Since the last time Carolina won an ACC championship in football, the Soviet Union fell, America went through eight presidents and something called the internet was popularized. In short, it’s been a while.
UNC can rewrite history Saturday night in Charlotte, taking on Clemson in the conference title game. The Tigers have been the class of the ACC for the last decade, winning six of the last 10 championships, including one against Carolina in 2015.
The Tar Heels haven’t beaten Clemson since 2010, and Mack Brown is just 3-8 against them as UNC’s head coach. Brown spoke glowingly of the Tigers’ program this week.
“Everybody’s trying to get facilities like theirs,” he said. “Everybody would love to have a commitment like theirs to football. Everybody would love to recruit like them and everybody would love to win like them. Last year was a little bit of a difference because we had two different teams playing for the conference championship.
“Everybody in this league is trying to get to the standard that Clemson is. That’s the gold standard. That’s what we want.”
It should come as no surprise, then, that Clemson comes into Saturday night as 7.5-point favorites. It doesn’t help that Carolina has lost two straight games while looking pedestrian on offense in both of them. But offensive coordinator Phil Longo said in a game with stakes so high, he wants his unit to play loose.
“The thing that comes to my mind, and what I’ve said to our offensive players, is we’re Coastal champs,” Longo said. “Nobody handed this to us. We were good enough to earn this, and we’re in the ACC Championship because we deserve to be there. Now that you’re there, this is why you play the game. So why not let it all hang loose and go attack this thing and get after it?”
Coach Gene Chizik’s defense, meanwhile, has put together two solid performances despite the losses to the Yellow Jackets and Wolfpack. These came as linebacker Cedric Gray was named first team All-ACC, along with quarterback Drake Maye and receiver Josh Downs. Chizik credited the defense’s improvement to hard practices throughout the fall.
“Even when things didn’t look great, even when we performed poorly on the field, they never changed their practice habits,” he said. “I think that’s really huge, just like in anything in life. You are what you practice. You are what your habits say you are. And they’ve really, really practiced well all the way through the season.”
Though the circumstances coming into championship weekend aren’t quite what Tar Heel fans would’ve liked to have seen a few weeks ago, it is still championship weekend. Carolina has only made the trip to Charlotte once since division play began in 2005. So no, UNC won’t be appearing in the College Football Playoff. But Brown still acknowledged how special this weekend could be for his program.
“We said we wanted to be relevant when we came back. And this program is relevant now,” Davis said. “There’s 10 teams that’ll be playing this weekend in Power 5 championship games, and we’re one of those 10, out of 131. I’m really, really proud of these guys and proud of what they’ve accomplished.”
A win against Clemson would put Carolina in the Orange Bowl for the second time in three years. In the game’s previous eight decades of existence, the Tar Heels had never appeared there at all.
Featured image via Eli Melet
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