CHAPEL HILL – In case anyone thinks otherwise, North Carolina’s players are well aware they have not performed to expectations this season.

Ranked No. 10 in the nation a month ago, the Tar Heels waddled into their matchup with rival Duke on Saturday unranked and the cruel joke of one national sportswriter, who called out the team as a fraud after an unbecoming 45-22 loss at Georgia Tech last week.

The buzz around the football program has dropped so much that the vibe in Kenan Stadium on Saturday was more Buntingesque and Fedoraesque than the weekly greeting Mack Brown’s team got among the pines two years ago in pre-pandemic times. The honey and sugar dousing the Heels in the preseason is well gone from sight in the rearview mirror.