Maturity Test On Tap For Heels
CHAPEL HILL – Saturday’s contest versus Georgia Tech isn’t a trap game for North Carolina, as some are saying, it’s actually a maturity game.
A trap game only exists if the favored team allows it. And given what UNC is playing for, and where it has come from, pulling a no-show versus the 4-6 Yellow Jackets with an interim coach doesn’t seem likely.
At least that’s the vibe emanating from the Kenan Football Center this week.
Carolina clinched the ACC Coastal Division championship with a 36-34 victory at Wake Forest last Saturday night. It was the Tar Heels’ sixth consecutive win, and improved their ACC record to 6-0, assuring them a date with Clemson in the conference title game in Charlotte on December 3.
Prolific UNC receiver Josh Downs said afterward he could finally think about Clemson, and ay it out loud. So, he did. Yet, that game was still three weeks away at the time, so when did Downs stop thinking about the Tigers?
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“Probably Monday when we started watching the tape on Georgia Tech,” he said after practice Wednesday morning. “That’s when I put that behind me and when I got to focus on this week.”
The team did as well, and according to senior tight end Kamari Morales, it really wasn’t hard.
“Coming into this season, my goal was to make it to the conference championship, and we’ve done that,” he said Tuesday evening at the Kenan Football Center. “But this is just the beginning. We have an opportunity to win 11 games in the regular season, and then go on and have an opportunity to win a conference championship, and who knows, if something crazy happens we’re in the playoffs.”
Well, first things first for a program still very much in the development phase of Mack Brown’s rebuilding project. But this is a juncture in the process where it’s time North Carolina (9-1 overall, No. 13 in the CFP rankings) shows it can handle prosperity. It hasn’t really done that much in nearly four years under Brown Part II, so this week could reveal an awful lot about where the program is in its attempted ascent.
The culture appears quite strong. Brown says this is a player-led team, and player-led teams usually avoid “trap games,” which is why this is a maturity game. Call it a culture game, too.
The Tar Heels celebrated their first division title in seven years Saturday night, so what now?
“It will be a really good challenge for our program this week,” Brown said earlier this week. “Everybody will be bragging on our guys, everybody talking about punching the ACC Coastal getting ready to go to the championship game, asking about tickets.
“Then, you’ve got your rival (NC State) next week (November 25) and Senior Day. And this one’s sitting in here and we better get ready to play. This will be a really good test to see how much we’ve matured.”
Perhaps it helps that this week’s opponent is a team that handed Carolina its ugliest loss since Brown returned. It essentially put a stamp on last season’s early derailment. Carolina really didn’t recover, and ended up with a losing record after getting embarrassed in the bowl game loss.
Brown said he looked at Tech’s 45-22 victory in which it registered eight sacks and recovered three fumbles and it “made me throw up.”
Anything to get a team’s attention for a game sandwiched between high-radar games such as at Wake and versus State. Senior safety Gio Biggers says there’s something to that, but the fuel this team has derives from something much broader than that one night in Atlanta.
“I think the biggest thing is none of us are really satisfied yet,” he said this week. “Last year, we really got embarrassed; 6-7, that’s just horrible… We took it personal.”
Now they can turn all of that into a special season. A tenth win for just the second time since Brown left in 1997 is right in front of the Tar Heels. Then redemption versus the Wolfpack, and then mighty Clemson in primetime on ABC for a shot at possibly the CFP with some help, and maybe the Heisman Trophy for quarterback Drake Maye.
Mature teams in programs with a healthy culture navigate their way through weeks like this. Not long from now, UNC will reveal where it is in the process.