The offense for Carolina was horrid, to say the least. People were using the word “putrid” to describe the performance that led to a 3-3 score going into halftime. Those three points? They came on a turnover.
UNC recovered the football in the shadow of the goal line and they were unable to actually gain any yards. In fact, there was only one drive that resulted in a first down — and that drive ended with a Gio Lopez fumble.
Then the second half kicked off and Davion Gause took over. Gause converted two third and longs to keep the opening drive of third quarter going, and then on a third and long with goal to go Gause cruised into the end zone to finally score the first touchdown of the day, and the offense was off and running.
Carolina would go on to score 17 points in that second half, and all of it started thanks to the spark that Guase gave on that drive when he consistently saved the offense on third and long. It was good to see from the running back, and good to see that when someone like Demon June is having a rougher night, someone else can step up.
Kobe Paysour and Jordan Shipp took advantage of Gause opening up the offense and made some tremendous plays later on in the half. Seeing how they’ve both developed into reliable receivers later in the year really makes you upset that they don’t have a better quarterback feeding the ball to them. It’s especially frustrating for someone like Paysour, as this is his last season of college eligibility, and you hope that he can earn some chances on someone’s NFL roster next season.
Gio Lopez, for his part, didn’t have any interceptions and was 18-24 passing in Carolina’s second straight win so…yay?
Melkart Abou-Jaoude and Tyler Thompson led the defense in an absolute pummeling of Stanford freshman quarterback Elijah Brown. Each had three sacks, which continues Jaoude’s run of impressive sack stats. Hey Principal Rooney, how many times was Brown actually sacked?
If you get this reference, it’s time to schedule your colonoscopy.
All in all it does feel a little off to give the player of the game to someone on offense when the defense shone almost all the way through, but they don’t win without Gause opening up the offense and saving their bacon on three third downs. It also doesn’t help the cause of the defense that they let Stanford back into that game when the Tar Heels had a 20-3 lead halfway into the fourth quarter. Losing that game would have been almost catastrophic, but fortunately Carolina was able to hold on.
So, for the second week in a row, a running back gets the offense going and earns the coveted Player of the Game for UNC. We’ll see if Gause can follow it up next week or if another running back will step in to open things up.
