BLACKSBURG, VA – And just like that, the shine is off North Carolina.
It took about three-and-a-half hours Friday night for the Tar Heels to go from a possible CFP crasher with a Heisman candidate quarterback to a reeling club suddenly in search of answers to more than a handful of questions.
So it goes when the No. 10 team in America falls to a club whose coach entered the contest on the hottest seat in the ACC. But that’s what happened in UNC’s 17-10 loss at Virginia Tech inside rowdy Lane Stadium.
Figuring out why six sacks, three interceptions, a boat load of missed tackles in the first half, and some untimely penalties occurred are just some of Carolina’s problems. Now, UNC Coach Mack Brown must spend the next couple of days giving his staff the what-for before kindly unloading on his team, and then he can attempt to rebuild their psyches for Georgia State’s timely visit next weekend.
“This will be an uncomfortable couple of days for all of us,” Brown said following the defeat.
Carolina’s program is clearly headed in the right direction, but this performance was a setback.
Brown said Friday night he doesn’t care for preseason polls, instead pitching for the first Top-25 to come out when the College Football Playoff unveils its first ranking well into October each season. Maybe not being in the top-10 would have made this defeat easier to take for the program and its legion of fans. Or maybe not.
“That doesn’t matter, it happens,” Brown said. “That’s all out of the way, like I said our shine’s off.”
After Brown gets through with the hard discussions that will take place over the next 48 hours, he will begin the process of building his staff back up, and collectively they will get the kids headed in the right mental direction.
After all, as Brown said toward the end of his “shine” comment, “we can be a really good football team.”
And they can.
Carolina is still loaded with talent, albeit it remains a young team. Perhaps this wasn’t the worst thing to happen to the Tar Heels long term. Sam Howell may have hinted at what was really going within the Heels culminating in Friday’s fizzle.
“At this point, we can just relax and not worry about the pressure and stuff like that,” he said.
But the Tar Heels do need to roll up their sleeves and disregard the outside world, at least what the latherers were saying before the trip to Blacksburg. Insulation right now might be a good thing.
“Jeremiah Gemmel addressed the team and said we can still win out, and we can, we just gotta go back to work,” Brown said, noting his senior linebacker and captain. “We can’t sit around and point fingers and talk about all the negative things that are gonna happen.”
Gemmel’s voice might be the one that sinks in the most within the locker room. His messaging began moments after the final second ticked off the clock Saturday.
“I just told them don't let this define us for the rest of the year,” he said. “I mean, it's better for this to happen, I believe, early in the year than later on in the year.”
And his advice moving forward is?
“I just told everybody to take a look in the mirror,” Gemmel said. “‘What are you doing during the week? How much are you doing? Is it enough? Is it not enough? Are you grabbing up people alongside you in the position group? Are you bringing them in the film room with you?
“‘Are you bringing them to stretch or get more lifts in the weight room?' That's pretty much what I told them.”
Carolina can still achieve all its goals. Narrow losses in night games at Virginia Tech won’t derail anyone’s season, unless the Tar Heels don’t truly learn over the next couple of days and heed Gemmel’s advice.
If they do this, the shine could return.
