UNC has hardly faced a murderer’s row of a schedule so far, but they have faced some opponents at an inopportune time. TCU was clearly revved up to start their year against Bill Belichick and the Tar Heels, and came out storming. Clemson needed to make a statement to keep any hope of a decent season alive when they faced Carolina. Cal got them on a Friday night late on the west coast when the team from Chapel Hill was completely reeling.
I don’t say any of that to defend how the team has done this
year, because it’s been unacceptable considering the amount of hype and money poured into the program since Belichick’s hire. I think they probably would’ve lost all three of the mentioned games in almost any circumstances. However, the circumstances that they were played in haven’t helped.
This weekend’s game against Syracuse features an opponent coming in on a four-game losing streak. The Orange haven’t won since September 20th, and further than that, they’ve been outscored 140-50 in their four losses in that stretch. The losing streak coincides with one very specific injury, and it’s something the Tar Heels will also need to take advantage of if they want to beat Syracuse themselves.
That aforementioned September 20th win for Syracuse came against Clemson, at a time when that still seemed somewhat impressive. While he wasn’t slinging the ball like Patrick Mahomes or anything, the Orange that day were led by quarterback Steve Angeli, who threw for two touchdowns and 245 yards on the day. However, late in that game, Angeli suffered a torn Achilles which has ruled him out for the rest of the season.
In the games since, Syracuse coach Fran Brown has mostly gone with Rickie Collins, and that hasn’t gone great to this point. While Collins’ stats do include some garbage time from prior to Angeli’s injury, in six games on the season, he has completed just 54.5% of his passes and thrown eight interceptions to six touchdowns. In the past three games in particular, Collins has a 51.4% completion rate, and that’s only above 50 because he went 17-29 against Georgia Tech last time out. Those three games also counted for six of the eight interceptions as well. He has not been great this year. Considering how UNC’s defensive line genuinely looked pretty good last week, if they can get pressure on Collins and force him into more mistakes, that could be a very helpful path towards a win.
Of course, “could” has often been a very massive qualifier for the Tar Heels this season. There’ve been several games this season that Carolina “could” have won, only to have failed to do so. They were feet away from wins against both Cal and Virginia, only to come up short because of some form of mistake. They’re still going to have to go out and execute, no matter who is under center for Syracuse. That being said, unless the Orange find some sort of quarterback answer or some way to scheme things up against the Tar Heels, it’s unlikely they have a way to fully run away from UNC.
