CHARLOTTE – North Carolina’s quest for its first ACC championship in 42 years was washed away in a sea of mistakes by the Tar Heels in their 39-10 loss to Clemson on Saturday night at Bank of American Stadium.

The Tar Heels marched 78 yards on 11 plays on their first possession to take a 7-0 lead, but failed to cross the goal line nine times in 10 full possessions.

Carolina gave the Tigers points after fumbling at its own 23-yard-line, leading to a Tigers’ touchdown, a pick six that went 98 yards, and a missed field goal. UNC’s bevy of mistakes hit on just about every aspect of the game.

The Tar Heels lost their third consecutive game dropping to 9-4 on the season. The Tigers improved to 11-2.

Here are 5 Takeaways from UNC’s loss to Clemson:

**************************************************************************************

Remember, for just $8.33 a month, YOU CAN BE A TAR HEELS INSIDER, TOO!!!

***************************************************************************************

The final margin might make this issue look inconsequential, but the reality is this was still a game when UNC repeatedly shot itself in the foot.

First, true freshman running back Omarion Hampton fumbled on the second play of Carolina’s third possession, which came right after Clemson’s first score. The Tigers took over at the UNC 23-yard-line and scored three plays later.

On the Heels’ next possession, they marched 61 yards on 16 plays before a 31-yard field goal attempt was blocked. The scored was 21-7 at the time.

Then, the capper was at the end of UNC’s nine-play, 45-yard drive ending with Drake Maye throwing perhaps his worst pass of the season. It was picked off by Clemson’s Nate Collins who then raced 98 yards for the score. A two-point conversion on a fake PAT made it 32-10 with 5:05 left in the third quarter.

So much else went wrong for the Heels, but this smattering of events were the most crucial miscues of the game.

“I was just rolling out, I was looking left, and came back right,” Maye said, explaining the pick six. “I thought John would stay in the same spot, he moved a little bit right. I should've thrown it away, I think throwing it away was the better answer, or try to run.”

This problem has been racing in the wrong direction for a while, and continued tonight. Clemson sacked Maye four times while the Heels registered no sacks. Over the last three games, UNC has been sacked 12 times while registering just one, and it was a gift decision because of a bad snap by NC State last week.

Furthermore, over the last eight games, UNC has allowed 32 sacks while registering just seven.

For the season now, UNC has allowed 38 sacks with a game to play. So much for that aspect of the team improving enough to be noted as such. UNC’s 16 sacks is the 128th most in the nation, meaning only three teams have fewer sacks.

In addition, to put an exclamation mark on this, as they are somewhat conjoined, UNC entered the game next-to-last in the nation in TFLs, and since they got just two tonight, both coming last in the contest, the Heels will remain No. 130 in the nation.

Through the first 10 games, in which UNC boasted a 9-1 record, the Tar Heels were 43-for-49 scoring in the red zone with 37 touchdowns. In the last three games, the Heels are 9-for-17 in the red zone with just five touchdowns, which includes 2-for-5 tonight with a TD and field goal.

Brown said in his opening statement, and then in response to his first question, that red zone inefficiency was the number one problem in this game. And asked what the common thread in the last three is, he said red zone struggles.

“If I could answer that tonight, I'd be making more money than I am coaching,” Brown replied, when asked what was the red zone thread over the last three games. “We'll have to go back and look at it tonight and see what it is. It's been a consistent problem the last three weeks, and it wasn't the first 10, so I don't have any idea.

“They've got a really good defense. I know that. And they were hard to block and they brought a lot of pressure, but not many people scored many points against them.”

Carolina’s offense falling off a cliff over the last three weeks is a massive head scratcher, and puts a cap on the reality that every aspect of this team has become a weakness over the last three games.

Numbers do not lie: Dating back to the Wake Forest game, UNC’s offense has scored only seven touchdowns in its last 42 possessions. This is an all-encompassing problem:

The pass protection has been awful; the run blocking so-so; receivers have not gotten open, with the exception of Josh Downs tonight; red zone efficiency has gone south; and Drake Maye has simply struggled.

In the last three games, Maye has thrown one touchdown pass while being picked off four times. He threw two picks tonight; one in the end zone and one right in front of the end zone that was returned 98 yards for a TD. His pass completion percent is 58.6 for just 703 yards.

“A few plays here or there,” Maye said about the issues as a whole. “Tonight was a different story. That fumble, my interception, my first one ended up being the play of the game. The other two, they are tight games and we have to find ways to win. We found a way to win the whole season, they switched up some things.”

Have teams created a blue print on how to stop the Tar Heels, who have 54 points in their last three games, which includes a pair of overtimes last week.

“I wouldn't say like a blueprint, we’ve just got to go back to the drawing board,” said junior receiver Josh Downs. “Everybody got to handle their own business and we just got to go from there.”

Clemson freshman QB Cade Klubnik played just 78 snaps in the Tigers’ first 12 games, 30 of which came in a come-from-behind win over Syracuse in October. Veteran D.J. Uiagalelei had played 811 snaps. So, naturally UNC’s staff focused on DJU.

The thing is, no player in the nation with very little playing time had been discussed all season as much as Klubnik. At some point, with DJU struggling enough, Tigers Coach Dabo Swinney was going to pull the plug and go with Klubnik. Unfortunately for UNC, that happened in this game.

Unfortunate because Klubnik was sensational going 20-for-24 with 279 yards and a score, plus he ran for a score. Also unfortunate for the Tar Heels because they didn’t prepare for him.

“No, Cade had played very little all year and when he went in at Notre Dame, I think he threw an interception,” Brown said, explain why they didn’t prepare for Klubnik. “So, we totally thought we would see DJ because they hadn't changed all year.

“We stopped them the first two, three times. DJ was struggling. That is exactly what we thought would happen and we were hoping would happen, because he's played good at times.

“But he didn't play well last week and he was really struggling. They weren't trying to run the ball. We thought they'd try to line up and run it down our throat like Notre Dame did, and then Cade came in and hit 20 out of 24 and 10 out of 11 the first half and really played great.”

Klubnik completed his first 10 passes with five going for first downs and another for a TD. Two of his passes were dropped, and his NFL rating was a whopping 130.8.