By Doc Kennedy
Stop me if you’ve heard this one: UNC plays well enough to win, but key mistakes and an inability to get key stops amidst a defensive collapse in the second half doom Carolina to an excruciating loss.
For the second time this season, the Tar Heels gave up a touchdown in the last 30 seconds of the game to lose, this time to rival N.C. State 35–30 in the final game of Mack Brown’s second tenure as Carolina’s head coach. And unfortunately, the script was familiar, as UNC fans had seen this movie many times over the past six years.
Following the announcement earlier this week that Brown would not be back for a seventh season, it would have followed that the Tar Heels would rage against the dying of the light, and for one half, at least on the defensive end, it appeared that might be the case.
Although they trailed 7–6, Carolina held the Wolfpack to under 90 yards of total offense, and they only scored after a Jacolby Criswell fumble gave State the ball at the 11-yard line, leading to an easy touchdown. But UNC began the game offensively in the same manner as they played most of the game at Boston College last week — stuck in the mud, and the Heels trailed 7–6 at halftime.
The second half turned out to be nothing like the first, as both teams combined for 52 points and over 600 yards of total offense. The lead changed four times in the fourth quarter, and when Omarion Hampton scored on a 47-yard shovel pass with 1:51 left, it felt like every UNC fan knew what was coming.
As Yeats would say, things fell apart, and the center could not hold, and Hollywood Smothers slammed the door on the Tar Heel hopes by capping off a six-play, 75-yard touchdown drive in only 85 seconds that included converting a 1st and 20 with a Sportscenter catch by Noah Rogers while draped by two UNC defenders. With the defeat, Carolina lost their fourth straight in the series after blowout wins in the first two years of Mack Brown 2.0.
In the end, UNC edged the Pack in total yards, but State controlled the time of possession and converted on the Criswell fumble for a touchdown while Carolina intercepted State QB C.J. Bailey in the end zone to prevent a score but was not able to turn it into points. Otherwise, it was a typical UNC football performance, complete with outstanding individual plays, drive-killing penalties, blown coverages, missed tackles, special teams foibles and missed opportunities.
With that in mind, here is the NC State edition of the Good, Bad, and Ugly Report:
Good
Omarion Hampton
After being shut down last week, Hampton erupted for 185 yards and a score on the ground, and another four receptions for 78 yards and a touchdown. Hampton hit the 100-yard mark for the 10th time this season and ended up with 1,660 yards for the season, becoming the first FBS player to post back-to-back 1,500-yard seasons since Travis Etienne in 2018 and 2019. Hampton has truly established himself as one of the nation’s best and if this was his final game for the Tar Heels, it was a great cap to a great career.
Jacolby Criswell’s second half
After a pedestrian first half in which his poor play of the past few weeks continued, Criswell looked like a different player in the second stanza. Criswell threw for nearly 200 yards and two touchdowns after the break. He moved much better than he has in weeks, and getting the passing game operating opened up things for Hampton on the ground.
Bad
Noah Burnette
To be fair, the usually reliable Carolina kicker hasn’t been the same since his injury earlier in the year, but he had a particularly rough day on Saturday. He missed his first extra-point attempt of the season, missed a field-goal attempt and doinked in another field goal off the upright. After missing a game-tying 35-yarder in the second overtime against State in Kenan two years ago, Burnette is probably glad not to have to face the Wolfpack again.
Penalties
UNC had nine penalties for 94 yards, and, as usual, many of them were drive-killers. State seems to bring out the worst in UNC when it comes to the yellow laundry.
Ugly
Second-half defense
After holding the Pack to under 90 yards in the first half, UNC was incapable of stopping N.C. State at all in the final 30 minutes. State rolled up 363 yards of offense and scored on all six second-half possessions, including four scores in the fourth quarter alone. Kaimon Rucker was injured early in the game on a cut block and did not return, but the Tar Heel defense did return to the porous form it had during Rucker’s absence earlier in the year. State only faced four third downs in their six second-half possessions. Just awful.
And so the book closes on Mack Brown 2.0, not in fiery passion but more in the icy coolness of the same thing fans have seen over and over, particularly late in each season. T.S. Eliot said April is the cruelest month, but for Carolina it seems November owns that title. As Brian Barbour, formerly of Tar Heel Blog posted on the app formerly known as Twitter, it was “appropriate UNC went out there and demonstrated why Mack Brown and his staff got fired.”
Brown led the Tar Heels to six straight bowl games, a streak bested only once in UNC football history. He also brought some amazing talent to Chapel Hill and revived a moribund program mired in the depths of the end of the Larry Fedora era. But Brown’s second tenure will be marked more by unrealized promise and underachievement relative to expectations. But, for the most part, the program is generally in better shape than Brown found it, and the next coach will not have to start from near rock bottom.
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
tarheeltribune.com 
1 Comment