University of North Carolina Athletics
Turner's Take: A Perfect Day
November 5, 2016 | Football, Featured Writers, Turner Walston
By Turner Walston
It was a beautiful afternoon in Kenan Stadium. The temperature was just right –not too cool, warm, even, in the sun. The changing leaves were that beautiful November shade of burnt orange, mixed among the evergreens. It was homecoming; Mr. and Mrs. UNC were crowned. There were alumni in the stands and on the sidelines. And the Tar Heel football team was home for the first time in four weeks, facing an always-troubling Coastal Division rival in Paul Johnson's Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets. A win would turn a beautiful afternoon in Kenan Stadium into a perfect day in Chapel Hill.
Elijah Hood wanted it to be a perfect day in Chapel Hill. The junior tailback, playing at the healthiest he's been all season, took the ball on the Tar Heels' second play from scrimmage. He ran to his left, patiently following his linemen before turning upfield for 45 yards. "When I made the cut, I felt like everyone felt a lot slower than they did before," Hood said later. "So I was like, 'OK, this is a good thing.' So I could do even more than what I was doing before, so at that point, I was going to feed into that energy, and I was able to make some plays for the team."
Some plays for the team. Hood rushed for 114 yards and two touchdowns in the first quarter. He would finish with 168 yards and three scores. "It just makes our offense go," quarterback Mitch Trubisky said of having Hood at full strength. "That's the Elijah we know. The offensive line did a great job up front moving guys and making lanes for him. He ran wild. That's kind of what we expect out of him."
But Hood wasn't the only exciting thing about Saturday's 48-20 win over the Yellow Jackets. Mitch Trubisky was a cool 20-32 for 329 yards and a score. Bug Howard had a 120 yards receiving, his third 100-yard day of the year. And the Tar Heel defense stepped up against the most unorthodox offense they'll see all year, forcing two turnovers, blocking a field goal and holding Georgia Tech to a field goal for the entire second half.
"Really a complete game for us," head coach Larry Fedora said. "I thought our special teams played well. I thought our defense played really well and gave us for extra possessions with a blocked field goal and two turnovers, and then stuffing them on fourth down. That was huge. That was the thing we talked about all week. Offensively, we ran the ball really efficiently, and Mitch threw the ball as well as always."
Trubisky is hesitant in the afterglow of a win to fully evaluate his own performance. He wants to see the film, to get a bird's-eye view of his game, to see his missteps. Sure, there are throws he'll want back, plays he'll wish he'd seen. But in the moment, Saturday felt good. "It was just about being efficient, keeping our defense off the field, converting on third downs," he said. "The O-line did a great job. The playmakers made the plays, and all I had to do is get them the ball so it was a pretty efficient day."
Carolina put up 636 yards of total offense, their highest total of the season. They scored 48 points, tied for second-most on the year. They punted once and had two possessions that ended halves. Other than that, they scored on every series.
It's somewhat tougher to evaluate a defense's performance against Georgia Tech. Johnson's offense can lull a defense to sleep; they run a handful of plays with options off of those plays, and they run them really well. Their intelligent play-calling allows them to set up big plays by front-loading drives with the mundane. "They ran the trap-option like four times, and then they came back and ran the trap-option pass," said Tar Heel defensive tackle Nazair Jones. "They set it up." The Jackets run-block extremely well; they are going to get yards. And they did, chewing up 518 yards of total offense.
Carolina lost the coin toss for the first time in forever but was able to score quickly thanks to Hood. From there, they had the Jackets playing from behind. Some big plays from Georgia Tech allowed the teams to trade scores, but the coaches challenged the defense to put an end to the trade agreement. "All we told them is to go out there and play pissed off," Fedora said. So they did. Carolina held the Jackets to 20 points and just three in the second half. After the Yellow Jackets scored a field goal to open the third quarter, they did not scratch again.
"They did their job scheming us up, so luckily we came back and were able to correct our wrongs and only held them to the field goal," Jones said.
When all was said and done, Carolina had a four-touchdown win over Georgia Tech. Carolina football beat Georgia Tech by 28 points, and kept pace atop the ACC's Coastal Division.
The recent rise of Carolina football somewhat mirrors Hood's run on the first series of Saturday's game. Hood said he made a cut and looked around and noticed that the defenders seemed slower, and that was good. Over the past two seasons, Carolina football has made a turn, and the others seem slower. They're not slower; the Tar Heels are faster. The Tar Heels are better week in and week out than they've been in many years. The Tar Heels are playing winning football, consistently. And they're not done yet.
"I think we're playing our best football right now," Fedora said. "I think we're getting better and better, and I'm really proud of our guys, because to be able to do that, with the injuries we have the guys that we've lost . . . For us to be playing our best football the second week in November? That's a tribute to our coaching staff, because they've done a great job of bringing these guys along."
It's also a tribute to Fedora himself, certainly and athletic director Bubba Cunningham. And to you, the fans and donors who believed that Carolina could play winning football, that the sleeping giant could arise. For the students in The Tar Pit who embraced their fellow students after the game, when Jones and Cayson Collins and Patrice Rene and many others did their best Lambeau Leap impressions (the Tar Pit Plunge?) to celebrate another Carolina win.
"I think we're getting better each week," Trubisky said. "I won't use the word 'peak.' I think we're still grungy, which is good to see."
Should the rise continue, there will be a number of games to point to as pivotal. Saturday's should be in the conversation. Not as nail-biting as the win over Pitt or the 54-yard field goal to beat Florida State, not as exhilarating as Gio's punt return, but a four-touchdown beatdown of Georgia Tech, a solid, complete performance in all phases of the game. A homecoming win. It was a perfect day in Chapel Hill.
