Have you ever been on a boat that’s taking on water? It’s hard to tell that something’s gone wrong until you look down and you’re ankle deep in the stuff that is supposed to be on the other side of the gunwale. Maybe your first warning is hearing the engine beginning to labor a bit more, or maybe the steering is not quite as responsive as you remember. These things individually aren’t particularly alarming, but when their powers combine and slosh around your feet each time you take a step, it becomes
all-too-alarming in an instant. Heart pounding, trying to ignore the animal instinct screaming at you to abandon ship, you look for the source of the leak, only to realize you left the drain plug sitting in the console of the truck.
Few things are worse than water where it oughtn’t be. Ask the folks that live year-round on North Carolina’s beautiful coastline; come hurricane season, the wind’s not nearly as bad as the water. The true destructive force of a huge storm or a forgotten drain plug is the water, doing what water does best — filling gaps.
We’ve been blessed this year with an abnormally slow hurricane season, at least here in the Atlantic. No semblance of a storm has even threatened to head our way, and it sounds like the meteorologically-inclined folks are expecting that trend to continue. In the absence of such heaven-sent hardship, we forget drain plugs or blow substantial halftime leads. It’s only human nature.
Our current square on the calendar, staring down the approach of October, is squarely in the middle of this inexplicably quiet hurricane season, and your North Carolina Tar Heels are a quietly inexplicable 2-1 after a second half collapse last week against Clemson. In much the same way that a boat leaving the ramp without the drain plug will float along for a little while before problems make themselves evident, UNC looked downright competent for portions of that game before the water level began to rise.
Now, the Tar Heels enjoy a brief respite in the form of a bye week; smooth sailing, as far as Saturday is concerned, for fans and players alike. A chance to recover from several game weeks; a chance to write several post-it notes reminding yourself about that pesky plug. A chance to prepare for the month to come, and the dark skies that loom on the horizon.
The month of October is bookended by top-ten teams in Notre Dame and Miami, and the weeks in between don’t appear to offer much in the way of safe harbor. The month starts with a bang; from the calm of the bye week directly into the teeth of the gale with the Fighting Irish blowing into town as the current third-ranked team in the country. A true test of the mettle of this ship and the crew assembled by Bill Belichick and his since-jettisoned first mate of a GM. We will know a lot more about this team, for better or for worse, as we head deeper into the fall.
When the water comes pouring in, you have a decision to make and a relatively short time to make it. With heavy seas on the horizon, we stand at the tipping point. Will we sink, or will we swim?
