Chansky’s Notebook: Wrong-Way Losses

Two losses caused by players going the wrong way cost Carolina dearly.

Mack Brown takes a team to Virginia Saturday for the second time since he has been back in Chapel Hill. And like before his first return to Charlottesville, Brown was asked about the 1996 game when the Tar Heels blew a 17-3 lead to the Cavaliers in the fourth quarter and cost themselves a spot in what was then called the Bowl Championship Series (BCS or maybe Bowl Alliance?).

Brown blames himself for calling a pass play on third-and-goal at the UVA 9-yard line after Brian Simmons’ late interception returned the ball to the red zone. “We should have run a draw play and kicked the field goal,” Brown said this week about the game and other losses that have stayed with him.

Instead, All-ACC quarterback Chris Keldorf threw the ball toward the end zone, where it was picked off by Virginia safety Antwan Harris (from Raleigh, by the way) and returned 95 yards for a touchdown. A complete collapse ensued, and Virginia won on a late field goal, 20-17.

Had the Heels held on to win, they would have finished the regular season 10-1 and earned a bid to a New Year’s Day bowl. Instead, Carolina went to the Gator Bowl and beat West Virginia, 20-13, to finish 10-2 and ranked 10th in the nation.

The painful loss still sticks in Brown’s craw as one of his worst defeats as a head coach, and the story goes that wide receiver Octavus Barnes cut the wrong way on the pattern and made it an easy pick for Harris.

Twenty-five years before that, the UNC basketball team suffered an even more devastating defeat to hated rival South Carolina in the championship game of the 1971 ACC Tournament.

Dean Smith’s Tar Heels, who were picked to finish in the middle of the conference, had won the regular season and faced the Gamecocks in Greensboro for the league’s only bid to the NCAA tournament.

They led 51-50 in the closing seconds when a scramble under the South Carolina basket resulted in a jump ball between UNC center Lee Dedmon and Gamecocks’ forward Kevin Joyce. Both players tipped the ball, which went to a wide-open Tom Owens who laid it in for the 52-51 win.

Senior reserve Dave Chadwick, who was in the game because All-ACC forward Dennis Wuycik had fouled out, heard the play Smith had called in the huddle incorrectly and went the wrong way on the jump ball. Still remorseful years later, Chadwick visited with Smith in his office to apologize.

“He didn’t blame me,” Chadwick recalled, “he blamed himself for not being more clear in the huddle.” UNC went on to win the NIT instead.

Featured image via Associated Press

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Chansky's Notebook: Wrong-Way Losses

Two losses caused by players going the wrong way cost Carolina dearly. Mack Brown takes a team to Virginia Saturday for the second time since he has been back in Chapel Hill. And like before his first return to Charlottesville, Brown was asked about the 1996 game when the Tar Heels blew a 17-3 lead […]

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