Three Up, Three Down: UNC

The Ups

Starting Out Well. Two turnovers early, and we were up 7-0 at the end of the first.  Granted we should have been up 10-0, but I'll get to that.  Either way, we started strong even if it imploded in short order.  There are some games that are just a tire fire from the very beginning.  This was not one of those.

That Long Touchdown Drive. Down 7-22 in the second quarter, the Deacs went on a 12 play, 75 yard drive that was honestly a thing of beauty.  I thought at that point we might still have a spot, especially since we deferred the opening kickoff, but sadly it was not to be.

That One Missed FG Drive. Starting at the Wake 14 after a UNC punt with the score 29-14 right at the end of the half, Wake did a pretty awesome job of going 53 yards in 56 seconds to have a shot at hitting a field goal going into the locker room.  Again, it didn't pan out, but it was at least a good effort and mostly well executed.

The Downs

Two Missed Field Goals. I love Mike Weaver.  He's usually dependable, and literally helped win a game for us on the road this year (that Army kick, man), but this just was not his night.  He missed two field goals in big momentum situations, and to be fair to Mike, neither of them were gimmes at 47 and 51 yards, but they were certainly doable, and they both had big impacts on the game.

That Fumble. Tie game after UNC's first touchdown.  Wake gets a nice 9 yard gain on first down.  The ball gets fumbled, and then the floodgates opened.  Really unfortunate.

The Defense. It was solid in the beginning, but like I said, the floodgates eventually opened, and the UNC offense just absolutely romped for the rest of the game.  I don't know if the game would have been different if the offense had been able to keep it a little close, but this was just absolutely brutal, and there's no other word for it.  Brutal.

The Bottom Line

I'm not gonna sugarcoat it, this was beyond painful.  All I'm going to say in rebuttal, however, is that in the game thread there were some individuals seeming to suggest we should just burn it all down and start over, and I think that's pretty ridiculous.  We're 3-4.  We got a conference road victory.  We took Florida State and Indiana (who also seems to be pretty legit this year) to the limit.  We played Syracuse on the road really well until the fourth quarter which I believe is when John Wolford initially got hurt.  If you think back to last season, there is STILL obvious growth, and Coach Clawson absolutely deserves more time to prove himself further.  Just look at his track record.

Time to just burn the game tape and see if we can right the ship against another in-state foe on Saturday.  On to the next.  Go Deacs.

--SF