For the first time since November 16th, 2024, I attended a game inside Kenan Stadium.
That one ended up being Mack Brown's last home game before he would be fired as Carolina coach—even though he coached against NC State two weekends later. I had avoided spending my money on UNC football since Bill Belichick was hired because ticket prices had skyrocketed and last season went off the rails. However, the ability to enjoy Kenan at night and some pretty reasonable prices on the secondary market led me to go ahead and take a chance, abandon my family for a night, and enjoy the game as a fan in person for the first time in two years. I just had one request going in:
Yeah, about that.
We'll get into that particular angle I had in a little bit, but by halftime there was a since of gloom that had settled into the stadium. A strong start had ended with Carolina just up by three, and the Tar Heels were already letting Syracuse get away with too much. We had little awareness, though, of what we were in for in an odyssey that would be stressful, hilarious, and fitting for long time fans of Carolina Football.
Let's get into this week's Winners, Losers, and Honorable Mentions.
Jordan Shipp-You want to vary some things up but honestly, Jordan Shipp is THE reason to watch Carolina play this year. Despite being handcuffed by his quarterback, he keeps a positive attitude on the field, stands up to post game interviews without any sort of bitterness, and continues to make play after play. He had eight receptions for 102 yards, one touchdown, and honestly with a better quarterback would be talked about as one of the best receivers in the league. Teams know that's who UNC is going to go to and he still gets the ball and makes plays. He is just simply a joy to see in person and someone you hope to root for whenever he leaves UNC.
Demon June-The touchdown he scored after Jordan Washington dropped perhaps the easiest touchdown catch he's ever going to have, and doing so on 4th and 1 when the whole stadium is still yelling in disbelief was just stuff of legend. With Benjamin Hall out of the lineup, you can argue that he should have been used more, especially as Jaylen McGill is not the best "between the tackles after a big gain" runner. He had two touchdowns—that one on the ground and one from the air, and he's shown no signs of discontent of his role for the team.
Ahmad Miller-The Syracuse running back just had an outstanding game. He averaged 4.1 yards per carry on 31 attempts and netted 128 yards on the ground with two touchdowns. He just wore the Tar Heels out and was a big reason that Carolina ultimately would give up completion after completion to a quarterback returning from injury. The defense had a few good stops, but not nearly enough to where the passing game opened up and killed Carolina with death by 1,000 cuts. The two-pointer was "successful" because they had to respect him, and he's the reason Syracuse won that game.
Billy Edwards, Jr-What's funny is that looking at his stat line—27-44, 271 yards, 2 TDs—he doesn't belong in this category, but this is why numbers absolutely can lie to you. His limitations at downfield throws have been mentioned before, but he lost the game for Carolina when he had not one, but two horrid throws down in the red zone that would have scored the game-deciding touchdown. The Tar Heels were up three, and going up ten with 7:14 left in the game would have sped Syracuse up and made them less reliant on Miller who they couldn't stop. The second and third down plays were right there and they were just poor throws. Once again it makes you wonder just how bad the other quarterbacks are that they won't even get a sniff—but something tells me we'll see them next week because the game will be out of hand early.
Greg Smith-One of the usual stalwarts in UNC's defensive backfield just didn't have a good night. This play , specifically, sucked all of the energy out of Kenan when Carolina had finally gone back by up by 10. He clearly read where the ball was going but not only ran past the ball, he completely gave up on the play. When he did, it just let Syracuse get the touchdown that brought them right back into the game. To see him just misplay that and then essentially give up when he could have had some speed to at least make a stop and give UNC a chance just killed whatever momentum UNC had.
ESPN-So I think we've done a good job here illustrating that UNC earned the loss, and what comes next here isn't the reason they lost but it's still maddening. Explain to me how a company that produces and broadcasts more college football games than anyone else and made over $2.5 billion in profit last year—not to mention put this game on their showcase spot for the league-branded network doesn't have someone saying, "Hey, maybe on this two-point conversion in overtime where all the action will occur here and the other side of the field doesn't matter we should set up a camera to capture both angles of the end zone?" You don't even need to do that for what resulted, you do it so you can show the drama from as many angles as possible! How do you not have a camera person to get the definitive angle of whether or not Calvin Russell III actually crossed the plane with the ball?
It's scary when you see the view above that if I had been smart enough to just roll with my iPhone Pro 16 I could have emailed the ACC to say, "Hey, because ESPN didn't do it, here's a view of the goal line where this happened!" To be clear, I don't blame the officials for saying the try was successful as it was a bang-bang play and in real speed you could see why it was ruled good. I'm not even saying he failed to break the plane, but I think everyone can agree that you couldn't 100% say for sure that he did. Clearly the league didn't either by just "upholding" the call instead of confirming it. It was an embarrassing display from the ACC to ESPN to outright show they screwed up, and the killer is that they'll (rightfully) talk about how they gave that game away instead of acknowledging any sort of mistake on their part.
Again—embarrassing ESPN, fans deserve an explanation for that.
Jelani Thurmancontinues to dazzle and be perhaps the best acquisition out of the portal for the Tar Heels as the second leading receiver, picking up 77 yards on 7 catches. You could argue he and Shipp needed to have the ball thrown their way more… Jaylen McGillhad a solid game with Benjamin Hall out, but as mentioned it feels like Carolina was trying to be too cute by getting plays off without a sub when a swap for June would have made more sense…We should also note here that once again Carolina lost out on College Gameday, confirmed by Stanford Steve in the SVPod Saturday night outright saying had Carolina won the circus would have come to Chapel Hill. The show may be a shell of its former self but the exposure would have been huge for a program that hasn't hosted the program since 1997. It was one of the things that UNC thought they were getting with the Bill Belichick hire, but instead it's more of the same.
The Tar Heels now have to lick their wounds and try to not get too beat up next weekend against Miami in Primetime. They still have a chance at a solid record with the rest of the schedule, but it's clear that each game is going to be a dog fight.
