Ad Disclosure
It doesn’t matter who wins or who loses.
It’s only a game. No matter how important the outcome might seem.
If the devastation caused by hurricanes that ripped through Florida, Georgia and Western North Carolina in the past month weren’t enough of a reminder, then the events that took place in Chapel Hill on Saturday should be.
Losing to Georgia Tech on a last-second touchdown was disappointing. But for North Carolina, losing a teammate was heart-breaking.
The death of Tylee Craft hit the Tar Heels hard. Mack Brown’s tearful hug with Craft’s mother during the game and his emotional comments afterward speaks volumes about keeping things in perspective.
That makes this a difficult column to write. Because as the title suggests, it’s all about overreacting to events on the field of play.
So here are the 10 things I’m absolutely overreacting to after Week 7 in and around the ACC. Keeping in mind that it’s only a game.
10. Next man up at Alabama?
We all know about the stigma attached to being the man who follows The Man. So Kalen DeBoer knew exactly what he was getting into when he decided to take on the challenge of being Nick Saban’s successor at Alabama.
Six games into his tenure, he’s already feeling the heat.
Losing to Vanderbilt will do that.
Had it not been for Jalen Milroe and a little luck against South Carolina on Saturday, things might have gotten even worse for him. Even in victory, DeBoer rubbed the Crimson Tide’s demanding fans the wrong way when he said that his team is “getting accustomed” to playing close games.
Even though DeBoer might eventually grow on the folks in Tuscaloosa, it’s never too soon to speculate on who might eventually be the man who follows the man who followed The Man.
Hello, Dabo. You ready to come home now?
Better yet, you ready to embrace him now, Bama? That whole transfer portal thing doesn’t seem like such an issue now that his team is back in the top 10.
Funny how perceptions can change in just the span of a few months.
9. The most explosive offensive player in the ACC is _________ ?
Desmond Reid.
Desmond Who?
Exactly. The Pitt running back was an under-the-radar transfer portal pickup for coach Pat Narduzzi. But he’s been just as big a reason for the Panthers’ surprising 6-0 start as his higher-profile teammate Eli Holstein.
He came from Western Carolina along with offensive coordinator Kade Bell and he’s become the ACC’s answer to Christian McCaffery – an undersized back who is equally as dangerous as a receiver as he is a runner.
Reid ranks 4th in the ACC in rushing with 494 yards. He’s also among the league’s top 10 in receiving with 25 catches for 341 yards. He’s combined for 7 touchdowns, including an electric 72-yard sprint on a 4th-and-1 play that was the difference in Pitt’s 17-15 win against Cal on Saturday.
At his current pace, he’s a lock to be the first-team All-ACC selection at the “all purpose” position. Assuming, of course, enough voters learn who he is.
8. Kyle McCord’s go-to guys
Kyle McCord is a big reason the Fran Brown era at Syracuse is off to a promising 5-1 start. He’s thrown for 300-plus yards in all 6 of his games, a school record, including 346 in Saturday’s 24-17 win at NC State. But beyond his elite arm talent, a big reason McCord is off to such a promising start is the incredible stable of receivers he inherited.
Most quarterbacks have only 1 go-to guy they look for when all else fails. That can be a problem when defenses make a concerted effort to take him away. Just ask NC State’s KC Concepcion.
But McCord has 3.
He effectively spread the ball around to each of them against the Wolfpack on Saturday, hitting Georgia transfer Jackson Meeks 11 times for 116 yards and a touchdown, Trebor Pena had 8 catches for 75 yards and All-ACC tight end Oronde Gadsden II 6 for 74.
Between them, the trio has already combined for 112 catches and 12 touchdowns. They all rank among the top 10 in the conference in receiving yardage. If they’re not the best collection of receivers in the ACC, they’re a close 2nd to Cam Ward’s crew at Miami.
And nobody else is close.
7. Cal keeps making new friends
The Bears have made a lot of new friends during their short time in the ACC. And not just because of their creative social media presence or the way they’ve embraced becoming a member of a conference named for the opposite coast of them.
They’ve also endeared themselves to their ACC rivals with their penchant for playing just well enough to lose.
Justin Wilcox’s team is off to an 0-3 start in the league. It could just as easily be 3-0. Its 3 losses – to Florida State, Miami and Pitt – have come by a combined total of 7 points. Along the way, Cal has provided the Seminoles with their only ACC win despite outgaining them by more than 100 yards, helped the Hurricanes stay undefeated by squandering a 25-point lead in the final 18 minutes and gifted the Panthers their best start since Dan Marino was their quarterback by missing a potential game-winning field goal in the final 2 minutes.
NC State’s Dave Doeren can only hope the Bears’ generosity continues for at least another week. His Wolfpack, who share the ACC cellar with Cal and rival UNC, play in Berkeley next Saturday.
6. The 24-hour rule doesn’t apply
Most coaches subscribe to the concept that gives their players a day to celebrate a win or stew over a loss before moving on to the next game. The 24-hour rule, however, no longer applies to ACC equipment managers whose teams are scheduled to play one of the league’s new West Coast teams the following week.
As noted in a social media post by Cory Smith of PackPride.com, NC State’s equipment truck was already loaded up and ready to leave for the trip to California less than 2 hours after the end of Saturday’s game.
Watched the staff loading up last night at 1:30 am before finally getting on the road.
