UNC’s football game against Syracuse was one fitting of being played on Halloween night. It was scary for all involved and a Demon was the star of the show. No tape of this game should ever be preserved for any reason, but Carolina was able to take advantage of a terrible performance by the Orange to secure a 27-10 win that snapped their four-game losing streak.
Watching the Tar Heels play has been pretty frightful so far in 2025 and the first half of this game was pretty much exactly the same. Despite
the fact that the Heels out-gained Syracuse 208-71 and their quarterback only completed one pass, Carolina went into halftime trailing 10-6. That was largely thanks to a scoop-and-score touchdown from the Orange defense in the first quarter.
Syracuse chose to roll with lacrosse-guy-turned-quarterback Joseph Filardi who looked, honestly, awful. The Orange briefly made a change for freshman Luke Carney before trotting Filardi back out there for more suffering and masochism. Filardi finished the game just 4-18 for 39 yards.
The star of the show for Carolina was Demon June. Syracuse was utterly inept at tackling and June ran all over them for 182 total yards and two touchdowns. Jordan Shipp chipped in the other touchdown with 50 receiving yards. Gio Lopez managed to be the better quarterback on the field, finishing with 216 yards and two touchdowns.
So the losing streak monkey is off Carolina’s back but it still feels like very little to celebrate. It’s hard to not think that any team with even a semi-decent quarterback would have been able to bury UNC, especially in the first half when they could not really get their offense going. Wins were going to be hard to find in Carolina’s remaining schedule, so picking up this one is nice, but the vibes overall still feel pretty suboptimal. Maybe that is just any optimism having been ground to a pulp by this team this year. Maybe it’s unfair. Either way.
All you can do is play the team in front of you, and Carolina managed to be the better team on the field tonight. They finally got their first ACC win and win against a Power Four team of the season.
The Tar Heels have a chance to make it two in a row next week when they take on Stanford in Chapel Hill.
