Friedlander: Same result, different feeling for NC State, North Carolina after opening night wins
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One team had hype. The other had hope.
Which is probably why the opening night performances by neighboring rivals NC State and North Carolina felt so different Thursday night. Even though both came away with the same result.
A win that starts their season on a positive note.
Just a little more positive for one than the other.
While the Tar Heels came away from their 19-17 victory at Minnesota feeling optimistic about their new – and at least on this 1 night improved – defense, the 24th-ranked Wolfpack have reason to feel uneasy about a restocked offense that didn’t exactly live up to its preseason billing in a 38-21 home win against Western Carolina.
The best thing that can be said about the debut of transfer quarterback Grayson McCall and his newly assembled arsenal of playmakers, other than that they rallied from an early 4th quarter deficit to finish strong for the win, is that there’s plenty of room to grow heading into next week’s uber-important showdown against Tennessee in Charlotte.
The same holds true for UNC.
As encouraging as its defense was in its 1st game under new coordinator Geoff Collins, it took a pair of missed field goals and a couple of fortuitous bounces of the ball to keep the flight back to Chapel Hill from being much less festive.
That’s the thing about opening games.
In most cases, especially when the opponent is an FCS team being paid 6 figures just to show up, they’re little more than a dress rehearsal for the real tests to come.
So let’s hold off on the knee-jerk reactions and sweeping conclusions.
At least for another week.
Because as the time-honored cliché tells us, teams make their biggest improvement during a season between their 1st and 2nd games.
For the Wolfpack, that means getting all their moving parts on offense synched to begin flowing in the same direction. That process may already have begun during a 4th quarter in which they accounted for 160 of their 521 total yards and 2 of their 4 touchdowns.
Until then, their attack looked eerily similar to the one that stumbled through last season with passes being thrown behind and short of open receivers, a running game unable to pick up a yard on 4th down – not once, but twice – and star receiver KC Concepcion as its only consistent threat.
https://twitter.com/NFL_DF/status/1829311479184548125
Concepcion caught 9 passes for 121 yards and 3 touchdowns. But as McCall and the others began to find their rhythm, the newly enhanced depth and explosiveness coach Dave Doeren and coordinator Robert Anae sought from the portal finally began to appear.
Duke transfer Jordan Waters finished with 123 yards on 20 carries, most of which came on the final game-clinching drive. Oklahoma’s Hollywood Smothers averaged 13 yards per carry on his 3 attempts while UConn tight end Justin Joly provided an element that was missing a year ago by providing a big target across the middle while catching 5 balls for 75 yards.
UNC also got some immediate help from a portal addition. And a familiar one, at that. Graduate safety Jakeen Harris, who played his 1st 4 seasons as a member of the Wolfpack, led the Tar Heels with 10 tackles against the Gophers.
But it was the influence of another newcomer that made the biggest difference. Replacing predecessor Gene Chizik’s bend-but-don’t break philosophy with a much more aggressive approach to his defensive play-calling, Collins’s scheme kept Minnesota guessing all night.
Usually wrong.
With many of the same players that were part of a defense that was among the ACC’s worst of the past 2 seasons doing the heavy lifting – Jahvaree Ritzie had 7 tackles and 3 sacks, Power Echols 7 tackles, Alijah Huzzie 6 tackles and Kaimon Rucker 2 TFLs and a sack – the Tar Heels limited their opponent to 78 yards and 2.8 yards per carry on the ground and 244 total while recording 5 sacks and a takeaway.
The task now is learning to string that kind of performance together on a consistent basis.
NO GOOD 😱
Minnesota misses the game-winning field goal attempt and North Carolina survives! pic.twitter.com/6bKBNRnuUC
— FOX College Football (@CFBONFOX) August 30, 2024
With an upcoming schedule that has them playing at home against Charlotte, NC Central and James Madison over the next 3 weeks before opening the ACC schedule against Duke on Sept. 28, the Tar Heels should have an opportunity to build on their momentum. And figure out their quarterback situation after starter Max Johnson was carted off with a leg injury early in the 2nd half.
State won’t have the luxury of easing into its schedule.
It jumps right from the kiddie pool into the deep end in Charlotte next week against a Tennessee team with a 5-star quarterback, a soon-to-be 1st round NFL pass rusher and a roster loaded with SEC talent.
The Wolfpack aren’t just going to have to be better than they were on Thursday to have any shot at beating the Volunteers. They’re going have to be exponentially better. And hope that their new offense doesn’t take as long to start living up to its hype.
Award-winning columnist Brett Friedlander has covered the ACC and college basketball since the 1980s.
