Where: Kenan Stadium, Chapel Hill, NC
When: Saturday, November 7th, 3:30 PM
TV: ESPNU
Records: UNC 5-3, 1-3 ACC; Duke 5-3, 3-1 ACC
College Football Armageddon?
Not really, besides I think that is Ohio St-Michigan. Still for the first time since probably 1994, this game has meaning extending beyond the Victory Bell. Duke is in control of their own destiny in the Coastal Division and with a win today and a Georgia Tech win over Wake Forest would setup a divisional title game of sorts next week in Durham. Outside of that drama, you also have both teams fighting for bowl eligibility. UNC needs two wins get qualify for a bowl and have four winnable games left. For my money, if they are going to only win two of those, I would prefer the Heels beat Duke and NC State.
This game will be about UNC defending Duke’s pass offense because that is basically all Duke does. If there is a weakness on the UNC defense it seems to be the ability at times to defend the pass, especially the short underneath ones. FSU made living off passes in the flat and tossing it out beyond the ends. Quick passes serve to negate the UNC front four from pressuring the QB and given how smart David Cutcliffe appears to be, I am betting he watched the 2nd half of the FSU game backwards and forwards to develop a game plan. UNC needs to pressure Thaddeus Lewis into making mistakes and the secondary needs to step up their game to reduce the options Lewis has to throw to.
However the key to this game may lie with time of possession. Duke’s defense is not anything special, certainly not better than the likes of Virginia Tech. Now that the UNC offense has some confidence, the hope is the Tar Heels can chew up copious amounts of clock with the running game. Ripping off a nine minute drive here and there would keep Lewis off the field, the defense rested and tip the game in UNC’s favor. I expect to see more of what we saw versus Virginia Tech using multiple options running the ball and doing it all over the place. The Heels offensive line is as healthy as it has been at any point this season. Much of that line was intact last week versus the Hokies and it seems to have made some difference.
Bottom line? The Duke train stops here. In the end this is still UNC vs Duke and the Heels need to treat it as such and kick these sorry Blue Devils back to Durham with their pointed tails between their legs.
UNC 28 Duke 20
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TJ Yates is easily, and by a wide margin, the worst QB to ever be a school’s #2 in career yardage in the history of American Football.
its really quite impossible to be as inaccurate as he is on purpose. i’m not kidding. impossible. no pressure and continuously off target by not a step or a half yard, but by 2, 3, 5 yards.
there are people on this blog that could throw more accurately on certain plays. i’m not kidding. i’m not.
Yeah but he can hit Pianalto all day apparently.
He should already have 2 td passes, highsmith was running wide open at least twice so far…with nothing out front but green.
edit: make that 3!
you have to be joking. wide freakin open.
Easily should be 14-3. Nicks would have caught that, probably Tate too.
Stevie Nicks couldve thrown it better.
Yates kept dook in the game all by himself. oregon having typical letdown performance against Stanford.
Stevie Nicks? Stevie Wonder could have thrown a better pass than that…..
UNC has got to stop playing that soft zone defense. Why do we always open up the game with an aggressive pass rush that WORKS and then switch to a zone defense that doesn’t? And TJ Yates stinks.
Should be AT LEAST 14-3. I have a feeling losing Draughn will be pretty big since UNC relies a lot on those gadget/motion plays. As much as I like Ryan Houston, they don’t work the same with him in there.
Which reminds me, I heard a funny joke today:
Q-How do you keep the Tar Heels football team from breaking into your house?
A-Put a goal line and a goal post in your front yard.
And now the special teams stink too. Great…
yeah, i can see why they threw on 3rd and 1 two series ago. because Houston could NEVER gain a yard.
i dont enjoy ragging on my team’s qb, but win or lose today, Yates is the worst qb that wasnt the 2nd or 3rd stringer i’ve seen in 35 odd years of watching football.
never ever seen a starter at any level as inaccurate as he’s been this year.
to hear Lee Pace report that he is mad at himself, emotional, throwing extra on the sideline when the D is out because he’s mad at himself, all that is a sign of a totally lost qb.
this will be the 2nd part of the must have trifecta for me. ECU, Dook, then State. Win that last one and i’ll be happy, bowl or not.
not sure i understand why any starters are in with the way injuries have been happening all year.
Ryan Houston is the Man. Passing game is still … well, we don’t have one. When the defense is aggressive they are a joy to watch. (But I didn’t like the lack of discipline in the last 3 minutes). Hope Draughn’s injury is not serious(?)
I echo the concern about Draughn. Hopefully, he’s got a big bruise or something…….. Houston was certainly a bruiser today,no doubt but the Heels need both guys.
As for TJ, WOW, I kinda feel bad for the guy, because it’s my observation that he’s become a head case. Miami will stack the box making the Heels pass the ball and I don’t think the Heels can run around Miami at the corners either.
Kudos to the D for a fantastic game. The end of game personal fouls were just crap. I think the Dookies learn to draw penalties just like the other team over there.
I do think Barth might have gotten over his problems. He was great from 40 in tonight.
I don’t know where Ron Cherry was today but it looks like we found a replacement and a crew that’s ready to set a new standard for ACC ineptitude when it comes to calling a game. They missed more holds on both sides than is really possible and went to extremes on many other plays. I’m just stunned at how bad the officiating can be in the ACC and it seems to get worse every year. I’m still not over the 6 second VT challenge reviews, just how can you execute that review so quickly?
Finally I’d really appreciate it if we could get a replay on every play, good, bad or indifferent. We have the board, we have the cameras and lots of good teams do it all day long. I’m really, really tired of this garbage. Step it UNC, you want to be a real program, you want a great atmosphere – I want something back.
All in all, it was a good defense and a decent offense with the run game tonight. A little nervous about the injuries but if we can pull it together and win another two games I’m pretty happy. hard to imagine that we have come this far without accurate passing. So many open receivers and so many overthrown balls, it’s really impressive that we can make the yardage. I do think that we are better than we look no matter how ugly the wins are week to week. 118 yards from Lewis is amazing, negative 4 yards of rushing – wow. The lack of discipline is my least favorite development, we can fix passing but you can’t win close games when you are shooting yourself in the foot all night.
Step your game up…go heels
On the plus side tonight, I can only imagine that the broadcast picked up “go to hell duke”. Having a nice opportunity to do that during the halftime show was also exceptional and perhaps a highlight of the game in terms of crowd experience.
THF – we need a link to Thee Blog somewhere on this page…maybe I can’t find it. Assuming it would be located in ACC Blogs. Sorry about the multiple posts…can’t stop myself.