The defense, Ryan Houston and Casey Barth.
That about covers it. I could really stop right here and save myself the trouble of finishing the rest of the recap.
The defense came to play, building off a stellar performance in Blacksburg to completely shut down the Duke offense. And when I say shutdown I mean Duke has fewer yards total than Ryan Houston had rushing the ball. Duke came in with the 5th best passing offense in the country averaging 325 yards per game. UNC held them to 113 yards passing along with 12 yards on the ground. The Heels did everything right on the defensive side of the ball holding to redzone drives to FGs and intercepting Duke QB Thaddeus Lewis following an atrocious INT from T.J. Yates.
On offense, it was all Ryan Houston after Shaun Draughn was taken out of the game following the first play with a shoulder injury. The took away UNC’s change of pace at running back and Duke was effective in snuffing out other attempts to run on the edges with Greg Little. So basically the plan was to hand the ball to Houston and let him grind it out. Most times there were no real holes to run in, Houston just pushed the pile. Which was good because T.J. Yates sucked. I’m sorry. I know that he is doing his level best but this is not a question of effort. This is clearly a skill issue or maybe its confidence or maybe he eating chicken wings on the sideline while the defense is on the field making his fingers greasy. Whatever the case, Yates cannot hit a wide open receiver if his life depended on it unless that receiver is Zack Pianalto. For whatever reason his passes to the TE are fine but when Greg Little is standing on the four yard line with zero Duke players within eight yards, Yates sails it high. That happen so many times I lost count and the last one resulted in an INT. After that John Shoop said “screw it” and ran the ball for the rest of the game save one slant pass to Erik Highsmith.
Also of note is the fact Casey Barth has apparently turned into a reliable kicker. Barth hit four FGs, one from 41 yards which was a season long. Barth kept the Heels in the game while the defense kept Duke out of the endzone long enough for the Blue Devils to get tired of trying to stop Houston. After a rocky start to the season it was good to see Barth kick the ball with consistency.
Despite the obvious offensive issues, it is a win over Duke and UNC moves to 6-3 with only one win needed for a bowl bid. As long as that win is over NC State, most UNC fans will be very happy. You also have to hope that this was just a bad game for Yates and he play more like he did in the late stages of the Virginia Tech win. The other concern is whether Draughn will be available going forward. UNC is more effective in the running game when they can switch up Houston and Draughn. With both of them the Heels can run outside and inside stretching the opposing run defense a bit. When Houston is the only option everyone knows where the runs are going. A better defensive line than UNC saw today will be able to contain Houston. Still, a good win for the Heels and a lot fun watching folks fly through the air as they are ejected from the Duke bandwagon that was ground to a halt today by the Tar Heel defense.
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Dook loses to GT and Miami and no bowl for them!
as for us, as i said last thread, just beat State.
Yates was terrible, and honestly he wasn’t much better in the VT game. His stats were still bad and he had ANOTHER boneheaded throw in that game that directly led to a VT TD. In his defense he did some good things in that game, but let’s face it, our D won that game as well.
So as if we didn’t already know this, basically our D has to win these games for us. As long as we can hold our opponents to less than 20, then we’re fine (except for UVA). The key for us is to limit the mistakes and turnovers. Of course, we didn’t really do that tonight (INT, blocked punt, tons of costly penalties), but we can get away with that against dook I guess. Now let’s keep up the D and go to a bowl! Go Heels!
I feel like when I watch the heels it’s the same as watching the panthers on sunday. Great running attack, great defense (some what for the panthers), and a very questionable QB. These fall weekends are taking years off my life.
Atleast it looks like football out of chapel hill is going to give me some post season football.
You just have to love an ESPN post that features “go to hell Duke” in the game recap video.
http://scores.espn.go.com/ncf/recap?gameId=293110153
Great recap of the game THF. I agree with everything you said. I would add, though, that our special teams also played poorly (which was unexpected). Duke had way to many long kickoff returns. I think twice Barth had to tackle the return guy himself. Not good. As for Yates – dude, Halloween is over, stop scaring everyone. For the first time this year, the offensive line gave him as much time as good quarterback would need to throw good passes and he still couldn’t get the job done. I sure hope Carolina is developing some other options at QB next year.
Looks like Ryan Houston CAN be an every-down back, but the motion/gadget plays they run are vastly ineffective without Draughn in there. As much as I’m happy that a Dook team went down in flames today and UNC gets to paint the Victory Bell the correct shade of blue, I can’t too excited today because it was Dook. UNC should have won this game at least 31-6 or something like that.
On 3rd and 1, why the hell call a pass? Ryan Houston was owning the defense ALL DAY LONG! That had to be the dumbest play call on offense this year, and there have been plenty of dumb ones. A lot has been said (especially here) about John Shoop’s playcalling, but that had to be the dumbest one this year.
I’m glad Carolina is 6-3 and one win away from bowl eligibility, but this is not the way to be playing late in the season. You can tell that Duke has made a lot of improvements this season, but this is a team UNC should have destroyed since they had no offense.
My kids (5yo and 3yo) and I were watching the game on ESPNU with the sound turned down. Between what Woody said and I said after throwing on 3rd and 1, the kids chanted “TJ is poopy!” pretty much the rest of the game.
