9/17/2020 football Edit

AJ: As Of Now, There Are Six Options For Next Weekend

With UNC now on a quest to find an opponent for next week, the Tar Heels currently have six FBS options. (Jenna Miller, THI)

Andrew Jones • TarHeelIllustrated

Publisher

Andrew Jones has covered sports for 26 years, including all major college & professional sports for daily newspapers & national sites. He's done radio and TV & is entering his seventh year at THI.

How deep must the sand be for one’s head to be remotely surprised by what transpired Thursday with Charlotte cancelling Saturday’s football game at North Carolina?

Games are being cancelled. Not a lot so far, but enough. That’s college football in 2020. That’s life in 2020.

As far as we know, UNC hasn’t had a positive COVID-19 test in its football program since mid-July, so that’s two months of operating in a relative bubble for the Tar Heels and it's working. Mack Brown and everyone associated with the program have done an amazing job securing a set of guidelines that can be followed, are adhered to, and clearly work.

For UNC, the season should and will go on. But it also requires the rest of the teams on the Tar Heels’ schedule can play, too. A few Charlotte offensive linemen are being quarantined as a result of contact tracing to people they’ve been in contact with who have tested positive for COVID-19. That's why Saturday's contest has been scrubbed.

Smart move. The only move, really.

So what now for the Heels?

UNC is currently open Sept. 26, but Charlotte hosts Georgia State. The Tar Heels are open again Nov. 21, but Charlotte is at Marshall that weekend. So scratch the 49ers off the list. They now join Central Florida, Auburn, James Madison and UConn as once being on Carolina’s 2020 schedule to now being off of it. Add Pitt and Georgia Tech from the ACC to that pod, too.

The last time Marshall visited Kenan Stadium, Byron Leftwich was slinging for the Herd. (AP)

So, six FBS programs that are playing football and don’t reside in the ACC are open on the 26th: Navy; Marshall; Middle Tennessee State; Western Kentucky, Coastal Carolina and Air Force.

Temple and Rice have delayed their openers until October.

Those six clubs are the options for UNC. And make no mistake, Carolina wants to schedule a game, so let's look at these programs:

Navy and UNC last played in the 1980s, with the most recent meeting a 12-7 Midshipmen victory among the pines in 1989, Mack Brown’s second year in his first stint at UNC. The Mids were blasted at home 55-3 by BYU on Labor Day.

Marshall opened with a throttling of Eastern Kentucky, but last week’s game at East Carolina was postponed. The Thundering Herd are slated to host App State this weekend. By the way, the last time Marshall visited, Byron Leftwich was its QB and the Herd were an up-and-coming program nationally. The Heels won, 20-15.

MTSU was shredded 42-0 by Army’s attack in its opener. The last time the Blue Raiders ventured into Chapel Hill was for a 40-20 UNC victory in 2013.

Western Kentucky was girly competitive in a 35-21 loss to Louisville in its opener. The Hilltoppers host Liberty this weekend. WKU and UNC have never met before.

Navy lost at home on Labor Day in its only outing of the season so far. (USA Today)

Coastal Carolina opened its season with a 38-23 victory at Kansas this past weekend, a game the Chanticleers led 28-0 in the second quarter. The Chants and Heels have never played in football.

Air Force is a member of the Mountain West Conference, which isn’t playing, much to the obvious and sometimes entertaining chagrin of the folks at AFA. The Falcons’ football Twitter account has been trolling the MWC for weeks about not playing, saying they should.

So, the Falcons are playing, at least they have two games scheduled: Oct. 3 at home versus Navy and Nov. 7 at Army. That’s why there will be a Commander-In-Chief’s Trophy this season. If AFA heads to CH, it will be the first meeting between the programs since 1969, when Air Force left Kenan with a 20-10 victory. In fact, the programs have met five times (AFA leads 4-1) with each game in the 60s. UNC’s lone win was a 35-0 romp in the 1963 Gator Bowl.

By the way, Clemson is the only other ACC team not slated to play that day, but that’s not happening.

So, there you have it. If Carolina is to play an 11th game it will likely come from one of those programs, unless some more craziness scatters schedules increasing the pool of potential foes. But even if there’s more movement, the clock is ticking, and something must soon be decided.

One down and one gone on the season. Whatever happens next nobody knows. Though only those whose heads are deep within a sand dune will be surprised.