AJ: The Tar Heels Really Aren't That Close
DURHAM, NC – Larry Fedora keeps saying each week how close his team is, and based on the scoreboard, the Tar Heels have found themselves either in the thick of games or within striking distance at the end most every time they take the field.
But each week they find a different way to lose. They corral it, squeeze it and make it happen. You see, North Carolina really isn’t that close.
Finding a way to lose each week indicates the program is a country mile from being where Fedora wants and has suggested. It may be even further than that.
Case in point Saturday’s 42-35 loss at Duke on an afternoon many of UNC’s ills surfaced and hung around long enough to send it to yet another loss, dropping Carolina to 1-8 overall and 1-6 in the ACC.
The Tar Heels did some positive things again, especially in the running game and the defense forced three more turnovers. But the offense also wilted for most of the second half and the defense, when it didn’t force a turnover or block a field goal, gave up touchdowns and a bevy of big plays that made keeping track of Duke’s total yardage akin to watching points add up on a pin ball machine.
Duke had two plays that went for 61 or more yards, three for 52 or more, four for 48 or more – you get the drift. The offense had four consecutive three-and-outs in the second half and went a seven-possession stretch in which it managed just 23 total yards.
And there were penalties, too, a lot of them, most of which were quite damaging. Ten penalties for 115 yards is beyond unbecoming. Some stymied UNC drives while others kept alive Duke drives.
Murphy’s Law “What can go wrong will go wrong” would be an easy way of explaining UNC’s issues, but they go deeper than that. Much deeper.
The reality is, Carolina isn’t just a good quarterback away from being a bowl team. It’s much more than that.
Nathan Elliott has struggled and is clearly limited, which hamstrings what the offense can do. But he’s had nothing to do with a lot of UNC’s ugliness, though.
He didn’t allow 565 yards to Georgia Tech last week or 629 to Duke here at Wallace Wade Stadium, an 18-play, 98-yard game-losing drive last month, didn’t allow a backup QB to throw for 183 yards and three touchdowns in the fourth quarter and overtime to lose a game, he didn’t allow quarterbacks Bryce Perkins of Virginia and Daniel Jones of Duke to go off, and so on.
The point here is that believing this squad is a better quarterback away from bowl eligibility would be a mistake. Criticizing Elliott is just reaching for the lowest hanging fruit. The evidence is inside of each loss, all eight of them this season and all 20 over the program's last 25 games.
North Carolina really isn’t close to being a very different team. It’s a program that doesn’t know how to win any more. It’s a program that can’t turn opponents’ miscues into its own triumphs. It’s a program that can’t get out of its own way.
And it’s a program that has now lost three straight to Duke, three straight to East Carolina, and in two weeks will be heavily favored to lose to N.C. State for the third consecutive time, too.
That, in a nutshell, is where North Carolina is.