Extra Points: 21 Club

The rally cry was 1-1-91. The payoff was actually 1-2-21.

A Carolina football team just off two wins over two seasons set its mission in 1990 to land a spot in one of the four traditional New Year's Day bowl games. The players at the end of practice every day huddled, raised their hands and chanted "1-1-91." That team enjoyed some success, tying eventual national champion Georgia Tech and beginning what would become a 13-year win streak over Duke, but its 6-4-1 ledger missed the bowl roster altogether, this when there were 19 games (remember the late lamented Copper Bowl?) and the Orange, Sugar, Rose and Cotton Bowls were played on the first day of the new year.

"Some people have made fun of them for wanting to play in a New Year's Day bowl," Mack Brown said at the time. "But if you shoot for the moon and miss, you at least land in the stars."

Fast forward three decades. A Tar Heel program that won five games total over the 2017-18 seasons now found itself facing No. 5 ranked Texas A&M under the lights in Miami in the Capital One Orange Bowl—Carolina's first appearance in one of those marquee matchups since Charlie Justice led his squad into the 1950 Cotton Bowl. Just as Brown overhauled the Tar Heel program in the late 1980s with aggressive and energetic recruiting, deft leadership and staff management and a remarkable ability to manage things from 10,000 feet and with a microscope in one fell swoop, so too had today's program been juiced in 25 months. Back-to-back wins over both N.C. State and Duke; taking Clemson to the wire; steamrolling Miami on the road; peeking into the top 10 in the national rankings; an offense led by QB Sam Howell that lit a match to the existing record book and constantly graced ESPN highlight reels; back-to-back lights-out recruiting classes; and playing 12 games during a virus pandemic and not having a postponement or cancellation on account of mishap within the Carolina program.

"You would have taken all of this back in the summer, back when we didn't know if we'd even play the season," Brown told his players on 1-1-21, the eve of the Orange Bowl. "Good for you. You're in the first major bowl in 70 years. You've overcome so much. Don't take this lightly. You've made history this year."

Sadly for the Tar Heels, their two-year resurrection encountered a road block Saturday night in the form of Texas A&M. The Orange Bowl was tied at 20-20 early in the fourth quarter, but the Aggies reeled off three straight touchdowns over a Carolina squad playing without four of its best players to claim a 41-27 victory.

One by one the Tar Heels trudged slowly and grimly off the playing field at Hard Rock Stadium. Howell walked with a slight limp after being chased by the Aggie defense all evening. The uniform of sophomore linebacker Eugene Asante, called into action with Chazz Surratt's decision to move on to his NFL career, was covered in grass stains.

"Everyone in the program has to get better," Howell said a few moments later. "I told the guys in the locker room, 'Remember this feeling, use it for motivation.' We can get so much better. We are so close. I expect big things. I want to take this team to great places. There is lot of potential in that locker room."

"I think things are trending up," Asante added. "A lot of young guys want to learn and want to do better for the team. We were in position to make plays, we just have to make those plays. This loss will be a lesson for us."

The game hinged on three significant plays in the fourth quarter: Receiver Khafre Brown dropped what could have been a big pass on first down with the game tied at 27-27; the Aggies squirted a 76-yard run where Devon Achane appeared to be tripped up turning the left corner, regained his balance, dodged a tackle and raced down the left sideline for a touchdown; and Carolina was snuffed on consecutive third- and fourth-down running plays with under three minutes to play.

Those plays helped A&M outscore Carolina 24-7 in the final quarter, this previously the domain of the Tar Heels with a 124-60 fourth-quarter scoring advantage through the 2020 season.

"They wore us down," Brown said. "We hung in with a lot of young guys. It was a hot night, and the longer it went on, we had trouble moving the ball and stopping the run. We rushed for 90 yards and they rushed for 225. That's usually the story of the game."

This Tar Heel team was not the same one that just three weeks before had decimated Miami by 36 points on this very field. Surratt on defense and receiver Dyami Brown and tailbacks Michael Carter and Javonte Williams left the team to initiate their professional careers. Dazz Newsome (six catches for 68 yards and one touchdown) and freshman Josh Downs (four for 91 yards and two scores) took up the pass-catching mantle. Asante put his speed on display in chasing the Aggies across the field (he led the team with seven solo tackles). But certainly where the Tar Heels suffered the most was not having that lethal one-two punch of Carter and Williams in the backfield.

"We lost 4,000 yards of offense and still had a chance to beat the No. 5 team in the country," Brown said. "This is going to be a special team. We showed it for three and a half quarters against Notre Dame and again tonight. We need more experience and depth, and on January 19 we'll have 12 more guys. We're about to be really good. I'm excited about that. I told the guys thanks for getting us here and giving us a chance to win. Now we want to come back and win."

Brown and the Tar Heels are now squarely set on 2021. They return five starters on the O-line. Receiver Beau Corrales is back after an injury-dogged 2020. Already chants of "Howell for Heisman" are wafting about. The defense has enormous potential and the recruiting acumen of Brown and his assistants was borne out in 2020 with the introduction of players like Ja'Qurious Conley, Tony Grimes, Des Evans, Kyler McMichael, Myles Murphy and Kaimon Rucker.

"This is only the beginning of something special. I promise we will be back," Howell said via Twitter shortly after the game.

As much as Tar Heel football is evolving, the landscape around it is changing as well. Carolina wasn't the only team to be hit with opt-outs. Georgia had eight. Miami's best two defensive ends bid adieu. N.C. State played the Gator Bowl without its best defensive lineman. Six Texas Longhorns and three Florida Gators joined the parade. Brown's voice is just one of many advocating adjustments to the existing College Football Playoff and bowl establishment to allow a true national champion to be crowned while maintaining the sanctity of game like the Orange Bowl, conceived in the 1930s to promote its warm winters and bountiful citrus crop to snowbirds in the North and Midwest.

Texas A&M was on the cusp of being one of the four teams to make the CFP but lost out to Notre Dame.

"I feel like they should expand the playoff, number one so more guys will continue to play and help the bowl games, and number two because Texas A&M deserved to be in the playoff," Brown said. "They are big and physical, they do a great job coaching and have really good players."

It took more than seven decades for the Tar Heels to bridge that vaunted Justice era of the late 1940s of two Sugar Bowl berths and one Cotton Bowl with another date in the big-time. Odds are, as Brown likes to say, the Tar Heels are now in a new neighborhood. Twenty-one can't get here soon enough, particularly with a Covid-ravaged 2020 in the rearview.

Chapel Hill based writer Lee Pace (Carolina '79) has written "Extra Points" since 1990, is the author of "Football in a Forest" and has been part of the Tar Heel Sports Network broadcast crew since 2004. Write him at leepace7@gmail.com.

Players Mentioned

Eugene Asante

Dyami Brown

Khafre Brown

Michael Carter

Ja'Qurious Conley

Beau Corrales

Josh Downs

Tony Grimes

Sam Howell

Kyler McMichael

Myles Murphy

Dazz Newsome

Kaimon Rucker

Chazz Surratt

Javonte Williams

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