AJ: This Was A Bad Look

For a Senior Day game against the same arch rival that won in a rout two years ago here Senior Day, and promises from seniors during the week it wouldn’t happen again because the culture is so demonstrably different, it wasn’t a good look.

For a game when you don black uniforms as some form of cheap motivation, this wasn’t a good look.

In short, North Carolina’s 28-21 loss to N.C. State on Friday at Kenan Stadium wasn’t a good look no matter how you slice and dice it.

It wasn’t a good look for the program that had made considerable progress but perplexingly stumbled down the home stretch of a schedule that was more than manageable.

It wasn’t a good look for the seniors that were so integral in this program climbing out of the ugliness of the NCAA stuff none of them had anything to do with, and actually positioning UNC football somewhere it hadn’t been in nearly two decades.

And it wasn’t a good look for a head coach that had become a fairly hot name around the nation with respect to some notable jobs. The same goes for the head coach’s staff.

For the offense, defense, special teams, empty seats in the stands, broken discipline on the field, and all that encompasses, it just wasn’t a good look.

“I don’t know how to explain it, I don’t know how to explain it,” UNC coach Larry Fedora said afterward.

Given the numerous examples that can be checked off in the didn’t-do-well box, the most perplexing and unbecoming were two play calls in the third quarter that may well have been the difference in the game’s outcome.

With the Tar Heels trailing 28-7 with more than 5 minutes left in the third quarter, they faced a 3rd-and-inches play at the N.C. State 8-yard-line. But instead of running power and imposing their will, quarterback Mitch Trubisky split wide and running back T.J. Logan stepped into the wildcat formation. The ball was snapped directly to him and he lost a yard, forcing a 4th-and-2.

Surely the Heels wouldn’t run the same formation. Yet, they did. And State sniffed this one out, too.

Likely knowing Logan ran the ball from the wildcat for the first time this season at Miami in mid-October, setting up a pass play off the same formation a week later at Virginia, which he acknowledged and also resulted in a touchdown, the Wolfpack appeared to know what was coming.

The Heels went back into the same formation. Logan handed off to wide receiver Ryan Switzer in a reverse, Switzer then pulled up and tried to pass the ball to Trubisky. Incomplete, and State took over on downs. The Heels would have loved to have that scenario again.

Carolina didn’t lose the game because of those two plays, but there were awfully big and were a microcosm of what happened Friday.

“The one on third down was a play that we had prepared for on third-and-short, and we turned a guy loose on the backside and he made the play,” Fedora explained. “Fourth down was a play that we had worked on all week, it was going to be a play that we were going to use on a fourth-down situation on short yardage and we didn’t execute it. I don’t know what else to tell you.”

Maybe in private, the fifth-year coach might say it was a mistake by the staff. You have likely NFL backs in Logan and Elijah Hood as more traditional options, and why this team/program struggles so much just lining up and pushing forward for first downs in those situations might be the most frustrating and disturbing aspects of where the UNC program is right now.

Oh, and given that Trubisky is the No. 1 rated quarterback on almost every mock NFL draft board is the intended receiver on a pass thrown by the school’s all-time leading receiver only compounds the mystery.

Hence, let the criticism begin.

“No, and I’m not worried about the criticism, either,” Fedora said. “I don’t really care what everybody thinks out there about the calls. We called what we worked, we do it every week, and when it works everybody loves it and when they don’t they criticize it. That’s just the way the world works.”

But it shouldn’t. And even more so, the Tar Heels shouldn’t be or appear flat in a game of this magnitude. It happened two years ago when State came in here and pounded the Heels 35-7 on Senior Day. Was nothing learned from that ugly afternoon?

Earlier in the week, several seniors said that wouldn’t let that happen again because the program’s culture is so different. And, to be fair, it is quite improved. But much of the currency that narrative had Friday morning was washed away with the Pack dominating in the manner it did, as UNC fell behind 21-0 before showing any signs of life.

“The culture definitely did change,” junior cornerback M.J. Stewart said. “I know people may not see it, but we have a group of fighters on our team, everybody battled.”

Yes, the Heels closed to within the final score and had the ball 1st-and-10 at State’s 41 with just under 4 minutes remaining. Thoughts of last-second wins over Pittsburgh here two months ago and a week later at Florida State were certainly at play.

But this time it didn’t work out.

And for all of this program’s growth through the mid-point of this season, to close losing half of its final six games, for the offense to sputter as it has for the last month, for the defense to get shredded on the ground, and to then to finish things off laying a massive egg, black uniforms and all, against the arch rival on Senior day is not a good thing.

It was a bad look, a very bad look.