Losing Record, Rivalry Loss Further Tarnish UNC's Disappointing Season

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — The Blue Devils eagerly trotted out the Victory Bell from behind their sideline onto the field once the clock hit zero in Kenan Stadium on Saturday, ringing it vigorously around the field and all the way back to the visitors’ tunnel — dragging the bell across North Carolina’s midfield logo on the way there.

For the second straight season, UNC’s home finale concludes with a rival team leaving its mark on the Tar Heels’ field. Last season was the infamous flag-planting incident after N.C. State’s victory that led to a post-game fight on the field. Last year’s loss to the Wolfpack was a sour note for Mack Brown to end on. This year, though, the loss to Duke and the celebration that followed further stains a messy start to Bill Belichick’s inaugural season with the Tar Heels.

UNC is now 4-7 and all but out of bowl contention. The only way it can go is on the off chance that both defeats N.C. State on Saturday to become 5-7 and then slides into the postseason if there aren’t enough six-win teams available (based on the team’s APR score). Regardless, the Tar Heels will finish the year as a losing team under the winningest coach in NFL history.

“As I’ve said all year, there’s a lot of things that we need to do better,” Belichick said after Saturday’s game. “And so at the end of the season, when that time comes, we’ll go back and take a look at things and make some adjustments. 

“Obviously, there’ll be some personnel turnover. You saw the seniors today that won’t be back, and, surely, other players that will be transitioning on. We have players coming in, so we’ll see how that goes. But yeah, we’ll evaluate everything we do and always try to find a little better way of doing it.”

A year that started with so much intrigue fell apart early, now there’s hardly anything left to play for except a win against State to break the program’s four-game losing streak against the Wolfpack.

North Carolina didn’t piece together a competitive game against a power conference team until the narrow loss to Cal, and it couldn’t piece together a win against one until defeating Syracuse on the road on Halloween. After two consecutive victories, UNC has dropped the last two while regressing defensively in the process. North Carolina’s offense had one of its better games of the year on Saturday — which still produced just 25 points and 305 yards of offense, but also zero turnovers —  yet it still couldn’t hold the Blue Devils off enough to keep a .500 record in play.

The Tar Heels provided moments of optimism on Saturday, with a touchdown on the opening drive, a rally from 10 points down to take a fourth-quarter lead and a stop on fourth down later that quarter to reclaim possession while ahead by one. But when they got the ball back, they couldn’t capitalize on the momentum. An offense that didn’t allow a sack all night gave up two in back-to-back plays, resulting in a three-and-out and a game-winning drive by the Blue Devils on the next drive.

North Carolina’s wins this season have come against Charlotte, Richmond of the FCS, a Syracuse team that started a walk-on, lacrosse player at quarterback and a Stanford team that’s been as inept offensively as UNC throughout the year. The Tar Heels had chances against Cal, Virginia and, now, Duke to secure a signature win, but those efforts fell short and kept UNC out of realistic bowl contention.

UNC started the season with 70 new faces on the roster, losing its key players to the NFL and the transfer portal. While the Tar Heels showed flashes of potential at times, the week-to-week consistency wasn’t high enough to surpass last season’s record.

“Whether we were with each other for years or not, it’s going to be hard to get consistency if we don’t take it one day at a time,” Andrew Simpson said. “And I feel like we did a better job at that as the season went on. It’s just tough to gel a lot of guys together like we did, but I feel like we built a lot of strong relationships. We all grew as the season went on. We got better. And I feel like individually, guys can look at themselves and be proud of the progress we made. It wasn’t easy, the things we were trying to do, but just happy that guys stuck through it. Nobody really gave up on each other, and we were all still confident that we could go in and win a game like today.”

As Gio Lopez’s final pass to Kobe Paysour went incomplete along Duke’s sideline, Paysour got swamped in a sea of elated Blue Devils before walking to the other side of the field. The UNC crowd, a group that was as lively as could be when the Tar Heels took the lead in the fourth quarter, stood silent when reality set in. Year One of the Belichick era produced just two home victories, and soon, it’ll be back to the drawing board.

A win against N.C. State could give the season a better ending and offer UNC fans some measure of satisfaction by getting off the snide against the Wolfpack, but practically, it wouldn’t change much for the team’s future. Roster and staff turnover will still take place, and North Carolina will still end the year below .500.

It’s onto Raleigh now, where the Tar Heels will wrap up what’s left of this disappointing season.