Well the debut of the Bill Belichick era did not go as hoped. After a perfect first drive from the North Carolina offense, Monday’s season opener against TCU was all Horned Frogs after that, as they crushed UNC 48-14.
Considering the publicity that Belichick’s hire brought — for both good and bad reasons — losing in that fashion does have plenty of people pointing and laughing at Carolina at the moment. It’s going to take several good performances for UNC to get that game out of people’s minds, but
you have to start somewhere. For the Tar Heels, that start begins this Saturday against Charlotte.
Under first year head coach Tim Albin, the 49ers opened their new season against Appalachian State in a neutral-ish site at Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, as opposed to the 49ers’ normal home stadium. While Charlotte held a 3-0 lead over the Mountaineers after the first quarter, App State scored 17 unanswered in the second and cruised after that for a 34-11 win.
On paper, this represents a much easier opportunity for UNC, but what do the 49ers have in store in week two?
On the offensive side of things, Charlotte is led by former Tar Heel Conner Harrell at quarterback. His debut with the 49ers wasn’t super crisp, as he went 13-24 for 142 yards, one touchdown, and one interception. Even though UNC’s defense didn’t looked particularly crisp on Monday night, you’d hope they have enough to hold Harrell in check, considering those stats against a group of five team.
Harrell is also not the only former UNC player who will feature on the 49ers’ offense. Wide Reciever Justin Olson also plays for them, and he caught two passes for 56 yards in their first game.
Charlotte also did not particularly have a ton of success in the ground either. In total, App State held them to 76 yards on 29 attempts, and that number doesn’t even include negative sack yardage, as the Mountaineers didn’t record one. The 49ers just couldn’t get three yards per attempt in the run game. You’d certainly hope that UNC won’t have any issues with any facet of Charlotte’s offense, but the Tar Heels have been the cure for bad offense in the past, and the one game sample size we have isn’t enough to show that anything’s that different yet.
On the defensive side of the ball, Charlotte didn’t exactly impress there either. They allowed App to rack up 586 yards at 6.6 yards per play. App got less than 100 more in that game against UNC in 2022, which was the worst defensive performance by a team that I’ve seen in my entire life. Nearly allowing that just off the rack doesn’t fill me with confidence that they’ll be able to stop Carolina, even if UNC’s offense wasn’t awe-inspiring on Monday.
Most of the damage done by Appalachian State in that game came through the air. The Mountaineers put up 386 passing yards against the 49ers, coming at just under 10 yards per attempt. Charlotte also allowed nearly five yards per carry as well, so you could probably run the ball against them as well. Another former Tar Heel in Ja’Qurious Conley forced and recovered a fumble last week, but that was one of very few good things that happened for Charlotte on that side of the ball.
Of course, all of that is also just a one-game sample size for Charlotte. It’s not impossible that they could be better than they showed in week one, just as it’s not impossible that UNC is as well. That being said, signs point that UNC should be able to handle this game, and if not, things will be even more worrying that they currently feel.
