Well, they finally did it: the Tar Heels finally earned their first ACC win of the season against Syracuse. For college football fans that don’t pay enough attention to what goes on the conference, allow
me to catch you up: the Orange lost starting quarterback Steve Angeli for the season after he suffered a torn Achilles tendon against Clemson. They decided to start Joseph Filardi against the Tar Heels this past Saturday, and it couldn’t have been a worse decision. Filardi completed 4 of his 18 passes for 39 yards and zero touchdowns, which is easily the worst numbers any quarterback has put up against the Heels this year. Honestly, it may be the worst a quarterback has performed against UNC this century.
This context is important because it seems like there has been a lot of script-flipping after the Heels earned their first conference win. Suddenly we are hearing that they only have to win three more games to go to a bowl, and that they were just inches away from being above .500. Allow me to be the one to throw cold water on the situation: UNC should’ve beaten Virginia and Cal regardless of the two plays in question, and the fact that they didn’t is a symptom of the current problem that exists in Chapel Hill. Beating Syracuse doesn’t fix that, either. The players deserve credit for how hard they’ve been playing, and I will even give the defense an extra pat on the back for doing what they’ve been doing, but ultimately the school is still paying a Super Bowl winning coach way too much money to provide what has been a mid to bad product so far. Beating a worse team doesn’t mean progress was made. I don’t enjoy being that person, but again, just trying to keep us all grounded in reality.
With that out of the way, UNC is about to encounter another bad team in Stanford. The Cardinal currently boast a 3-6 record with conference wins against Florida State and Boston College. They’ve had moments of fielding a respectable offense, but they have also had a couple of games in which they barely scored. The Heels could catch another break this weekend, and Vegas seems to agree — per FanDuel Sportsbook, the Heels are the 8.5-point favorite in the opening odds, and the over/under is set at 42.5. There’s a very real chance that the Heels can pull it off, but will it be because of measurable progress, or will it be because the Cardinal are in the sunken place? That will be for us to judge, should things go well.
What do you think of this week’s opening odds? Also, what do you think about the narrative shift following UNC’s win over Syracuse? Let us know in the comments below.
