It’s easy to forget, but the Tar Heels do play another football game tomorrow. Regardless of how much last Saturday’s debacle against James Madison felt like the end of the world, there are eight more opponents waiting. The first of those is Duke, which rolls into this weekend at 4-0 and sniffing an AP Top 25 appearance.
It’d be hard for the Blue Devils not to smell blood in the water, and not only from the 70 points Carolina allowed on the field to JMU. With the confusion surrounding Mack Brown’s postgame comments and the unprecedented omission of any Tar Heel player availability to the media this week, UNC appears to be a program experiencing a crisis of confidence.
Not even the always-positive Brown could sugarcoat Carolina’s conundrum.
“I don’t like letting people down,” he said on Monday. “I let our team down, I let our coaches down, I let our university down. And I hate that. I just hate that I’m the one that did that. And this week, you try to figure out why it happened and you don’t let it happen again.”
UNC would do well to not repeat its five-turnover performance against a Duke defense which ranks inside the nation’s top 20 and has recovered five fumbles in four games. First-year head coach Manny Diaz – a former Brown assistant at Texas – came to Durham from Penn State, where the Nittany Lions had also been among the nation’s best defenses. Diaz has experience against the Tar Heels, though none of it is good: as head coach at Miami, his Hurricanes went 0-3 against Brown and Carolina.
The UNC defense will be charged with recovering from last week’s disastrous performance by containing quarterback Maalik Murphy, a Texas transfer who’s thrown for multiple touchdowns in all four of Duke’s games this season. Murphy, with his cannon of a right arm, no doubt sees an opportunity against a Carolina unit which allowed JMU’s Alonza Barnett to score seven total touchdowns. UNC’s first-year defensive coordinator Geoff Collins is now firmly under the microscope, but said his players’ attitude this week has him confident better days are ahead.
“These guys are amazing,” said Collins. “They’re like, ‘Coach, this ain’t on you. This is all of us. We’ll get it fixed. This is one game. This will never happen again.’ They were texting me through the night, like, ‘Coach, we’ve got this. Come back to work.’ All those kinds of things. ‘We believe in everything. Let’s ride.’
“I don’t need the pep talk. I appreciate it, it means a lot to me, but I don’t need it. My job is to help them play as good as they can be. And they can be really, really good.”
Carolina is riding a five-game winning streak against the Blue Devils, and Brown himself enjoys a personal 13-game streak in the rivalry. Three of the past five matchups have come down to the final seconds, including a double-overtime thriller last season in Drake Maye’s final game at Kenan Stadium.
The Blue Devils would love nothing more than to both snap the streak and deepen the misery of their fiercest rivals. Brown certainly understands that, and he said that message has been conveyed to the players as well.
“It’s Duke. They know that. These kids have been here,” said Brown. “They understand the Victory Bell, they understand the importance of this game to our fanbase. And they understand they’re good. With social media, kids hear everything. They’ll see and hear a lot about Duke that normally they might not, and I’m sure [Duke] will be the pick in the game. So our guys will be ready to play.”
That Carolina is indeed the betting underdog in a series the Tar Heels have historically dominated speaks to just how poorly the program is perceived nationwide post-James Madison. That reputation is likely irreparable for the time being – but Brown, Collins and the rest of the team would get an excellent start on mending fan enthusiasm with a win on Saturday.
If the Tar Heels lose again? Well, basketball season is just around the corner.
Featured image via Associated Press/Daniel Lin
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