The Duke-Carolina replay will be worth the listen tonight.
In case something really wacky happens with the college football season and we never get a chance to see Chazz Surratt play again for the Tar Heels, the game with his play of a lifetime will re-air tonight on WCHL at 8 pm, Jones Angell, Brian Simmons and Lee Pace on the call from Kenan Stadium.
The best story, book, movie or games all build to a dramatic conclusion, and there was nothing quite like what happened on October 26 of last year in Chapel Hill. Carolina hosted Duke in truly one for the ages, a game that completed Surratt’s transition from goat to G-O-A-T when it comes to high drama against the Blue Devils.
This game had everything, intense swings of emotion, great plays by both teams and, as I wrote in my Art’s Angle that day, Surratt’s heroics that “had grown women in light blue and little boys in royal blue crying for different reasons.”
Even with upsets over South Carolina and Miami the first two weeks of Mack Brown redux was not complete without a win over Duke, which had taken five of the last seven from the program that once whipped it something like 21 out of 22 times that began with Brown’s eight straight in 1990.
Two years before this game, Surratt had been a quarterback, and his late interception ended Carolina’s upset bid against Duke in Kenan. After Larry Fedora was relieved the next season, Surratt talked to Brown about switching to defense, plausible because he had been the two-time North Carolina Athlete of the Year in high school.
But no one could have imagined Surratt flattening that learning curve so quickly that he earned first-team All-ACC honors as a rookie middle linebacker.
But after Duke had driven almost the length of the field and was about to steal a win that the Heels had seemingly locked up minutes before, Surratt used his immense skills to deflect a pass at the goal line and cradle it to end the game and turn the Bell Tower light blue on a night to remember.
Relive it on 97.9 The Hill tonight.
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