University of North Carolina Athletics
Jacobs: Tar Heels Win On Odd Day
September 18, 2011 | Football, Featured Writers
Sept. 18, 2011
By Barry Jacobs
On a day of almosts, North Carolina convincingly handled Virginia 28-17, putting away the Cavaliers in the final moments.
Substantial rainfall never quite arrived, but the air remained sodden and chilly in Chapel Hill. Clearly the ACC was on the verge of another expansion, although nothing official was announced. Conference teams won three of five games against opponents from other BCS leagues, but not the marquee matchup between No.1 Oklahoma and No. 5 Florida State.
UNC definitely was the better team on Saturday against spirited UVa. The Tar Heels improved to 3-0 thanks to a balanced attack that produced four touchdowns in five red-zone forays. The offense was propelled by an impressive 222 rushing yards, paced by freshman Gio Bernard, who had 102 in a dozen carries. On the year he's averaging 7.3 yards per carry.
Teams perpetually seek playmakers, performers who can make something out of nothing and something special from seemingly ordinary opportunities. Increasingly Bernard - quick, strong, low to the ground, adept at reading blocks and reacting accordingly - has become one of those players.
With the running game clicking, quarterback Brynn Renner again showed poise and patience in the pocket, throwing for two scores and 143 yards without an interception. He also scrambled selectively, and effectively.
Renner, a sophomore with three starts under his belt, has completed 57 of 70 passes on the year, 81.4 percent accuracy.
On the other side of the ball, Carolina's proud defense did not play up to its usual standards. "We've got a whole lot of work to do," said junior linebacker Kevin Reddick, who had seven tackles. "Me, personally, I like for shutouts to happen."
The Heels did force three turnovers, their first takeaways of the season, but yielded more total yards (468) than in any game last year or in 2011. Included were 170 net rushing yards by the Cavs against a defense that allowed 60 combined in its first two outings.
"The yards concern you," conceded head coach Everett Withers, "but you can go (look) on tape and correct some of the things that happened to you. The points to me are what's important -- if they're not scoring, they can't win." It's always better to talk of improvement in the wake of victory, when bruised bodies and egos ache less.
"Three played, three down!" members of the Carolina contingent shouted in the tunnel after leaving the Kenan field with the program's first win in an ACC opener since 2000. The next obstacle in UNC's path is Georgia Tech, which set an NCAA record with 12.1 yards per carry in trouncing Kansas on Saturday.
The trip to Atlanta offers the Heels the opportunity to go 4-0 for just the second time since 1983. The exception occurred in 1997, when Mack Brown's last Tar Heel squad started 8-0 en route to a 11-1 finish.
Oddly, the day's news of pending conference realignments brought the possibility the Big 12 could be breaking apart, with Texas the great plum to be plucked. Speculation had either the Pac-12 or the ACC as preferred destinations for the Longhorns, coached in football by one William "Mack" Brown, who elevated North Carolina to national prominence before leaving for Austin.
Word surfaced prior to the UNC-UVa contest that Pittsburgh and Syracuse were about to join the ACC; they were among at least 10 schools that expressed interest in joining the conference. In a hallway in the press area at Kenan, athletics director Dick Baddour reaffirmed to a gaggle of reporters that North Carolina is "totally committed to the ACC."
Surveying the fast-shifting collegiate landscape, where the quest for dollars has thrown old rivalries, allegiances, and associations into disarray, Baddour noted somewhat wistfully, "It's obvious the world is turning upside down."
Withers was asked his thoughts on expansion as the conclusion of his post-game press conference. "I'm just trying to get to 4-0," he said. "Right now I'm just trying to coach this team. Somebody tell me who we've got to play next."
That would be the Yellow Jackets, the first of five road tests this year for the Heels.
Rebounding from a losing season, Georgia Tech is 3-0, averaging 59 points per game. The ACC's first modern expansion member (1978) set school marks in rushing yards and total yards in defeating Big 12-member Kansas, 66-24. The Jackets do not exclusively rely on option runs, either - their passing yardage against the Jayhawks almost matched UNC's against the Cavaliers, and quarterback Tevin Washington had a pair of long touchdown tosses.
For now, though, North Carolina can savor winning three games it probably should have won. No matter how much the college landscape changes, the value of competitive superiority endures.
