Chansky's Notebook: No-Lose Situation

Is App State the most important game of UNC’s season?

Mack Brown is singing the same tune in 2022, but it ends with a different refrain. While winning remains his highest priority, he insists his Tar Heels “will have to play great to have a chance” to beat the Mountaineers at Kidd Brewer Stadium at noon Saturday in Boone.

After the preseason hype of a year ago turned into a 6-7 dud, Brown wants his team to “just go play” and if it plays well and loses, they will congratulate their victor and move on to the next game.

The scenario isn’t exactly the same, but the head coach hasn’t said anything about a three-game series to start this season, even though none of those games is at Virginia Tech, where the 2021 campaign went off the rails from opening night. Playing Florida A&M at home followed by visits to App and Georgia State is a far easier trifecta.

UNC hasn’t won outside of Kenan Stadium since 2020, when the Heels won three road games, including a 62-26 blowout at Miami. They went 0-for-6 last year away from Chapel Hill. Still, while App may have more experience, Carolina has bigger bodies, superior skilled players and more highly-ranked recruits. That adds up to certain victory in my book.

For example, Drake Maye began his starting gig with five TD passes. Would you rather have him than Chase Brice who is playing for his third school in his long COVID-aided college career? Brice left Clemson where he sat behind Trevor Lawrence, transferred to Duke where he was very average and now is the best QB1 App State can put on the field after throwing 26 picks in his last two seasons? Puh-lease.

Yes, App is 42-7 at home since 2014 and has what Brown calls “one of the best programs in the country.” But there isn’t a realistic person from on high in UNC’s athletic department to the most pessimistic fan who thinks, man for man, the Mountaineers are better.

Sure, Brown may be sentimental about his one season as App State’s head coach in 1983 before he left to become Oklahoma’s play-caller for an $85,000 raise. He was born and raised in the Tennessee-North Carolina mountains and he and his wife Sally own a home in Linville.

But, after last season, this isn’t a “shake hands, good game” situation. After last season, it is redemption wherever and against whomever you can get it. Losing to Notre Dame on September 24 might be one we can swallow. But not this one. Not without upchucking.

Featured image via Associated Press/Chris Seward

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Chansky’s Notebook: No-Lose Situation

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