Our series ranking the 20 best UNC football teams of all time continues today. Once this series concludes, we will rank the best UNC basketball teams of all time:
No. 5: 1996
Record: 10-2 (6-2)
Bowl: Gator Bowl, beat West Virginia 20-13
Ranking: 10
Coach: Mack Brown
All-Americans: Dre' Bly (DB); Freddie Jones (TE); Greg Ellis (DE); Brian Simmons (LB)
First-Team All-ACC: Chris Keldorf QB; Jeff Saturday C; Freddie Jones TE; Dre’ Bly DB; Freg Ellis DE; Brian Simmons LB; Leon Johnson Specialist.
Honors: Chris Keldorf, semifinalist Davey O'Brien Award; Leon Johnson National New National Offensive Player of the Year; Dre' Bly, Thorpe Award finalist; Mack Brown ACC Coach of the Year
What's To Know: Mack Brown's vision began taking form several years earlier, but its full version revealed itself in 1996. Brown was changing UNC football, turning it into one of the more prominent programs in the South. Stocked with talent on both sides of the ball, quality special teams, and hopping onto the national landscape, the Tar Heels finally arrived, and they wasted no time in alerting the nation.
In the opener at home versus Clemson, UNC sent a very loud message: Tar Heels 45, Tigers 0. Week later at Syracuse, which was a perennial Top-20 program in the 1990s, the Tar Heels wore down the Orange 27-10. Both games were on national TV and had many national pundits talking about the exploding football program in Chapel Hill.
By Nov. 16, a team that started the season unranked was at No. 6 in the nation despite already owning a loss. That, of course, was at Florida State on an afternoon the Heels allowed just 211 total yards to the usually high-octane Seminoles in the 13-0 defeat in Tallahassee. But with a trip to an Alliance Bowl (later renamed BCS) on the line, the Heels blew a 17-3 fourth-quarter lead at No. 24 Virginia and lost, 20-17. They won out, including the bowl, but that missed opportunity may loom as the biggest loss in UNC history.
Beating Virginia and winning out likely would have meant a national stage for UNC football unlike any time since the "Choo Choo" Justice days, and it may have had an effect on Brown leaving following the 1997 season, and so on and so on. As it stands, the 1996 team was outstanding, but it's loss at Scott Stadium may be the single greatest missed opportunity in Carolina football history.
But to have a huge missed opportunity, a team must be awfully good and accomplished, and these Tar Heels were.
In addition to having seven first-team All-ACC players, five Heels also made the ACC’s second team. The Tar Heels were ranked in every poll that season except the first one and spent four weeks in the top 10.
1997 NFL Draft
2nd Rnd: Rick Terry, DT, Jets
2nd Rnd: Freddie Jones, TE, Chargers
3rd Rnd: James Hamilton, LB, Jaguars
4th Rnd: Leon Johnson, RB, Jets
5th Rnd: Andre Purvis, DT, Bengals
