My latest post at Raycom Sports UNC blog:
For UNC, this game is all about opportunity. UNC’s 3-0 start this season is the best opening win streak since 1997 when the Heels started 8-0. With a hapless Virginia team the following week and FCS team Georgia Southern after that, UNC has a good shot at starting the season 6-0 should they beat Georgia Tech in Atlanta. Yes, the back half of the schedule is brutal but nothing builds confidence better than getting off to a hot start. In terms of the ACC race, UNC can kill multiple birds with one stone. For starters it is an ACC win and puts UNC in the mix with the winner of the Miami-Virgina Tech game being played later in the day. Secondly, a win against Georgia Tech all but knocks the Yellow Jackets out of contention and at minimum places them behind UNC in the pecking order going forward. Finally, a win on the road is well…a win on the road. Not only is it like stealing something that does not belong to you but where UNC is concerned is another statement how far this program has come in only three years. Prior to last season, the Heels were infamous for not being able to win outside of the state of North Carolina. UNC broke that losing streak last season and this season already has a win at UConn. Another win on the road not only gives the Heels a game that is really a toss-up but it provides this team a sense that they can win anywhere.
The rest of the post can be found here. This is a huge game for the Heels and the Yellow Jackets. UNC can take a huge step forward with a win.
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1981 was the year that is hard to get over. The Heels really had an opportunity that year. Just imagine if the football Heels had won the title a year before the basketball Heels, but they didn’t and it has been mostly downhill ever since.
It seems like there were far more people posting about football last year. I don’t think anyone really believes in ACC football or UNC’s schedule so far. Unfortunately, UNC could probably go undefeated and still not make it to the BCS title game in this imaginary sport that they call college football.
If UNC went undefeated that means they would have wins over FSU, Miami, Virginia Tech, Georgia Tech and NCSU plus whoever they face in the ACC title game which could be FSU or NCSU again or Clemson. Three of those teams are presently ranked and Miami is in the top ten. That being said, it all depends on what else is happening. If(and this is a huge if) UNC were 13-0 as was Texas and Florida for example then they would get the same fate as Auburn a few years back. If UNC is one of two undefeated teams, then chances are they are in the BCS title game.
Also, I think calling college football an “imaginary sport” is a little harsh. You maybe can call the national championship of college football imaginary or mythical though I really think they only applies to the era prior to the BCS. When we got to a point where we started having a title game you could point to as the national title, it did give it a little more teeth though there are still times, like 2003 where the AP poll ranks USC #1 even though LSU beat OK in the BCS title game.
UNC fans are in wait and see mode. The preseason view of this team was that it would be in the 7-5 maybe 8-4 range. If UNC wins this weekend then takes out UVa and GA Southern they will be 6-0 hosting FSU for the first Thursday night game ever at Kenan Stadium. I think the interest will pick up then.
I guess GIT is usually decent and maybe UConn is, as they did beat Baylor, but that still would be about as soft a 6-0 record as I can imagine. I know the schedule will firm up in the second half of the season, but I do think that UNC fans are being realistic this year and we all know that we only have one decent result so far and that was tainted by the ugliness of the win.
I call college football an imaginary sport, because, unlike baseball and basketball, certain schools have no definite chance to win the ultimate title regardless of what their on-field results are. We have seen it with several teams from out West. In college basketball, an undefeated team needs no “help” to win the championship.
Almost as bad, is the fact that certain other teams can end up slated to be national champs almost regardless of how poorly they end up the season. Was I the only one who saw LSU’s title a couple of seasons ago as being an utter and complete joke?
I am not even positive that UNC makes the title game if they are the only undefeated team in the country. Beating Miami and FSU and Clemson, might be less impressive than Florida, USC, Texas, etc., losing only one. It may be a moot point with all the injuries….
If they were the only undefeated team they would make it because at that point they would be #1 in both the polls. Non-BCS schools are the only ones who get screwed by being the only undefeated team in the nation. As I said, beating GT, FSU, VT, Miami, NCSU along with ECU, UConn and a team from the Atlantic in the ACC title game leading to a 13-0 record would be good enough unless you had an SEC and Big 12 team also undefeated.
The system is not perfect but I think it is better than it once was. I am actually all for a playoff.
And it will be moot because UNC’s offense is not good enough to run the table.
I think UNC is in good shape to beat Georgia Tech ion Saturday. A huge loss would be disastrous, and I’m sure Tech is eager to right the ship after an embarassment against Miami (who I still think is overrated), which means they’ll be ready to play.
Tech is going to have many problems with their option against UNC’s defense. It’s hard to run side-to-side on UNC, and even running straight at the LB’s can prove to be tough. With no real passing game and a defense that has a lot of issues stopping people, I see no reason why UNC shouldn’t win this game.
A 4-0 start would be huge for this team.
BTW, Georgia Tech is favored in this game by 2. No respect, whatsoever.
You are sure that an undefeated ACC team would be ahead of an SEC or Big 12 team with one loss? The ACC seems really weak this year. Maryland and UVa are just horrible. Wake should be 1 and 2,(like UNC, Wake got an extremely fortunate call in week two to squeak past Stanford) and just finished beating up on Elon. Maybe Miami is a legitimate top ten team or maybe VPI, if Alabama is really good, but it doesn’t look real promising for the conference.
It is a good thing the ACC is so good in basketball, baseball, lacrosse and soccer.
I am pretty sure but if you want to see a serious rebellion against the system, see what happens if they were to exclude a lone undefeated BCS conference team from the title game in favor of two one loss teams.
Like I said, if they are undefeated they will be #1 in all the polls. The question would be how much the computers would favor them versus those other teams. I do not think there will be enough of a difference there to push them all the way down to #3. They might fall behind one team but doubtful they would fall behind two. An ACC team in that position will not have the same issues Utah, Boise St or a Conf USA team would have. The computers will rank them high enough and the human element i.e. the polls actually accounts for a bigger piece of the formula.
