Even though they may not admit it, you have to think that games against a former team carry at least a little extra weight for a player.
That was the situation for Derek McDonald this week; the sixth-year linebacker spent the first five seasons of his college career at Syracuse, playing 41 games with 27 starts for the Orange. His performance against them on Saturday suggests he had this matchup circled on his calendar: a career-high 16 tackles, including four solo stops and one tackle for loss (he also had a sack negated by a holding call in the secondary). The singular TFL on the stat sheet is actually a combination of two half-TFLs, one of which brought Syracuse to fourth-and-goal in overtime. We don't have to talk about what happened after that.
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An honorable mention goes to sophomore running back Demon June, who broke off a season-long 25-yard touchdown run to put Carolina up 20-10 in the third quarter and caught a 3-yard pass for the go-ahead touchdown in overtime (the touchdown run came on fourth-and-1 immediately after redshirt sophomore tight end Jordan Washington dropped a wide-open touchdown pass). It's the second multi-score game of June's career against an FBS opponent; both have come against Syracuse.
