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. 7: 1929
Record: 9-1 (7-1 Southern Conference)
Bowl: None
Ranking: None
Coach: Chuck Collins
All-Americans: Ray Farris (G)
Honors: None
What's To Know: The name Ray Farris doesn't mean a whole lot to average UNC football fans, if at all. Even diehards probably don't know much about the best player on the '29 team. But that's okay, it's not easy finding information on Carolina football teams from his era, though the one on which he played does pop out at you just by perusing its schedule.
Four shutouts by the defense, eight games in which the opponent was held to seven or fewer points, and nobody scored more than 19 points against the Heels. On offense, Carolina scored 40-plus points five times and in the 30s two other times. UNC outscored its foes 346-60 averaging a score of 34.6 to 6, which is awfully impressive in any era.
UNC defeated its four instate foes - Wake, Duke, Davidson and N.C. State - by a combined 154-14 that season. It won at perennial power Georgia Tech 18-7, but a 19-7 defeat to a Georgia team that lost four games keeps this team from climbing any higher.
The 1929 Carolina squad was nicknamed “Team of a Million Backs” referring to the numerous running backs shuttled in and out of the lineup as the fast-rolling UNC team blew past opponents.
An All-Southern selection, Farris' son, Ray Jr., later quarterbacked the Tar Heels from 1958-61.
Note: National rankings didn't begin until 1936 and there were only a couple of bowl games in 1929.