Also, the ACC may end up looking better by the end of the season than they look right now. That is what happened last year. By the end of the year, the computers said the ACC was the #3 football conference overall behind the SEC and Big 12.
Are you guys discussing “National Championship” on a football thread? I do think every conference game from here on out is a toss up with obviously some games more winnable than others. I do think Miami is for real.
As a Tar Heel football fan, I will continue to focus week to week without getting my hopes up too high. THF is correct in that our offense is shaky and will be inconsistent due to the line issues and even though talented, FR wide recievers will have their problems.
Here’s to watching Pitt stomp on state Saturday while enjoying the aftermath of a big Tar Heel win in Atlanta.
Nice work gentlemen, you always have to check the comments on THF, something good could be happening in a post you passed by after reading the full text on Raycom. I would have to agree with William, and I think most people do, that the sacred nature of basketball and baseball playoffs is missing when it comes to football. Everyone always uses the basketball tournament as an example to hold up when talking about football playoffs but the baseball route is a much better process for comparison.
I think by the time we play VT, Miami or FSU the nature of the schedule means someone is going to lose and the rankings will fall for one of these teams compared to playing them now. If we get to these teams and win each game what are the chances they will have lost, I’m not going to research the next five weeks of ACC football but it’s clear that Miami or VT will have a loss this weekend. The issue with the rankings is that at the end of the season teams that don’t lose, don’t move down – only up or hold their position. That’s a challenge if you are undefeated and teams above you have quit losing…aka the one loss scenario that william puts forth. Remember FSU beating FL then losing to them in the National title game, oh and yes TOB fans, the FSU FL game was the last game of the regular season. I would end to think a BCS team that has no losses would be ranked number one but if it happens to get tight at the end of the year and the top 3 teams in the poll lost their game early in the season that zero loss BCS team gets the shaft.
I am glad to see the football posts, it’s a great game and there’s no reason we shouldn’t be good at football. First forward pass baby…come on. I’m in the same camp as Heels Perspective though, cautiously optimistic though I think 2009 is the real deal, maybe a year early to be true but excited nonetheless. I don’t care what happens with State, I hope they win a lot games so our victory over them is worth something better than the Pappa Johns Bowl in Mobile Alabama…
One last comment – “It is a good thing the ACC is so good in basketball, baseball, lacrosse and soccer.” I don’t think it’s a coincidence that UNC is good at all of these sports, if you have four or five teams in the conference that have the will and the fanbase to put a good team on the field I think you will get to add football to this statement as well william. FSU, Miami, VT and a legacy ACC school – UNC, Clemson, Georgia Tech…
Go Heels!
I used to love college football. I honestly think that there was Less debate, not more debate, about who was number one in the days before the BCS, during the 30 or so year period before the BCS came in and segregation left the sport.
January 1 used to be the greatest sporting day of the year in the United States. Now, it is boring and futile. Remember Mack Brown leaping around because Texas beat Michigan on a late field goal a couple of years ago? I remember thinking, “how stupid is this?” There is only one game that has any purported meaning now, but 20 years ago, a big resounding win on New Year’s day could catapult a team to a title. Either give us a play-off or go back to the old system.
everybody wants playoffs. i do too. but what we’ve got for the forseeable future is the bcs. i appreciate the intriguing match ups for many of the upper tier bowls, so i like to focus on that. william is a sucker for the good ol’ days, so of course he likes the days when jan 1 was a big day. but i don’t mind having a bunch of good match ups around the end of the year and a few days past jan 1.
as for unc, i love that we have a dominant defense and an improving young offense. enjoy watching both sides of the ball. i love that we have a chance to be 6-0 into the bye week. i love that we’re discussing the possibility of unc going 13-0. however, that won’t happen. i’d be ecstatic with a 11-2 season and i’d start getting disappointed with a 8-5 season.
against gt, unc is a 2 to 2.5 pt underdog. excluding a ~3 pt home field advantage, vegas is saying unc is a slight favorite. given our recent history of away games and given that unc hasn’t beaten gt at atlanta since ‘97, i’d think we deserve more than a ~3 pt discount. we’re a 18th~22nd ranked team, while gt is not far back as a 26th~27th ranked team. taking all that into consideration, i’d take the spread vegas is giving us. i really do think that we’ll handily beat gt (24-13). but you never know with paul johnson.
in terms of the acc, we have miami, vt, fsu and unc in the top 25 with gt and clemson close by. that compares favorably to other conferences excl. sec and big 12. big east just has cincy. big ten has penn st, osu and mich. pac 10 has cal, usc and wash. i think acc has a strong case to be the third best conf. anyone can point to uva, maryland or dook but all conferences have useless teams like that.
The 1970’s were a lot better than people remember, in general, and particularly in sports.
Unlike the hallowed 1960’s, integration was actually firmly in place and you saw some of the greatest teams and individuals in history: the Walton Gang, Secretariat, Affirmed, Alydar, Roberto Duran, Muhammad Ali, George Foreman and Joe Frazier, the A’s and Reds of the early and mid-70’s, Jimmy Connors, Arthur Ashe and Bjorn Borg, Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player, Lee Trevino and Tom Watson, and the great Cowboy, Dolphin, Raider and Steeler teams of the entire decade.
I think there were far more memorable teams and events in the 70’s than there generally are now. You actually knew who the players were from year to year.
Some of that had to do with the reserve clause still being a factor until the late 70’s, and fewer guys going pro early, but integration also had a lot to do with it. There may also be sports overload now with the internet and ESPN and so many events, but I find it hard to say sports is better now.