UNC football beats App State to snap road losing streak and move to 2-0 on season
North Carolina coach Mack Brown isn’t taking the bait.
Nope. Don’t ask him to focus on anything bad from the Tar Heels’ 63-61 breathtaking win over Appalachian State before a record crowd of 40,168 at Kidd Brewer Stadium on Saturday. He’s not going for it.
For all the holes the defense showed in allowing the Mountaineers a 40-point fourth quarter outburst, he takes comfort in the offense scoring on nine possessions. The only thing that matters for Brown is returning to Chapel Hill with a win.
“You take a win and go. We were underdogs and hadn’t won a road game all last year,” Brown said. “So anybody that thinks I’m going to be mad or disappointed over this one doesn’t understand coaching. I am excited to win against a really good team on the road.”
And it wasn’t all bad actually. Of the 664 total yards Carolina allowed, it didn’t allow three yards on two separate conversions that helped secure the game.
The Mountaineers rallied from down 20 and looked to take the lead after Dashaun Davis caught a 28-yard touchdown from Chase Brice with 31 seconds left to make the score 56-55. App State coach Shawn Clark elected to go for two and had the right play called.
Brice had Davis wide open in the flat, but his pass was just a shade too high as Davis fell trying to haul it in.
“I’m not mistaken, we did kind of get a hit on the quarterback to make the ball a little erratic,” UNC linebacker Cedric Gray said.
Carolina’s Bryson Nesbit returned App State’s ensuing on-sides kick 43 yards for a touchdown with 28 seconds left, which in any normal game would have been enough. It wasn’t.
The Heels defense would again face a two-point conversion to decide the game.
A celebration penalty on Nesbit’s score made Jonathan Kim’s kickoff returnable and App State’s Milan Tucker took it 47 yards to the UNC 48. App State scored in just two plays when Kaedin Robinson caught a 26-yard touchdown with nine seconds left.
Brice was chased down by linebacker Noah Taylor, and Kaimon Rucker made a jarring hit to keep Brice from wiggling free to the end zone.
“As many things as we’ve got to fix on defense,” Brown said. “They had two, two-point play stops to win the game. So you gotta give them credit for that. They didn’t quit.”
Carolina (2-0) looked like it was going to get blown out early in the game. App State scored touchdowns on each of its first three possessions and popped big plays in doing so.
Running back Noel Nate, who finished with 116 yards, had a 52-yard run up the middle of the field. Brice completed a 41-yard pass to Dalton Stroman. The Mountaineers (0-1) totaled four plays of 20 yards or more on their first three drives — and would finish with 12 total — and took a 21-7 lead two plays into the second quarter.
UNC quarterback Drake Maye was just getting warmed up. Maye said he was confident, after the Heels scored on their first drive of the game, that they could move the ball against the Mountaineers.
On the next six drives, which all led to Carolina points, he showed why.
The Heels responded with 31 straight points and looked to tag on another score when Gray intercepted a Brice pass to set UNC up at the App 28. That sent some App State fans to the exits, but it turned out they should have stayed in their seats.
Maye missed an open Kamari Morales on what would have been a sure touchdown. The Heels settled for a 44-yard field goal from Noah Burnette to go ahead 41-21.
“After that first drive, we all knew they couldn’t handle us on offense,” Maye said. “So that first drive, after we answer, I felt pretty good going into the rest of the drives. But we had some plays that I wish to have back, obviously.”
Maye completed 24 of 36 passes for 352 yards and four touchdowns including the go-ahead score with 2:50 left as the Tar Heels never trailed again.
Maye stood in against a Mountaineers blitz and took a hit that kept him on the ground after the play was well over. He didn’t get to see D.J. Jones take his pass and race 42 yards untouched for a touchdown, but he surely heard the reaction of the crowd.
“They were kind of bringing the house a couple different times this game, probably trying to hit up the young quarterback,” Maye said. “But they forgot about D.J., who slipped out on an RB seam. It looked like it was wide open. I didn’t know, I got power driven into the ground.”
The win, Carolina’s first on the road since beating Miami 62-26 on Dec. 12, 2020, led to what defensive back Deandre Boykins described as a reserved celebration in the locker room.
“It was celebration, but it was also some quietness, because we know that we still got to work on some things,” Boykins said. “But but it was definitely celebration. A ‘W’ is still a ‘W’ at the end of the day.”
This story was originally published September 3, 2022 at 4:24 PM with the headline "UNC football beats App State to snap road losing streak and move to 2-0 on season."