Really tough for equipment to go cross country for a 12:30 pm PT game next week after an 8 pm ET game last night. https://t.co/OLpxEEe3KN
— Cory Smith (@RCorySmith) October 13, 2024
It’s not that the Wolfpack were in a hurry to move past their loss to Syracuse. The early start to the trip was a matter of necessity. While the team will be able to get from Raleigh to Berkeley in a matter of hours by air, it will take several days for the truck to complete the nearly 3,000-mile trek. And then do it again in the opposite direction next week. At least State has an open date in Week 9.
Just one more unintended consequence of the silliness of bi-coastal conference expansion.
5. 50 is the new 30
I’m old enough to remember the days when 50-yard field goals were as rare for college kickers as a solar eclipse. And when coaches would elect to punt from the plus side of midfield much more often than they would risk giving up the field position that comes with a long 3-point miss.
That’s no longer the case. Whether it’s improved strength and weight training, the introduction of Red Bull and other brands of go-go juice or some other factors, the range of college kickers has expanded exponentially over the past few years.
On Saturday, Pitt’s Ben Sauls tied a school record by splitting the uprights from 58 yards out in the Panthers’ win against Cal. And that’s not even the longest field goal of the year in the ACC. Against Georgia Tech in Ireland in Week 0, Florida State’s Ryan Fitzgerald converted a 59-yarder. He also made a 52-yard chip shot in that same game.
A total of 11 ACC kickers have combined to make 19 field goals of 50 yards or longer
this season. Three of them – Fitzgerald, SMU’s Collin Rogers and Virginia Tech’s John Love – have made 2 in the same game. By contrast, only 1 ACC kicker – Pitt’s Alex Kessman – kicked multiple 50-yarders in a game during the 6 years between 2018-23.
There’s a good chance before the season is over that someone will break the 60-yard mark. Maybe it’s time for football to make things more interesting and go the way of basketball by establishing a 4-point line for field goals of a certain distance.
4. Glass half empty or glass half full?
NC State and UNC are a combined 0-6 in the ACC and headed nowhere fast. Both will be lucky just to earn bowl eligibility.
But there’s still reason for optimism among their fans. They only have to endure their misery for 3 more Saturdays.
Basketball season begins on Nov. 4.
3. Another week, another mystifying targeting call
When it comes to enforcing college football’s ambiguous targeting rule, the ACC has shown the inconsistency of a golfer suffering from the putting yips. It showed up again Saturday in the 2nd half of the NC State’s loss to Syracuse.
Wolfpack nickel Tamarcus Cooley was called for the infraction and ejected upon review for a hit on Orange receiver Trebor Pena that was far less egregious than the shot Cal quarterback Fernando Mendoza that wasn’t called a week earlier against Miami.
Unlike the Mendoza hit, the call on Cooley didn’t affect the outcome. But it could potentially have an impact on State’s next game since Cooley will have to sit out the first half as part of his punishment.
As previously mentioned in this column, it’s anybody’s guess what constitutes targeting and what doesn’t from week to week, game to game. My guess is that the guys in the control center aren’t sure, either.
So they just flip a coin.
2. Geoff Collins finally does something to make Tech fans happy
Saturday’s game in Chapel Hill was billed as the Geoff Collins revenge game.
Revenge was exacted, all right. Just not by the former Georgia Tech coach.
Checking-in on Georgia Tech fans after the Jackets defeated North Carolina, with their former head coach as DC… pic.twitter.com/XBG9C2CpxU
— RedditCFB (@RedditCFB) October 12, 2024
For a few fleeting moments, it did appear as though the UNC defensive coordinator might get the last laugh on the team that fired him 4 games into the 2022 season, manned by many of the players he recruited. His unit got 2 big stops late in the 4th quarter to set the stage for a game-tying 10-point rally in the final 3 1/2 minutes.
That only served to make what happened next all the more stunning.
Tech wasn’t even trying to score. With starting quarterback Haynes King sidelined with an injury, the Yellow Jackets seemed satisfied to keep the ball on the ground, run out the final 44 seconds of regulation and play for overtime. Instead, running back Jamal Haynes broke through a massive hole and sprinted 68 yards untouched for the winning touchdown. It was a massive breakdown at the worst possible time by Collins’ much-maligned defense.
Worst possible time from a UNC perspective, at least. For those partial to the Yellow Jackets, the dramatic finish was viewed as a form of retribution for the frustration they endured during Collins’ 3-plus season tenure in Atlanta. The Yellow Jackets won only 10 times in 38 games during his tenure.
According to one social media poster, Saturday’s outcome should count as No. 11.
1. It’s time, Mack
The disappointment of a 4-game losing streak, extended in the cruelest possible way, combined with the unthinkable emotional strain of learning that one of his players had died earlier in the day showed on Mack Brown’s face as he addressed the media in an emotional postgame press conference Saturday.
It was understandable. But at that moment, the 73-year-old coach looked even older than he actually is. And it added to the growing speculation that this will be his final season of coaching the Tar Heels.
Brown doesn’t need any of this. He’s already in the Hall of Fame. He has a national championship ring. Most importantly, he accomplished what he set out to do by cleaning up the mess left behind by his predecessor Larry Fedora and returning UNC to respectability.
The time has come for him to walk away. Finish out the season and call it a career. With an open date in the Tar Heels’ schedule, this week is an opportune time for him to announce it.
Award-winning columnist Brett Friedlander has covered the ACC and college basketball since the 1980s.
