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CHAPEL HILL – In a matter of six weeks, North Carolina has gone from a top-10 national ranking decorated with honey and sugar to insignificant nationally and no longer in the race for the ACC Coastal Division crown.
The thud heard and felt from UNC’s plummet could have been measured by the Richter scale. The magnitude could also be understood listening to Carolina Coach Mack Brown during his weekly press conference Monday morning.
“This is not good, this is unacceptable, we’re disappointing to ourselves,” Brown said he told his staff in a meeting Sunday.
The inconsistency of the Tar Heels has been maddening to a degree. The defense was excellent in a loss at Virginia Tech, but the offense couldn’t move the ball. In the last two defeats, which occurred over the last three games, the defense had a pair of horrendous two-quarter stretches in falling to mediocre teams Georgia Tech and Florida State.
Now sitting at 3-3 overall and 2-3 in the ACC, Brown made a clear point of taking responsibility for the inconsistencies and overall performance.
“Why don’t we all play good on the same Saturday,” he asked. “That’s legal, I checked it, we can do that. They allow us to, so let’s do it.
“But it’s a hundred percent my fault that they’re not. I can say something else; I’m responsible for everybody that’s hired here, I’m responsible for how they coach their players, and we are responsible for how those players play.”
The defense has received the brunt of recent criticism.
It allowed Georgia Tech 32 points and 313 yards in the second half in UNC’s 45-22 loss in Atlanta two weeks ago. Then in the second and third quarters Saturday at home versus the Seminoles, the defense allowed a one-win team that had fallen at home to an FCS club last month to race up and down the field to the tune of 35 points and 352 yards. The Heels ultimately lost 35-25.
Defensive coordinator Jay Bateman thought the staff made the right calls, but Brown and senior linebacker Jeremiah Gemmel said miscommunication in the secondary was rampant enough to play a key role in the poor performance.
“We felt really good about some of our calls, we just need to execute better,” Bateman said, “and ultimately that falls on me.”
So where do the Tar Heels go from here?
They have six games remaining, and perhaps the four toughest teams on the entire schedule are up over the next seven weeks, as UNC must visit Notre Dame, Pittsburgh, and NC State and host Wake Forest. The Irish, Wolfpack, and Demon Deacons are nationally ranked, and the Panthers are 4-1 and own a win at Tennessee.
Brown says finding the right buttons to push is paramount.
“There’s a key to each team and a key to each kid. And my job right now is to step up, be strong, be positive, and try to find the key to this team that we haven’t found yet,” he said. “The key is real consistency and why can’t we get everybody to play at the same time. I don’t know, and I’m working on it.”
