over 4-6 Georgia Tech Saturday at 5:30 in Kenan Stadium, but while the Carolina coach prefers a blowout, he will take a one-point win since the Jackets lead the ACC in takeaways (forcing turnovers).

As the season progresses for the No. 13-ranked team in the nation, so do the stress and distress levels. The Heels continue losing players to injury, and like most ACC teams they are not deep enough to withstand that kind of attrition, especially with so much on the line.

As Coastal Division champ, Carolina has already wrapped up a spot in the ACC Championship Game against perennial power Clemson. And Brown wants to keep the focus from wandering ahead to that and the regular-season finale with archrival N.C. State next week, playing them one at a time.

Meanwhile, talk of freshman quarterback Drake Maye keeps getting louder in the Heisman Trophy conversation, and considering his statistics are as good or better than the rest of the competition he could actually sneak in and win it if the Tar Heels ran the table.

“The Heisman is a team award,” Brown said, saying that it usually goes to the player whose team keeps winning. At a handsome 6-foot-5 and a dangerous runner as well as a lethal passer, Maye could have more “sex appeal” for voters than more workmanlike candidates such as Ohio State’s C.J. Stroud and Tennessee transfer (from Virginia Tech) Hendon Hooker.

And with a big national brand, if not known as a football school, UNC has never had a Heisman Trophy winner, which in a way makes it an attractive choice. But Brown knows that a loss before the ACC title game would likely kill Maye’s chances along with his team’s momentum to win the conference championship and secure a “New Year’s Six” bowl bid.

“There’s a tremendous amount of pressure,” said Brown, who had one player at Texas, Ricky Williams, win it in 1998 and others like Vince Young and the late Cedric Benson who were in contention. He loves to tell the story about Williams and Brown’s first season in Austin. Williams wore dreadlocks because he was a big Bob Marley fan. “I told him the voters are older and that might work against him. He said he didn’t care, this is who I am.”

But he did care, and Brown soon learned that his email was something like RickyWilliams@Heisman.com. To this day, at least, Maye’s email, as listed on the school’s public website, is still simply his name.

“He cares about winning games most of all,” Brown said.

 

Featured image via Inside Carolina/Jim Hawkins

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