Turner's Take: Raise Up

September 4, 2016 | Football, Featured Writers, Turner Walston

By: UNC Athletic Communications

By Turner Walston

This weekend last year, I wrote a column titled 'The Sting,' about the loss to South Carolina. The 2015 Tar Heel football season opener was a winnable game, a game they should have won against an SEC opponent at a neutral site. But they didn't win. There's a temptation to just Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V tonight's column, with a Ctrl-F to replace 'South Carolina' with 'Georgia,' because that's what this feels like. Winnable game, neutral site, SEC opponent, loss.

Yes, the Bulldogs outranked the Tar Heels. Yes, the Bulldogs were the favored. Yes, they were playing in the neutral site of Atlanta, and their fans outnumbered the Tar Heels exponentially. All true. But in the third quarter, in practice, in real life, the Tar Heels had the lead, and the chance to win. And they didn't.

T.J. Logan came to play tonight in the Georgia Dome. Larry Fedora often talks of game-changing plays on special teams, and Logan and the kickoff return unit made one, when he ran the second half kickoff back 95 yards for the score and a 17-14 Tar Heel lead. Then, after a missed Georgia field goal, Logan was in the end zone again, pushing the lead to ten with a third of the game remaining.

Georgia wasn't done however, and Carolina helped them. Freshman cornerback Patrice Rene twice committed pass interference penalties to extend a Georgia drive that ended with a touchdown. 24-21. And then . . . and then, things fell apart.

Khris Francis fumbled the ensuing kickoff out of bounds at the Tar Heel 12. On 2nd and 10, Mitch Trubisky connected with Austin Proehl to give the offense some breathing room. But tackle Jon Heck was flagged as an ineligible receiver downfield. It was a close call; one that's not reviewable and therefore quite frustrating. Fedora was livid, and he let an official know it.

"We got the penalty on the lineman downfield. I was questioning the call and the guy didn't like what I said, so he threw a flag on me, which is nobody's fault but mine," Fedora said. "That's my fault. That's the first time that's ever happened in my life so it's pretty disappointing." It is pretty disappointing. So 2nd and 15 from the 7 became 2nd and 18 from the 4.

Suddenly, Trubisky, a first-time starter, is asked to engineer something with his back against the wall. He tries to make a play and completes a pass in the Tar Heel end zone. You can't ask Elijah Hood to ignore every football instinct he has when he, too, is trying to make a play, and not catch a pass thrown to him. And when he can't get out of the end zone, with the defense bearing down, it's a safety. All of a sudden –in fewer than six minutes of game time– 24-14 has become 24-23.

"And then we're back on the two or three yard-line and they get the safety," Fedora continued, "so that's all on me. Nobody but me."

That can't happen. You can't take 13 penalties, giving up 101 yards over the course of a game. You can't have a young cornerback take two pass interference penalties to extend the same Georgia drive twice. You can't have your head coach argue a call, right or wrong, to the point that he draws an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty, not when 'half the distance to the goal' means backing up a first-time starting quarterback to the four-yard line. You can't have a block in the back after a kickoff and then ask Trubisky to begin a potential go-ahead drive just a few feet in front of the roaring Georgia Redcoat Marching Band. You can't do those things. Not if you expect to win. Not if you want to play big-time football. Not if you want to be in the national college football conversation.

"Every single play matters, and you have a penalty and they get a first down, or we're behind on the chains, you can't do that when you're playing good football teams," Hood said. "There's no room for error when you're playing at a high level of competition, and frankly, we just made too many mistakes today."

After the game, Fedora again stressed, as he'd done early in the week, that this game had no bearing on the team's goals. And he's right, if the goals are the ACC Coastal Division Championship and the 'State Championship,' as they were last year. Those were last year's goals, however. This is 2016. Last year, we saw the Tar Heels reel off 11 straight wins after the loss to South Carolina, and yet, that wasn't good enough for early consideration in the College Football Playoff rankings. It was the early-season loss to the Gamecocks combined with a perceived weak schedule, one that included two wins over FCS opponents, that kept the Tar Heels out of serious consideration. This year's schedule includes two FCS opponents. It now, also, includes a neutral-site loss to an SEC opponent.

So yeah, the Bulldogs aren't an ACC rival, aren't an in-state opponent, and this game won't hurt the Tar Heels in pursuit of either of those stated goals. But it's time to 'Raise Up,' as that is the mantra of the 2016 Tar Heel football season. Raise the bar. Raise the expectations. Division and state championships are great, but reach higher.

The talent is there - we've seen it. The schemes are there. The discipline piece still seems elusive. The talent is not so good that it can overcome the mental mistakes that extend drives for opponents and short-circuit them for the Tar Heels. "We can't overcome those kinds of things, or we couldn't overcome them," Fedora said. "Maybe we'll eventually evolve into a team that can, but we couldn't tonight."

Perhaps 2016 will mirror 2015 in that after the loss to the SEC opponent at the neutral site, the team will rally around itself, determine to fix mistakes and move forward, and reel off a whole bunch of wins and build excitement around Tar Heel football. Hopefully, that happens, beginning next week at Illinois. But 2016 is not 2015, and there are no guarantees. It would have been nice to start 2016 with a bang, but alas.

"We still haven't gotten to where we can perform big in the big games and finish out those games," said Nazair Jones. "Getting there is not enough; we've got to get there and win."

Carolina will go back to work this week in preparation for the Illini, another test against another first-year head coach. Certainly they'll build on the Georgia Dome loss; certainly, the season is not over. But right now, it's frustrating, because the Tar Heels, their coaches, fans and staff are 'tired of coming out on the losing end,' as Bruce Springsteen wrote. It's time to do better. It's time to raise up.