I honestly don’t want to live in a football reality where UNC pays Bill Belichick $30,000,000 to get owned by Manny Diaz. That feels disturbingly wrong, like some mischievous quantum gremlin reversed the
polarity of a few subatomic particles and unleashed coaching chaos. UNC took Duke to the wire in a game many expected to be a Blue Devil blow-out. UNC came back from a 14 point deficit to take a late lead. UNC’s position groups played some good football to make a win seem possible — and even probable at some points.
Unfortunately, critical mistakes cost the Tar Heels a win against the Blue Devils. Let’s jump into the position grades. Feel free to add or argue in the comments below.
Quarterback: A
Gio Lopez was given an assignment by these coaches and this game plan. His assignment: don’t turn the ball over. Put up 24 or more points in a low possession game. Show some leadership and inspire his teammates.
And Gio aced that assignment. He passed for 204 yards and a touchdown. He completed 21 of 27 passes. He ran for 20 yards and a touchdown. He took hit after hit as Duke blitzed constantly. Again and again, the ball came out fast and accurately right before Lopez took a shot. Gio always got back up and did it again. UNC went 8-13 on 3rd downs, and 13 of UNC’s 18 first downs came through the air. Gio’s QBR in this game was 65.6; 70 is considered the threshold for elite. Face it – he had a very good game relative to the game plan.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not pretending Gio turned into Tom Brady in this game. However, within the context of his assignment, Gio was nails. Gio’s not a QB who can erase critical mistakes from other units. It was up to the rest of the team to gets Bs and As on their assignments, and as we’ll see, some of those components fell well short of that mark.
Offensive Line: B
The offensive line has struggled since shuffling due to injuries, and that continued in some respects against Duke. Gio took three sacks on seven pressures, but those pressures came immediately, not from Lopez wandering around the pocket and trying to decide what to do. The run game netted 120 yards at 5.5 yards per carry (prior to sacks). That’s not bad, but for context Duke had surrendered an average of 190 yards rushing against its last four opponents. A couple of untimely holding penalties hurt at the worst times. On the final drive, Duke’s defensive line was on top of Lopez a split second after the ball on two of those plays.
Wide Receivers: A
Someone had to be catching all those hot reads from Lopez, and the receivers came through. The route running against a defense like Duke’s has to be on point; the ball has to come out fast and be thrown to a spot. It’s the receiver’s job to be there on time and make the catch. They did so over and over again. Shipp, Paysour, and Green totaled 167 yards on 15 catches. Shipp was the main threat, with 83 yards and a touchdown. They did their job.
Running Backs: C
Davion Gause was this game’s break-out running back. Gause rushed for 63 yards and a touchdown on eight carries, and added a catch for 21 more. June and Hall contributed only 18 yards on their combined eight carries. A couple of missed blitz pickups got the QB rocked. The running backs were not a huge part of the game plan, and only Gause did damage to the Blue Devils with his touches.
Defensive Line: A
Mensah looked hesitant all game. The defensive line only registered one sack and two tackles for loss, but Mensah was on the move all night. That, in part, was due to the defensive line eating up blockers and creating space for the linebackers and defensive backs to bring pressure from a variety of shifting angles. The Duke QB bailed on a couple of clean pockets largely from his sensitivity to their presence. Mensah threw for 175 yards and a touchdown, well below his season average of 300 a game.
Linebackers: D
Duke ran for 177 yards in this game, after rushing for an average of 63 yards a game against its last three ACC opponents. Yards after contact for Sheppard came again and again. Anderson Castle, their big back, routinely churned out tough yards between the tackles and looked like someone UNC didn’t want to tackle at times. Tyler Thompson, a game wrecker in some previous contests, totaled one tackle. Jeremiah Hasley, Duke’s TE, had 83 yards and a touchdown on seven catches, both season highs. To the extent Duke’s offense made hay, it came at the expense of UNC’s linebackers.
Defensive Backs: A
Carolina’s defensive backs largely contained Duke’s wide receivers both short and deep. Mensah excels at extending plays and finding receivers as coverage breaks down. In this game, a lot of throws went out of bounds because Mensah couldn’t find anyone. Will Hardy was the team’s leading tackler. Defensive backs registered three of the defense’s five tackles for loss, blowing up Duke’s screen game again and again. All in all, the unit had its most impressive game of the season against the best quarterback it’s faced.
Special Teams: Expelled
Special teams cost UNC the game, and they did it in multiple ways. We’ll get to the fake field goal, but let’s discuss other special teams miscues first.
Kickoffs: After our first touchdown, the coverage unit allowed Duke a 40 yard return and starting field position near midfield. Carolina attempted an onside kick to open the second half, but execution failed miserably, once again gifting Duke excellent field position. On Carolina’s final drive, Duke kicked from the 50 due to an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty on the previous two point attempt. Hardy, for some reason, attempted to return it — and only made it to the 17.
The two field goal attempts by Duke need some context. The first was a 46 yard attempt on 4th and 29. Duke’s field goal kicker on the year is 6-11 between 40 and 49 yards. The kick is basically a coin flip for Duke. Blocking it would be nice, but the odds of blocking it are low from the edge. The only thing that can’t happen on that play is the one thing that did: roughing the kicker. That penalty’s effectively a turnover, and Duke turned it into a touchdown one play later.
The second attempt was from 44 yards. Again, that’s a distance where the odds of a miss by that kicker approach 50%. The far greater danger lies in either a roughing penalty or a fake field goal. The rush from the edge left no one to contain a fake, and Duke turned that one into a touchdown as well. If you’re counting at home, that’s two coin flip shots at three points turned into two touchdowns as a result of poor execution and poor awareness.
Coaching: F
Diaz and his staff clearly took notes from UNC’s first attempt to block a field goal and decided to gamble if they saw something similar setting up on a subsequent attempt. That’s what good coaching does. It caught Belichick and his staff completely flat footed, and it won Duke the game.
12 penalties for 103 yards.
Duke winning five of six 4th down attempts.
Those three things cost UNC this game. All of them directly reflect coaching and lack of preparation. All of them reflect a team and coaches that lost their focus at the worst moments. Bill didn’t do his job.
So, that’s the rabbit hole this season has gone down. Manny Diaz outcoaches Bill Belichick. Carolina loses to Duke. UNC, courtesy of John Preyer and Chancellor Roberts, spent around $40 million this season to make that a reality. Well done, gents.
