The North Carolina Tar Heels’ football season quickly went from bad to worse in the span of just two weeks.
UNC, despite starting 3-0 with consecutive victories against Minnesota, Charlotte and NC Central, struggled for large portions of those games. North Carolina did win each of those games with a new quarterback, though – and the defense actually played well.
As we’ve come to love and know the Tar Heels, though, there’s always a collapse at any given point during a season.
UNC’s collapse started against James Madison, a Group of Five school whom UNC paid to come play in Chapel Hill. North Carolina turned the ball over five times, faced a 32-point halftime deficit, gave up over 600 yards and lost 70-50, which is more in-line with a basketball score.
The Tar Heels appeared to turn a corner last weekend at archrival Duke, pitching a first-half shutout. UNC collapsed in the second half, though, only scoring three points and allowing 21 unanswered in a 21-20 loss.
Despite all the recent adversity, North Carolina head coach Mack Brown still believes his players can turn their season around.
“I’ve told our team, I think this is one that’s going to be built to finish stronger and have a great finish at the end,” Brown told InsideCarolina’s Jeremiah Holloway. “And that’s something we haven’t done well, so that’s still out there for us.”
A strong finish would be a complete reversal from 2023, when the Tar Heels started 6-0 before finishing 8-5. In 2022, UNC started 9-1 before losing its final four games.
North Carolina is facing Pitt and Georgia Teach the next two weeks. Can the Tar Heels back up their head coach’s thoughts and play some good football?
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