The Tar Heels had the luxury of a bye week coming off of what was a very frustrating loss to UCF. The hope is that a number of things got ironed out during this extended break, but whether or not that actually happened is anybody’s guess. On one hand, Bill Belichick knows as well as anybody that a bye week needs to be productive so that you can go into the remainder of the season firing on all cylinders. On another hand, the man in charge was allegedly with his girlfriend in Nantucket over the weekend,
which optics-wise isn’t a good look whether fans think it’s a big deal or not. This season in general hasn’t been optically pleasing, though, so it’s probably whatever.
Regardless of how the bye week played out, Clemson is coming into town to try to recover their season as well. UNC’s high expectations were largely created by a lot of irresponsible adults imagining what a Bill Belichick-led team could do in college. Clemson’s expectations, however, are based off recent achievements and the measurable success of Dabo Swinney. Another way to say that is: Clemson’s downfall looks somehow worse than UNC’s, but they are still very capable of running the Heels out of Kenan Stadium. Let’s take a look at a few ways that UNC can (try t0) keep that from happening.
The quarterback offense problem
Let’s take a moment and call out the big issue right now: whether or not Gio Lopez is healthy, the Heels have a huge problem on offense. Right now the team is dead last in offense and passing yards, and that is with Lopez playing most of the snaps. Bill Belichick is adamant that if Lopez is healthy that he is playing, but if he’s not we will likely see Max Johnson. There’s been a lot of discourse over which quarterback is better to roll out, but honestly, it’s starting to feel like it doesn’t matter who it is. There’s enough blame to go around for why this offense is performing the way it is, but it isn’t quarterback exclusive. That is actually a scary situation.
Is there a chance that Gio Lopez is healthy for Saturday’s game and has the game of his Carolina career? Anything is possible, I suppose, but really everyone around whoever the quarterback is has to step up, and that’s including Freddie Kitchens. Lately, teams haven’t been afraid of the deep ball, and it honestly doesn’t feel like teams are afraid of the passing game in general. Right now it is very hard to see a world where Clemson doesn’t just knock the Heels around for four quarters, score a few defensive touchdowns, and make Bill Belichick wonder why he ever left New England. Hopefully enough work was put in during this bye week to where that won’t be true, and hopefully whoever plays at quarterback is ready for a fight.
Taking advantage of Clemson’s offensive problem
UNC is dead last in the ACC in total offense, but what if I told you that Clemson wasn’t a whole lot better? So far this season, the Tigers are averaging 365.3 yards per game, which is good enough for 14th in the ACC. This is a big difference from what we have seen over the last few years, and the part that is the most shocking is that they couldn’t even score 30 points against Troy. Perhaps that wasn’t clear: the Clemson Tigers only scored 27 points against the Troy Trojans.
Part of the problem for the Tigers is that Cade Klubnik has not been very good so far. After only throwing six interceptions all last season, he has already thrown the ball away four times in four games. Their run game has also been underwhelming, which hasn’t helped in taking the heat off the quarterback. UNC’s defense has an opportunity to take advantage of what has been a bad situation in South Carolina. The only question is which defense are we going to get? They haven’t had a good performance against a Power Four team yet, but their performance against Charlotte and Richmond could fool someone into thinking that maybe they could hold this Tigers team to 14-21 points. We’ll see what squad we get this weekend.
Which coach has the warmer seat after this weekend?
Let’s clarify something right off the bat: neither Dabo Swinney or Bill Belichick will lose their job because of this game. Belichick just arrived in Chapel Hill, essentially rebuilt an entire roster from scratch, and the school pumped way too much money into the program to get rid of him anytime soon. When it comes to Dabo, he’s going to leave Clemson as the best coach the program has ever had, and I have a hard time believing that their AD would be eager to throw him to the curb after one bad season.
When we discuss a warm seat in this case, it is more about who is going to catch the most heat from their fans. While the adults in charge are more likely to have grace for both coaches, fans are already seething over how the season has gone so far for both teams. The outcome that would likely set off the biggest shockwave would be Clemson losing to UNC, and understandably so. It’s hard to imagine a world where even a bad Tigers team loses to the Tar Heels, if we’re being honest. However, Carolina fans are restless, and losing to a bad team off a bye week with no measurable improvement to be found would probably be enough for the screaming to commence. Regardless of which way things go, someone is going to have a fascinating post-game press conference.
It’s unfortunate that this weekend’s game started the season as a potential primetime matchup, and because both teams have struggled so much they are relegated to a noon game. That alone should tell you everything you need to know about what you can expect to hit the field on Saturday. Hopefully things go in UNC’s favor, of course, but realistically we just have to hope that we get something resembling quality football. Perhaps both teams proving that they know how to play football would be enough to satisfy both fan bases, or maybe we will be able to hear screams across state lines. Both would be acceptable reactions.
