As the 14th-ranked UNC football team looks to rebound from last week’s upset loss at Florida State, its biggest rival — the No. 23 NC State Wolfpack — comes to Chapel Hill this Saturday for what will be the first meeting between the two schools as ranked opponents since 1993.
The Wolfpack enter the game having won their last four games following a season-opening loss to Virginia Tech, while the Tar Heels are just a half-game behind them in the ACC standings with a 3-1 record of their own.
NC State suffered a major blow last weekend, however, with the loss of talented starting quarterback Devin Leary — who suffered a broken fibula in the win against Duke.
Leary’s replacement — lefty Bailey Hockman — has struggled in the three games he’s played in this season, but will have the talented running back tandem of Bam Knight and Ricky Person to lean on against a Tar Heel team which has had issues against the run over the last two weeks.
UNC defensive coordinator Jay Bateman told reporters earlier this week that he thinks the Wolfpack will be just fine with Hockman behind center, using an interesting analogy to describe what he sees from NC State offensively.
“I think Bruce Lee said this, I’d rather face a guy who’s practiced 1,000 kicks one time than a guy who’s practiced one kick 1,000 times,” Bateman said. “When I watch the NC State offense, I see a bunch of veteran guys that have done the same thing over and over again and do it at a really high level. That part’s really scary to me.”
On the other side of the ball, NC State has allowed opponents to average 31 points and over 400 yards per game so far this season despite getting fantastic production from linebacker Payton Wilson — a former Orange High School star who was once committed to UNC.
The Tar Heels also put together a 41-10 blowout victory in Raleigh last season behind an explosive offense that returned nearly every major contributor in 2020.
Sophomore quarterback Sam Howell isn’t paying any attention to those numbers, though, as he looks to earn his second straight victory against the Wolfpack.
“We had a lot of success against those guys,” Howell said. “But I think they’re a lot better football team this year than they were last year, so we definitely have to be prepared for that. And we’re not the same team as last year. So it’s a new year, both two new teams, so we can’t really look at last year.”
Howell also said he doesn’t put too much stock in the rankings, noting that those are more for the fans.
UNC head coach Mack Brown credited the growth of high school football in North Carolina as the main reason why the two schools are getting set for just the third top-25 matchup in the rivalry in 110 meetings.
When it comes to his own team’s ranking, however, Brown acknowledges that the Tar Heels have to continue to improve at closing out games if they want to be taken seriously as one of the nation’s best.
This being such a high-profile rivalry game gives UNC a chance to bounce back right away against a talented opponent, and put the Florida State loss to rest for good.
“Looking back, as we told the players, we weren’t ready to be the No. 5 team in the country week after week because we didn’t play well enough to do that,” Brown said. “They’re aware of that. They know that. I also know we were tough enough and competitive enough and good enough to come from behind in a game last week, but we didn’t finish them.
“And that was an issue last year,” the coach added. “So we’ve got to finish those games to get where we want to go with our program.”
Photo via ACC Media
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