I hate that the season has turned into what it has for him, but I think Yates definitely needs to talk to John Silva or somebody over in Fetzer and quick.
I don’t agree that the Heels should have “destroyed” the blue devils. Duke is a much improved team this year (ask VT how good they are). The final score is better than I had hoped for given Lewis’ ability to pass for big numbers. I didn’t get to see the game but I listened to it. From what I heard, Lewis had very little time to throw the ball all day which is a credit to UNC’s defense and to their game plan. We never gave up the big play and even though I hate the bend, don’t break defense it worked as intended. Our defense kept the receivers in front of them all day and the short passes when caught didn’t provide much yardage. From what I could tell by listening, our defense was everything we hoped it would be except for the personal fouls. I forget now how many total yards Duke put on VT but I was thinking it was around 500. Yesterday they had 125. And if I remember correctly that’s 275 less than they average this year. Huge props to the defense!
The offense however (shakes head). I wish I had kept count on how many times Woody said “Yates has a man wide open and overthrew/underthrew the pass or threw to someone else”. Losing Draughn early made it a tougher task for the offense. Houston proved he was up to the task and even though Duke’s defense KNEW he was carrying the ball still fought his way to a 164 yard day. I’ll take that any day. And Casey Barth came up big hitting FG’s of 40 and 41 yards.
Coaches did a decent job I think except for the pass on 3rd-1. Houston would have made that, he did all day long. One game away from bowl eligibility with three winnable games left. I like our chances and especially want to beat NCSU but would like to have the bowl situation wrapped up by then.
The scariest part about Yates is that apparently the coaching staff is sure he is the best qb on the roster. Even in the games last season when he had big numbers, it was the result of incredible runs after the catch from nicks or tate.
Long time lurker, but I have to say this analysis is spot on. The prevailing wisdom for the IC football fans are that our defense is responsible for not only shutting down the other team but scoring as well. And if are our WRs cannot catch a pass from our QB, its their fault that they are not 10 feet tall with a wingspan of 15 feet. I don’t see how this team can win against Miami relying solely a rushing game like this given that our QB is just getting worse as the season progresses. It is now an open secret that if a defender lightly breathes in his general direction, our QB will either throw an interception or make another lousy pass. I frankly do not see any upside of persisting with this QB for another year.
Phillip, the problem is that I think Yates IS the best QB on our roster. Hansen and Paulus haven’t shown us anything but the ability to throw INTs. Plus, they have zero real game experience when compared to Yates, and that makes a huge difference. Now, the argument could be made that is partly the coaching staff’s fault, but the fact is that there is basically nobody behind Yates that we’d want to see play against a D1 school. Hopefully next year that will change.
So as THF had mentioned previously, the Carlyle Cup goes to UNC – Duke had zero points…a complete shutout.
I would also agree with HeelYeah, having watched some of the scrimmage against Hargrave Academy, Yates is the best option. Hansen has the best timing, Paulus was too slow and let the defense pick-up the routes before he put the ball in the air. Sexton was there but I’m not sure he would have been much better than Yates – what good would two Yates do us? Renner should be good and he gets some help on the line next year as well. Get to a bowl get some extra practice time and let’s roll. Still we have only lost three games so far this year and look decent.
@Santiago:
can’t believe you mentioned John Silva. i had a class with that guy! found it extremely interesting.
HTTE,
Me too. I’d have to check my transcript, but I believe it was Spring 1990. When was your class?
like i remember. at least 3 years prior to you.
Shoot. Looks like Draughn is out of the rest of the season (broken shoulder blade). More pressure on UNC to develop some kind (any kind…) of passing game.
Not to jinx us, but what are possible bowl games? Charlotte/Nashville/San Francisco I am guessing.
According to ACC Now those are the three on the table. Now should the Heels win out and get to 9-3 and 5-3 in the ACC then who knows. Chick-Fil-A or Champs might be a possibility then. Going on the assumption that UNC ends up with seven or eight wins then those three bowls are the best bets. I do know it won’t take much to get to Charlotte since it was such a huge draw last season and in this economy, the more local the fanbase the better. Nashville would probably draw a good crowd too, SF not so much.
Thanks THF. As info comes in and things unfold in the next few weeks just keep us posted.
good post great comments as always…from a global perspective it’s great to beat duke, and get a win any way we can. and we did that w/ great D, the best O-line play of the season and houston being a beast inside and up the middle. penalties and special teams really hurt us when we really can’t afford anything else seeing as the offense is hamstrung by yates….but the personal foul penalty on that run back when the runner was clearly still in bounds was just ridiculous. like is the defender supposed to ask him nicely to step out of bounds? anyways….i’m w/ the consensus that unfortunately yates is the best option. again no knock on him from an effort standpoint, the guy stands in there and takes hits and looks like he is trying to lead his team…but from a talent point of view, he’s just not connecting and making plays, which is what we need from an experienced player when times are tough adn we have injuries on the line and youth at the WR position. My question is, is renner getting the green light next year or are we hoping yates turns into more than he’s showing this year for a big bowl run?
[...] to this entry For those that read the Tar Heel Fan blog when he did his Duke vs North Carolina recap his first sentence was the following: “The defense, Ryan Houston and Casey Barth.” [...]