UNC freshman forward Sterling Manley had a big dunk early in the game after head coach Roy Williams benched the starters –a play that helped provide a huge momentum boost. (AP Photo/Julie Jacobson)

Didn’t I tell you that Carolina was really a football school?

When you are down two touchdowns to the vaunted U and come back to win, you must know how to play whatever game that is going on. Last night in Brooklyn had all the trappings of something played with pads where the harder you hit, the better.

A goose egg after seven-plus minutes forced Roy Williams to go to the platoon system after Miami took a 14-0 lead, and five guys — including three freshmen and two sophomores — turned football back into basketball. The Tar Heels finally started playing the game for which they are better known.

It took a while, and by the end of the 31-point turnaround, several Heels were still playing with an oblong ball, judging by the way they were shooting it at the basket. In the meantime, Joel Berry and Cam Johnson both went out from the kind of contact you would see more often on the gridiron.

Berry got called for a flagrant foul that would have had Larry Fedora benching him for trying to protect the guy he was crashing into, and nothing was called on the 220-pound guy who came down on Johnson like a linebacker going after the quarterback.

What a strange game, for sure. But, at least for the last 33 minutes, the Tar Heels played with their usual grit and Theo Pinson made us wish he could start his career all over again. Pinson is always a great athlete, and we needed a reminder of what a basketball player No. 1 has become. He does so much for so many, holding court and keeping the team on track under his Theo-cracy.

When Roy pulled the starters for the subs, he knew what he was doing. Maybe he should have done that ten years ago, when Kansas ran out to that 40-12 lead — which was a little too much for not calling a timeout or going to his bench. But this time he had faith in the guys who practice hard every day, and Seventh Woods finally got Carolina on the scoreboard.

From there, it was a grind at first that turned into something a little more graceful, capped by Theo’s coast-to-coast flying dunk when the Hurricanes parted like the Red Sea for him. You knew then that the U is really the football school. The Canes went back to Coral Gables, and now the Blue Blood Rivalry moves to Chapter 2018, Part Three.

You can be sure this will be basketball.

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