After two feel-good wins for the Tar Heels, any delusions of how good this UNC team might be were brought back down to Earth once the Knights scored for the final time and the Bounce House earned its name. With an off week for Carolina before they face an angry Clemson Tiger team packs a ton more talent, there’s a lot to try and figure out.
So what are three takeaways from this loss?
They are the University of Central Florida Knights, or Central Florida
So considering the Tar Heels have twice had games against UCF cancelled thanks to natural disasters—big and small—it
took a while for the two to finally meet. Naturally, during this time some confusion reigned and there were some wires crossed. Some—including on this site—called the team the Golden Knights, which is wrong. They haven’t been the Golden Knights for a while and despite their colors of Gold and Black and the mascot being a knight that is in golden looking armor, they are just the Knights. Also during the week’s press conference, coach Bill Belichick called UCF “Central” and that’s also apparently not something you do.
Welter used to work in Orlando in his time before WRAL, so he would know it rubs that fanbase as raw as other fanbases writing “Tarheels” does for UNC’s. It probably wasn’t an intentional slight from Belichick, more a sign of other things that we won’t get into here. Either way, the disrespect to the opponent both from the fanbase and from UNC was apparent.
So congrats to Central Florida. You Knights dominated the game and earned the win.
How severe is Gio Lopez’s injury?
At the time of writing this article, there is no official word about the severity of Gio Lopez’s injury, but it doesn’t look good. He could barely walk off the field and ultimately had to ride back to the locker room on a cart.
Prior to his injury, he completed 11 of 14 passes, but it was only for 87 yards and he had two killer interceptions that took any momentum Carolina had away from them. The first came when he threw right at the rushing defender who was able to get his arms up and deflect it up. Carolina followed that up with a punt on the next drive, and then Lopez’s second pick came as the Tar Heels had managed to keep the Knights to a field goal and were just down 10-0. When the defense again managed to hold the Knights to a field goal, the Tar Heels only managed one of their own.
Who knows if the problem with Lopez is with him, offensive coordinator Freddie Kitchens, or both. Either way, it’s clear at this point that it just isn’t working, so we will see if Bill Belichick stands by Max Johnson should Lopez return to the team soon.
The middle section of the game doomed the team again
Just down 13-0 with the Tar Heel defense managing to do a good job containing the Knights for big plays, the offense had a chance to seize control by going into the locker room down only six points. Carolina managed to drive to the UCF 23, and then that’s when it fell apart. First there was a false start, then a sack, then basic run when UCF used their last timeout. On third down Lopez completed a short throw to Demon June who went out of bounds, and Carolina gave the ball back with 1:17 left on the 2nd quarter clock.
It looked like maybe the UNC defense was going to minimize the damage until a 2nd and 15 play from the UCF 12. Carolina was called for defensive holding, then UCF passed for another first down, then Carolina held again but also roughed the passer, then UCF was able to get into the end zone three plays later. Carolina entered the locker room down 17 all of a sudden, and then answered by going three and out to start the second half. UCF scored another time and the game was effectively over at that point.
The sequence was eerily similar to how it all went away quickly for the Tar Heels against TCU. The score belied how close things were late into the second quarter, but the signs were there that things were falling apart before the Horned Frogs just ended the game with the 75-yard touchdown run. It’s now a pattern against good teams, and it doesn’t get any easier as they face against a Clemson Tiger team that is going to be hungry for any win, and will need it to feel good.
The Tar Heels have an extra weekend to both figure out how to handle having a new quarterback and fix the issues that have kept cropping up. That is of course assuming that things aren’t broken beyond all repair.
