UNC’s game with Georgia State comes the week after an emotional victory, the week before a bye and two weeks before a major home date with Notre Dame. In short, it has “Trap Game” written all over it.
The Tar Heels can go 3-0 for the second time in the last three seasons with a win this Saturday, but will have to do so in Atlanta – a city which hasn’t treated the UNC football program well in years past. More than that, Carolina head coach Mack Brown said he expects the Panthers to play with all the fire and intensity App State did, even if the crowd isn’t as frenzied as the one in Boone.
“We are the only Power 5 team to ever play at Georgia State,” Brown said. “So we’re the biggest game in the history of Appalachian State last week, and we’re the biggest game in the history of Georgia State this week. So we are getting a test.”
The game is also a rematch of the Panthers’ visit to Kenan Stadium last season. UNC easily handled the visitors, winning 59-17.
A year later, Tar Heel fans will be anxious to see whether Carolina’s thus-far porous defense can finally turn the proverbial corner. The unit is allowing 492 yards per game through the first two weeks and gave up 40 points in its last quarter of football. Brown expressed support for new defensive coach Gene Chizik, and Chizik himself noted the problems he diagnosed against the Mountaineers are fixable.
“I have a lot of confidence in our guys still being all in, without question,” Chizik said. “I don’t think there’s any question right now. And particularly when you have scenarios like this when you can literally show them together as a group: this is what happens, and this is always a game of inches. If a safety’s off just a yard or two, or a linebacker’s over in a gap a foot and a half away, those things matter.”
On offense, redshirt freshman quarterback Drake Maye will look to build upon two red-hot games and several nationwide honors. As of Friday, the team is keeping the status of star wide receiver Josh Downs close to the chest, but the Tar Heels still scored six touchdowns without him last Saturday. Offensive coordinator Phil Longo said Georgia State’s defense shares some qualities with their Sun Belt peers in Boone, but said those similarities can be both positive and negative.
“I think the [defensive coordinator] at Georgia State does a few different things out of the same base defense than App does, but there is a lot of overlap this week,” said Longo. “Which can be a benefit, because we’re not seeing something that’s completely new and drastically different from what we’ve had in the past. But sometimes, I think, ‘Hey we had a lot of success with this last week and it’s just gonna go that well this week,’ it’s going to be different because the players are different and the strengths are different.”
On Wednesday, Brown described the offense’s early practices during the week as good, but not great, saying the unit hadn’t quite been as sharp as it had been. That’s certainly cause for concern, as the Tar Heels needed every last one of their 63 points last Saturday.
If there’s one area where Carolina can feel confident, it’s the crowd: Atlanta is one of the biggest landing spots for UNC alumni. Brown praised UNC’s fan presence at App State, and issued a call for all Tar Heels in the area to flock to Center Parc Credit Union Stadium this weekend.
“We had a great crowd at Boone,” Brown said. “I was surprised. Those 10,000 seats in the end zone, most of those were ours. So they added seats and it helped us. It was a hard ticket to get. And one of our best fan bases is in Atlanta, so I’m really hoping that we have the same type of crowd in Atlanta for this game.”
If that sounds familiar, it’s because Brown said something similar before UNC traveled to Atlanta last year to face Georgia Tech in Mercedes-Benz Stadium. That game, a humiliating 45-22 loss, effectively knocked Carolina out of the ACC Coastal Division race just four weeks into the season. The Tar Heels would be hard-pressed to play worse than they did that day, and also hard-pressed to finish a game worse than they did against the Mountaineers.
It seems the only direction to go is up.
Featured image via Associated Press/Reinhold Matay
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