Saturday’s game was scheduled to be an easy game for the Tar Heels—and it was. There wasn’t any point in the contest that people felt concerned that East Tennessee was going to mount much of a challenge, and honestly that was a great feeling coming off the huge win against TCU two weeks ago. It was a perfect follow-up to playing the season opener an ocean away.
In a shellacking such as this there are many things you can note to the good and not a lot to the bad, but hey, you read this because we can find
both. With that, let’s take a peek at our weekly list of what shined, what didn’t, and who deserves a shoutout.
Winners
Jelani Thurman-Again, there was a huge talent mismatch but it was good to see Thurman follow up his star turn two weeks ago to be the leading receiver again. Thurman posted four catches for 71 yards and a TD, and has shown that he’s at least going to be the secondary weapon for Bobby Petrino and the Carolina offense. It is so massive that again he was the leading receiver and not Jordan Shipp. If he can consistently beat linebackers in coverage, it’s going to make blitzing the Tar Heels that much more difficult. It also had to feel good for Thurman to end Saturday with a win as his former school choked a 20-0 lead in Austin that night.
Xavier Lewis-Yes, this feels like a carbon copy of Week 0’s WLHM post, but when your stand outs continue being your stand outs, they should be mentioned. The Rolesville product also built on his first performance by having two sacks out of his five tackles on the day, once again highlighting what may be the strength of the Tar Heels’ defense. Overall, Carolina was able to record four sacks on the day, but Lewis shown himself to be someone that offenses are going to have to plan for. Considering how the offensive front looked for Clemson on Saturday night, you can bet they’ll be circling him in their prep this week.
Demon June-He may have solidified himself as the goal line back Saturday with his three touchdown performance. He only had 33 yards on his seven carries, but that he was such a reliable weapon for Carolina gives the offense something they’ll desperately need facing a stout Clemson front next weekend. June had to be looking for a way to carve out a place for himself after basically losing the starting job to Benjamin Hall. We’ll see if this continues against a significantly better team.
Losers
Throwback Uniforms-Look, I get what Carolina is trying to do. It’s going to be tough to top Lawrence Taylor as the best player to wear a UNC football uniform, and with this being the 100th season to be played in Kenan Stadium you have to go all in on the celebration. There are several problems, though—first and foremost is that the color of the helmet and the jersey top does not match. When you celebrate Carolina Blue and you can’t agree on what is Carolina Blue with your own uniform, then it’s not going to look good. Then, the fact this is celebrating a uniform that Carolina never wore. Yes, the stair step is a classic design but the actual jersey was just a t-shirt that Taylor wore for a photo. The jersey at the time was just plain blue with numbers on the front and back. A true homage to that look would be replicating it, much like the team does with their mid-90’s look—a vastly superior throwback. Hopefully this is the last time we see it this year.
Billy Edwards, Jr–Look, this is somewhat reaching, because he had a really solid day: 15-20, 244 yards, two passing touchdowns. It is once again a sign that Carolina has significantly upgraded in the offensive coordinator position—and if you needed more just look at how Gio Lopez is doing now that he’s not under Freddie Kitchens. The reason he’s here is that it’s pretty clear his limitations are in the long ball, which is a problem when you have a weapon like Shipp. Multiple times the deep passes failed to connect, and the balls were up in the air with so much time that it was easy for defenders to converge on the location. Against a team that had given up 49 points to Campbell and a long pass of 50 yards in that game, he just had a long of 28. Defenses are going to feast on the fact that he can’t throw deep. It’ll narrow the field and limit the options for the offense as the tape rolls in and teams realize what he can’t do.
Miles O’Neil-It sure looks like he’s fallen out of favor with the coaches, as he didn’t get any sort of real chance in the game. The Tar Heels had a 21-0 lead coming out of halftime and 35-0 by the end of the third. It was pretty clear when it got to 28-0 that ETSU was not going to put up much of a fight, and so the only time he got was after the lengthy lightning delay and by that point it was really clear Petrino and Belichick were just looking to get to 0:00. It’s odd that both coaches were so insistent on finishing the game after the delay and both teams basically just milked the clock to the finish. It’s telling considering Edwards’ trouble with the long ball that O’Neil can’t get into the game to show if he can do better, and it makes one think this will be one of the few times we actually see him on the field.
Honorable Mentions
Peyton Seelmann earned the distinction of the most tackles on the day, and had a really good stat line of ten tackles total and one forced fumble. The transfer from Richmond used his opportunity to stand out, and we’ll see just how much it translate against a stronger front next week…Jaylen Harvey had the other two sacks for the Tar Heels, showing that defensive front really is going to be something. Considering what Clemson has shown the first two weeks, they may actually rack up some interesting numbers this weekend…Aeron Burrell once again handled all the kicking duties for the Tar Heels, but perhaps showed the limits of what it would mean by missing his only field goal chance of the day. He was perfect with extra points, though, and all but one of his kickoffs were touchbacks.
Next week Carolina faces a Clemson team that has, to put it mildly, not impressed in their first two games. Can the Tar Heels under Belichick get another signature win in just the third game of the season, or Dabo once again remind the future Hall of Famer that he still has some shots left in the chamber?
