University of North Carolina Athletics
Extra Points: Blue on Blue
November 13, 2016 | Football, Featured Writers
By Lee Pace
Take landslide wins in which Carolina's football team had pounded Duke by a combined total of 111-51 over the last two years ...
Take a 2016 season in which the Tar Heel offense was humming by land and by air, with power and assorted bait-and-switch schemes, with everyone from the established wizards like Elijah Hood to the colts like Thomas Jackson having a voice ...
Take those same two months when Duke had nary a win in the ACC, had lost to middling Northwestern and Virginia teams and had watched three of four senior captains banished to the injury list with Achilles tendon or knee injuries ...
Take a modicum of hubris from the Tar Heels, one of whom distributed a photo on social media of the Carolina blue spray paint he and his teammates planned to use to recolor the Victory Bell following a dubious idea to paint it half Carolina blue, half royal blue ...
Take an opening quarter in which the Carolina offensive juggernaut purred to two touchdowns on two possessions, Mitch Trubisky hitting Jackson on a svelte double-move corner route for one and then Bug Howard snaring a 19-yarder when a Duke defender made an ill-fated lunge at a break-up ...
Take a pair of efficient defensive stops to open the game by a Tar Heel defense that has been steadily improving throughout the year, with Nazair Jones stopping one third down with a nifty shuck-and-destroy job on a Blue Devil lineman and quarterback Daniel Jones ...
Mix it all together and the result after one quarter was a 14-0 Tar Heel lead. Smooth sailing, indeed.
Or blend it all together and the result is a molotov cocktail of human nature and of complacency that just might explode in the Tar Heels' faces.
“Yeah, I guess you could say that,” Trubisky answered when asked if the Tar Heels might have taken their collective foot off the gas after the quick start.
“You have to worry about that happening, maybe that's what happened,” Carolina Coach Larry Fedora said to the same query. “But that's on me, that's my responsibility.”
The curse of the fast start—it's happened before when a team glides from the opening whistle and then gets bludgeoned with a two-by-four and cannot regain its ballast.
“You get this relaxed feeling like it's going easy, then all of a sudden they get momentum and you're trying to get it back,” offensive coordinator Chris Kapilovic added.
Behind the magnificent running and short-range dinking and dunking of Jones, the freshman quarterback, and a feisty and athletic defense, Duke charged from behind, knotted the score and confounded the Tar Heels on both sides of the ball to claim a 28-27 win. In the Fedora-David Cutcliffe era since 2012, that's three wins for Duke and two for the Tar Heels, never minding the Blue Devils' three wins have been by three, two and one points and the Tar Heels' by 25 and 45.
“I'm not putting it on these guys,” Fedora said. “This is my responsibility completely. If you want to blame somebody, blame me. It's my job to have these guys ready and put them in the best positions.”
The loss is Carolina's second in the ACC Coastal Division and puts the virtual kibosh on their goal of winning a second straight division title. The Tar Heels would need Virginia Tech to lose to both Georgia Tech and Virginia and of course beat N.C. State themselves to overtake the Hokies.
“I told them I was sorry, especially the seniors, they'll never have this opportunity again in their lives,” Fedora said. “For the younger guys, they've got to remember what this feels like. This is on me, on me as the head coach.”
Duke was resolute in the face of its two-score deficit and strutted downfield on drives of 11, 11 and 10 plays to score touchdowns and tie the game 21-all at halftime. Tar Heel senior cornerback Des Lawrence pulled his defensive teammates around him with four minutes left in the half after Duke's third score and read them the riot act, imploring them to “keep your eyes where they belong” and find a way to match the Blue Devils' energy and passion.
“We just didn't do a good job coming out with energy,” Jones said. “We went up a couple of scores and let up. Those guys fought. It was their senior night and the last time on that field for some of them. We didn't match their intensity and that's why they won the game.”
The Tar Heels squandered numerous edges in field position garnered by efficient special teams play that they've been so wont to parlay into points during the Fedora era in Chapel Hill. They started one drive from the 50 after a kick-off and went three-and-out. T.J. Logan returned a kick-off to the Duke 25, and Carolina had to settle for a field goal. Tom Sheldon punted 44 yards to the five, 56 to the three, and 44 to the one, but a fat lot of good it did Carolina on the balance sheet. Duke drove the length of the field on one of those for a touchdown and took the last one from the one yard-line and ate up nearly seven minutes late in the game, those long drives helped immensely by Duke's converting 10-of-17 third downs.
“We thought we could effectively run the ball, and we thought we would be put in position where we got the right down and distance,” Cutcliffe said. “We didn't have very many third-and-longs, and when you do that, you have a good chance of keeping the football.”
The Tar Heels, 7-3 overall and 5-2 in the ACC, remain one of only six league teams with winning league records (Clemson, Louisville, Wake Forest, Virginia Tech and Florida State the others. So they're still in good shape assuming they take care of business against The Citadel and N.C. State to claim one of the ACC's “Tier I” bowls.
“I fully expect us to regroup,” Fedora said. “We're going to do what we do. We're going to come back and go to work. That's what our guys know and these seniors are going to make sure happens.”
The Citadel improved to 10-0 on Saturday and is just one year removed from having gone into Williams-Brice Stadium in Columbia and upending the Gamecocks by one point. Hopefully those facts will be sufficient to have the Tar Heels—and their fans—focused on blocking, tackling and catching next week and leave the mind games to the shrinks.
Chapel Hill writer Lee Pace has covered Tar Heel football for 26 years through “Extra Points” and a dozen as the Tar Heel Sports Network's sideline reporter. He has just published a book on Kenan Stadium, “Football in a Forest.” Follow him at @LeePaceTweet and contact him at leepace7@gmail.com.
