By Doc Kennedy
The first, and most important, is that former wide receiver Tylee Craft lost his 2½-year battle with cancer at age 23. Craft defied the odds to survive as long as he did and was a beacon of strength and inspiration for the Tar Heel football team. It was particularly poignant that Craft passed on the day of the Cancer Awareness game in Chapel Hill, where he was honored at the end of the first quarter.
Craft’s mom and Coach Mack Brown spent almost the entire time locked in a tearful embrace; Brown, who did not know at the time that Craft had lost his valiant fight, said he knew something was wrong then. In the postgame press conference, Brown noted that the team had been informed on Thursday that Craft was being moved to hospice and the end was near, and you can only imagine that weighed heavily on their minds during the game on Saturday.
On the field, UNC suffered another heartbreaking defeat, dropping their fourth straight game, this time to Georgia Tech 41–34 in the final seconds after the Tar Heels had clawed back to tie the game with 44 seconds to play. The Jackets literally ran over Carolina, to the tune of 505 yards of offense at nearly eight yards per play, including the 68-yard winning touchdown in the game’s final seconds. The UNC defense was solid early, but Tech soon figured out the solution while so many things seemed hard for the Tar Heels, which is often the case when a team is struggling.
With that in mind, here is the Georgia Tech edition of the Good, Bad, and Ugly Report:
Good
Omarion Hampton
The ACC’s leading rusher and Good section’s permanent resident chalked up 137 yards on the ground for a healthy 7.6 average and caught four passes out of the backfield.
UNC return game
Alijah Huzzie returned a punt for 69 yards and a touchdown, and Nate McCollum had three kick returns for 85 yards.
Penalties
UNC tied a season-low with only three penalties against the Jackets, though one negated a 43-yard gain. Still, it was a marked improvement for the ACC’s most penalized team coming into the game.
Bad
Strength and conditioning
I’m using this for lack of a better term, but week in and week out against FBS competition, both UNC’s offensive and defensive lines are routinely overmatched and outmuscled. Opposing defenses frequently get pressure on Jacolby Criswell rushing only four, while the defensive front often gets bullied by the other team’s offensive line, as sack totals have dropped since the opener (zero sacks vs. GT, although on only 23 attempts) while rushing totals have steadily risen. This problem has existed since the middle of the Larry Fedora era but is particularly glaring now.
Winning the game in the fourth quarter
For the third straight week, UNC led or was tied in the fourth quarter and lost the game. Carolina has been outscored 38–10 in the fourth quarter over those three games and, ironically, has not outscored an opponent in the second half since James Madison.
Gash plays
Stop me if you’ve heard this one, but Carolina was carved up once again on big-gain plays, giving up 16 plays longer than 10 yards and six longer than 20 yards. While this did represent an improvement over the last few weeks, Tech averaged a crisp 7.1 yards per play.
Ugly
Half-ending drives
After UNC had clawed back to cut the Georgia Tech lead to 17–14 late in the first half, and set to receive the second-half kickoff for a possible halftime score sandwich, the Jackets gained 63 yards on just three rushing plays and 31 seconds of game time for a field goal to push the lead to 20–14. And then after a gutsy fourth quarter by the Heels to erase a 10-point deficit, Jamal Haynes took a handoff up the middle for a 68-yard touchdown that won the game for Tech. Those two drives covered 138 yards in only five plays, four of them rushes (and the lone completed pass was for seven yards) and less than one minute off the clock.
Defense
At this point, it’s systemic. For much of the season, it seemed to be primarily a pass-defense issue, with teams picking on UNC’s poor defensive backfield play while the front seven could not generate much pressure. Georgia Tech completely flipped the script, rushing for 371 yards at 7.7 yards per attempt and five scores. The Jackets imposed their will on Carolina, more than doubling their rushing average coming into the game. And once again, the UNC defense was often confused, trying to get into position at the snap. Yet another poor effort, given that with a serviceable defense, this team could easily be 4–3 or 5–2.
So now UNC heads into a key open date on a four-game skid with so, so many questions. This season is starting to take on 2018 vibes, with a potentially lame-duck staff and an inability to win close games (seven of the nine losses in 2018 were by 10 points or fewer). On the other hand, there is nothing particularly scary about the back half of the season on paper. Carolina’s last five opponents have a combined record of 14–16, and with some defensive improvement, finding three wins for bowl eligibility is not a huge leap. On the other hand, UNC’s first two games after the open week on either side of Halloween are at Virginia and at Florida State, which have historically held far more tricks than treats for the Tar Heels. How much of a nightmare the 2024 season becomes is still to be seen.
Doc Kennedy is an alum, longtime UNC fan, and former high school and college basketball coach who wrote this report for years on Tar Heel Blog.
Photo courtesy of UNC Athletics
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