In 1996, the powers that govern college football implemented a new, exciting innovation to the game we all love: overtime. After decades of slogging through the muck of regular season ties and three-column
records, we finally had a way to determine a winner, even in the case of two moribund teams struggling to get out of their own way long enough to score points. Probably irrelevant, that last point, but thought I’d mention it anyway. In any case, every college football game now has a winner and a loser, which is great. In specific, for this weekend, it means this:
Someone’s going to have to win this game.
The Stanford Cardinal came into the season embracing a full down-to-the-studs rebuild, led by an obvious and acknowledged bridge coach in Frank Reich (formerly of the mighty Carolina Panthers). The excitement for the program writ large was based on the return of the prodigal son Andrew Luck to Palo Alto, and not necessarily for the product that would be on the field. The Tar Heels’ season started differently, of course, but has wound up in essentially the same place; thrashing about ineffectively in the bottom third of the ACC standings, wallowing in the long shadows cast by perennial powers like Virginia, Georgia Tech, and Pitt.
While the vibes have been fairly different, the results have been similar: 3-6 (2-4 in conference) for the Cardinal, 3-5 (1-3) for the Tar Heels, with each team dragging around a specific unit like a boat anchor. For Carolina, it’s obviously and repeatedly the offense. Luckily, Stanford’s defense has been almost equally bad thus far in the season — this phase of the game may hinge on which team least wants to lose, rather than which team wants to win. The Cardinal have been especially bad against the pass, so Gio Lopez will hopefully have a chance to flex the ability that is almost certainly in there somewhere. The Carolina stable of running backs should also be anticipating a decent outing; there definitely seem to be yards there for the taking. Tar Heel Blog writer Evan Davis mentioned in his Three Things post yesterday that the Stanford defense is ceding ground at a clip of very nearly 425 yards per game. This average is right in line with UNC’s comparative offensive explosion against Syracuse last week, and would mark a sustaining of competence that we’ve been yet to see from this Tar Heel unit. Stanford has only one player, defensive linemane Clay Patterson, who has more than two sacks on the season, so here’s hoping that Lopez has the time and inclination to stay in the pocket and carve up this struggling Cardinal defense.
The Cardinal offense is a different beast, and perhaps harder to predict as Coach Reich is looking to a new quarterback to take over for floundering former starter Ben Gulbranson. Elijah Brown will be under center tomorrow for Stanford, and this phase of the game will hinge on the Tar Heel defense being able to heat him up and get him off rhythm. The gameplan for the team from Palo Alto will likely be fairly simple for a quarterback making his second career start, and that gives the Tar Heel defensive front — who have been the strength of this unit in recent weeks — a chance to get home and cause problems. Compounding this perceived advantage for Carolina is the Stanford offensive line, who have been porous at best this season. If the Tar Heel defense can get after Brown early and often, he may not be able to settle into the game and may be easier to coax into making the same kind of back-breaking mistakes as his predecessor.
This game is likely to be ugly. Stanford, struggling through recent weeks, now has to endure the cross country travel to play in Chapel Hill and trot out a new quarterback on the road. Carolina, on the other hand, has to get out of its own way on two consecutive weekends, which hasn’t happened since the Charlotte-Richmond two-pack following the TCU debacle. On paper, in my heart, and according to Vegas, this should be a second conference win for Carolina.
After all, somebody has to win this game.
