The Tar Heels closed out the Mack Brown era with a similar ending to the previous regime that he took over. In a back-and-forth affair, the Wolfpack got the last laugh as they found the endzone with :25 seconds to go. The game would end with a huge brawl at midfield, very reminiscent of the fight that took place in the endzone of the 2018 loss, Larry Fedora’s final day on the job. Here a look at our biggest takeaways from yet another gut-wrenching loss to NC State.
Heartbreak Strikes for The Third Time in Three Years
Soul crushing endings have become the name of the game for the Tar Heels in this rivalry in the last four years. In 2021, it was two touchdowns in 26 seconds. In 2022, it was Noah Burnette missing a field goal to tie it and send it to a third overtime. This year, it’s Noah Rogers hauling in his only catch of the day between two defenders. The Tar Heels simply haven’t been able to make plays when they’ve had to in each of these games and this one might be the most disappointing of the three because it was Brown’s final. Hopefully, under whoever the next coach is those late game moments will shift in favor of the Tar Heels.
Defense Falls Apart in the Second Half
Another staple of the Mack Brown 2.0 era has been defensive struggles and those showed up once again in the second half of the game. After holding the NC State offense to just 89 yards and seven points in the first half, the Tar Heel defense failed to make another stop, allowing points on all six possessions to go along with 373 yards of total offense. The Tar Heel defensive line, which was so impactful early in the game, was dominated in the second half in both the running and passing games and a Tar Heel back six that did a good job in coverage early in the game was picked apart by Wolfpack quarterback C.J. Bailey in the final two quarters. One of the main goals for the new coach needs to be making this defense that showed flashes of success throughout this season more consistent, especially in late game situations.
Omarion Hampton Was Phenomenal, But He Scored Too Early
Hampton put together another amazing performance for the Tar Heels on Saturday, basically carrying this offense the entire day. He carried the ball 22 times for 185 yards and a touchdown and also caught four passes for a team-high 78 yards and a touchdown. With this performance, he finishes the regular season with 1,660 rushing yards, the second-most in a single season for a Tar Heel running back trailing only Don McCauley’s 1,720 in 1970. His one mistake may have been scoring too early on the final offensive drive, but we’re not going to criticize a guy for scoring because this defense couldn’t do their job.
Slow Start Was Costly
The offense closed the game strong but it wasn’t all smooth for the offense. The first quarter was a complete disaster for this offense, as they failed to register a first down, totaled just 26 yards of offense and fumbled a ball on their own 11 yard line that turned into the only points of the first half for the Wolfpack. While the unit did start to roar to life in the second quarter, not being able to establish an early lead with how well the defense was playing proved costly. Slow offensive start became an issue for this team late in the season and hopefully that is something that gets ironed out before next season starts.
Noah Burnette Strikes Against NC State Again
One of the other big issues of the first half was the struggles of placekicker Noah Burnette who, as we mentioned earlier, cost them the game in 2022. In the first half on Saturday, Burnette missed the extra point on the lone touchdown of the first half and also pushed a 44-yard field goal wide right. He would recover to make all of his extra points in the second half, but even his made field goal was an adventure. One can only imagine what might have been if the Tar Heels had taken a lead into that halftime locker room and not a deficit.
There Should Be Another QB Battle This Offseason
Coming off of last week, we preached patience about wanting the Tar Heels to bring in at least one quarterback in this offseason to compete with Jacolby Criswell, but today proved that needs to be the case. While Criswell did throw for 273 yards and three touchdowns, he continued to struggle with accuracy, especially on deep passes. Keeping Bryce Baker committed in the 2025 class should be priority number one at the position for the new coach, but the team shouldn’t rule out bringing in a transfer as well.
Flag-Planting Just Needs to Outlawed
The postgame brawl started with NC State players attempting to plant the flag at midfield on the Tar Heel logo. This was a pretty common occurrence around college football on Saturday and it resulted in multiple confrontations, including one in Columbus that had to be broken up using pepper spray. While I get the fact that you have 60 minutes to prevent that from happening, it’s clear that teams are always going to defend their logo and that this is the only sport where you can do something like this. With how contentious this has gotten over the years, it feels like the only move the NCAA can make to prevent players and, more importantly, others on the field who are in helmets and pads is to outlaw it moving forward.
Mack Brown Feels Like He Was Done Wrong and Rightfully So
Mack Brown did address the media after the game but chose not to take questions in his final meeting with them before heading into retirement. As expected, Brown did address his firing and expressed his disappointment with how things went down. “All I wanted to do was wait until the end of the year, and they wanted me to retire on Monday, before the (NC) State game. We haven’t beaten State, it was really important for these kids to play well and have a chance to win. I didn’t want to break their hearts on Monday. So I said, ‘No, I won’t do that.’ And then they wanted me to do it on Friday. Well I sure wasn’t going to do it Friday before the game." Considering there doesn’t seem to be a rule that would have prevented them from talking to prospective candidates during this week while not announcing that Brown was fired, this is a rough look for Bubba Cunningham. What makes it even worse is that the firing came from 5,000 miles away while Cunningham was with the basketball program in Hawaii. Say what you want about Brown’s second tenure in Chapel Hill, he deserved better than this both on and off the field.