With UNC’s victory at Wake Forest and NC State’s loss, balance of power shifts in NC
Sometimes, seasons can be made, or broken, by a single result on a single day. Same with the trajectory of a college football program. Saturday felt like one of those days. In the span of a few hours, about 100 miles apart, North Carolina and N.C. State confronted defining moments, ones with implications well beyond the black-and-white of won-loss columns.
UNC rose to the challenge. State crumbled.
And with that a pair of seasons, and programs, took drastically contrasting turns.
Remember the date. We may well look back at this particular Saturday, Nov. 12, as the moment when the Tar Heels officially rounded the corner in Mack Brown’s second tenure in Chapel Hill and started to become the program that the most optimistic of UNC supporters envisioned when he returned four years ago.
We may well look back at Saturday, too, as a defining moment for Dave Doeren and the Wolfpack — but for entirely different reasons.
UNC found a way to win Saturday, holding on in the final moments for a victory at Wake Forest. N.C. State found a way to lose, its defeat unfolding like a slow-motion train wreck until it surrendered its lead in the final seconds of a disastrous home loss against Boston College. For both the Wolfpack and Tar Heels, the outcomes feel bigger than a single victory, or defeat. The balance of power between the state’s two largest and most-resourced programs has shifted.
One could argue that neither State nor UNC has been North Carolina’s best program, anyway. Entering this season, that distinction perhaps belonged to Wake Forest, which has done more with less than any program in the ACC, or maybe even Appalachian State, which has more consistently maximized its football potential than any other school in the state. UNC has always been college football’s so-called sleeping giant, though, an ideal of the possible, while N.C. State began this season with the kind of hope and expectation that’s rare, indeed, for the Wolfpack.
More than two months later, everything has changed. No, it has turned out, this will not be the Wolfpack’s year, after all. And yes, maybe, just maybe, the proverbial sleeping giant is awakening, thanks in no small part to Drake Maye, who more and more is looking like the best college quarterback ever to come through an in-state school.
Who knows what will happen when State and Carolina play at Kenan Stadium later this month. Maybe the Wolfpack, with its stout defense, finds a way. Maybe Maye shows he’s human, after all. That game has now become the most important thing State has left, and a victory in Chapel Hill would undoubtedly go a ways toward soothing the Wolfpack’s pain. Win or lose, the Tar Heels, meanwhile, will go on the next week to something greater. They’ll play for an ACC championship.
One big thing
It’s an all-Tar Heels edition of “One Big Thing” this week. UNC has won the ACC’s Coastal Division for the first time since 2015 and will meet Clemson in the league championship game in Charlotte in early December. And, in related news, Maye continues to put together perhaps the greatest individual season of any player in state history. At the very least, he has to be invited to New York City in December to take his place among the Heisman Trophy finalists.
The hottest take*
“A questionable pass interference call cost the Wolfpack the game on Saturday against Boston College!”
— a compilation of takes from fans, media and Doeren, himself following N.C. State’s shocking loss on Saturday.
(And look, folks: It was a questionable call. Another truth: The Wolfpack — on senior day, with perhaps its best roster in Doeren’s 10 seasons, against a 2-7 team — never should’ve been close to being in that position.)
* a take in which we sarcastically poke fun at a real, actual take. Not meant to be taken seriously.
Three to like
1. Have we mentioned Drake Maye? Ah, yes. Seems we have. People who aren’t keen on UNC-related hype and adulation should go into hiding in the coming weeks, because the attention surrounding Maye is likely to take off. And rightfully so. After passing for a season-high 448 yards at Wake on Saturday, Maye is now averaging 400 yards of offense per game. Forget the case for him just being in New York, Maye has a strong one to be the Heisman front-runner.
2. Well, one Triangle team took care of business on Saturday at home against a bad conference opponent. Congrats to Duke, which made easy work of Virginia Tech during a 24-7 victory. The Blue Devils, projected to be one of the worst teams in the ACC entering the season, own the same 7-3 record as N.C. State, which was a popular pick to win the league. Amazing how different a 7-3 record can look, depending on one’s perspective.
3. ECU fell just short in a 27-25 defeat at Cincinnati on Friday night and, yes, nobody really likes moral victories. Even so, the Pirates continue to play with a grit that’s become characteristic of Mike Houston’s teams in Greenville. ECU has been on the other side of some tough-luck losses; three of its four defeats have come by a combined six points. It’s clear, though, that this is a program headed in the right direction.
Three to ... not like as much
1. Not to kick a program while it’s down, but N.C. State’s defeat on Saturday has to rank somewhere near the top of State’s most disappointing defeats over the past 20 years. The challenge in considering where exactly it’d rank is that there’s no shortage of competition. State wasn’t going to win the Atlantic, anyway, but still had a chance for a 10-win regular season. Suddenly, the Wolfpack is now staring at 7-5, and a future that doesn’t exactly look promising.
2. Remember when Wake Forest was ranked in the top 10? It was only a little more than two weeks ago. Since then: three consecutive defeats, including two bitter losses to in-state rivals. The Demon Deacons have gone from 10th nationally to sixth in their own division. Wake is 2-4 in the ACC and, with little to play for relative to its preseason goals, one wonders where the Deacs find inspiration in the weeks to come.
3. Since one local writer (OK, me) anointed Appalachian State as North Carolina’s best college football program, the Mountaineers are 4-4, and that includes a victory they earned with a last-second Hail Mary. Ouch. While the overall point remains — and remember, folks, that programs are bigger than individual teams — this just goes to show you that writers should never praise anything.
Carolinas ranking
1. North Carolina (and at this point, a victory against Clemson in the ACC title game could not be considered an upset); 2. Clemson; 3. Coastal Carolina (the Chants are back to being the “it” Sun Belt team; sorry App); 4. Duke; 5. N.C. State (can the Wolfpack get off the mat?); 6. Wake Forest (can the Deacs get off the mat?); 7. South Carolina; 8. ECU; 9. Appalachian State; 10. Charlotte.
Final thoughts, in no particular order
▪ I think among players from in-state schools, Maye will be the highest finisher in the Heisman Trophy voting since UNC’s Charlie Justice finished second in 1947 and ‘48. No one else from a North Carolina school has finished in the top five of the voting since then. That’s about to change.
▪ I think Doeren probably will think twice about criticizing his own fans in the future, as he recently did after some of them left before the Wolfpack rallied and beat Virginia Tech earlier this season. State fans support their football and men’s basketball programs (and especially football, these days) to a greater degree than anyone could expect, given the results. It’s results like Saturday that call into question exactly why Wolfpack fans support the program the way they do.
▪ Speaking of State fans, I think Saturday had to go down as the worst football game day in a long time. The Wolfpack loses in inexplicable fashion to Boston College and then, hours later, UNC takes a significant step forward with its victory in Winston-Salem. A double-whammy of Wolfpack pain.
▪ I think UNC has the best chance to win the ACC that it’s had in more than 40 years. An even better chance than it did in the mid-90s during Brown’s first go-round. This Clemson team is not like those Florida State teams (or even the Clemson teams of a few years ago).
This story was originally published November 14, 2022 at 5:10 AM with the headline "With UNC’s victory at Wake Forest and NC State’s loss, balance of power shifts in NC."
