Call me weird, but for some reason this best illustrates how the Butch Davis Era ended tonight in Shreveport.
I understand all the distractions, the upheaval, the fact Everett Withers has been spending most of this time on Zillow and the fact this game is being played in a terrible bowl destination. Still, you would think for the sake of pride the Tar Heels would have played with a little more pride than shown tonight.
At any rate, its over. I just hope two weeks from now we aren’t all kicking ourselves from having had to endure this game and a bowl ban for 2012 on top of it.
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i think we underestimated the hangover effect of the Christmas night bus tour of Shreveport’s neighborhood light displays.
and the 57 cable channels at the motel.
“I just hope two weeks from now we aren’t all kicking ourselves from having had to endure this game and a bowl ban for 2012 on top of it.”
We have earned a bowl ban, and I don’t mean by the NCAA violations stuff.
On the bright side, there’s no seller’s remorse.
Yeah… we should have offered the NCAA a ban for this season. Least we would not have had to watch this non-inspiring performance.
The Butch Davis era begins with a bang, and ends with a surrender. Something happened tonight that has only happened twice before in watching my favorite teams on TV…..I turned off the TV and left before the end of the game.
Disappointing, mostly because UNC finishes 7-6 and loses to a team that had players deemed second class players in Missouri and Kansas which are hardly fertile recruiting grounds. UNC has guys that have potential to be playing on Sundays, but were either railroaded by the coaching staff who thought it would be nice to take a vacation since Fedora was hired or just decided they didn’t want to be there.
Fedora has a lot of work in front of him; if he’s truly the hard ass (pardon my French) that people say he is, these players that have been coasting four years through Butch/Withers are in for a RUDE awakening. Absolutely pathetic effort tonight.
pathetic effort is a compliment , there was absolutely no effort , no coaching , no game planning and feel free to jump in!
The Heels only gave up 100 points to two of the three offenses they faced this season. Sadly, I honestly believe Bunting would have had his teams more prepared than tonight.
White Ghost, I think I said something of the same nature last year, and I agree this year. I suspect if the athletic department had a clue we would end up in Shreveport before Dec. 4 we might have offered to fall on the sword, but since D.C. looked more likely and fans would actually travel to that game, they were probably looking forward to a little bowl revenue.
DSchwind -
This is what happens when the University’s decisions are dictated by “looking forward to a little bowl revenue.”
Since the players don’t share in the bowl revenue, they apparently viewed themselves as having no reason to show up, and didn’t.
Sigh. Maybe I’m just in denial but I still believe that one day UNC football will stop being a source of constant embarrassment. National spotllight, only game on TV and this is how we play…
Thank goodness we have new coaches coming in next year. I’m not going to get my hopes up because every time I do…
However, I do like the fact that we won’t have a bunch of washed up couldn’t make in the NFL flunkies up in the box or down on the sidelines. I also like the fact that the spread offense can be effective without 5 star talent at every position because I don’t like the crap that programs (including ours unfortunately) have to do to get that kind of talent.
I also agree with Rath. We shouldn’t accept invitations to Bowls like this one… which is why I’m glad that money grubbing joke of an AD Dick Baddour is gone too.
After watching that pathetic excuse for a football contest last night, what motivation would the NCAA have to drop the hammer on us? We’re not in any danger of winning anything for a while…..
Oh, I forgot. The NCAA only drops the hammer on teams not in danger of winning anything…….
I listened to Sirius radio on the way to work based on an interview with one of the defensive players they didn’t prepare at all for the game.
^ This is what the “News and Observer” reported from Sylvester Williams:
“They had a lot of schemes that we hadn’t seen all year in the ACC,” …. “It was just something that we had to work hard on to get fixed, and we didn’t get it fixed. We waited until the game time to try to fix stuff, and it was too late.”
For the players hopefully it wasn’t so much a “lack of effort,” or anything like that, as much as simpy not knowing what to do. Those coaches sent their players into that game unprepared.
obviously none of the players really wanted to be there, but also withers’ coaching was awful. First of all, i’m pretty sure he went in at halftime and told his team “we gotta get stops, we just gotta stop em” without any specific x’s and o’s. And, with four or five minutes left, when highsmith caught the touchdown, why would he not go for 2? I mean it appeared the game was over and I had already accepted it, but even if it looks 99% like a loss, the coach still has to do whatever he had to do in order to pull off the greatest comeback ever. He could have gone for 2, and the game would have been a 2 score game… oh well.
Good riddance Everett Withers
It is interesting that the NCAA abolished all third place games from sports that have tournaments. The reasoning was that the games were lackluster because there was little or nothing at stake and players did not want to take a chance of getting injured in an all but meaningless game.
How does that not apply to minor bowl games?
Football is a dangerous sport and injuries can happen at any time. I didn’t watch the game, but from what I gather, no one got hurt, so that seems to be the most important thing, and hopefully the players did have some fun out there, and enjoyed wearing our school’s colors after what has been a difficult couple of years.
I wish the seniors all the best in their future endeavors and thank them for their loyalty to the program.
There is simply no excuse for being totally unprepared for a game that has this amount of lead time.
The offense scored enough points to win with reasonable defense.
So lack of defensive preparation is a key factor. It is a poor reflection on the entire program for this to happen.
Ultimately it will be up to the incoming Fedora coaching staff to make the necessary changes. If anything, the results of this game will give the incoming coach freedom to make wholesale changes in the staff.
“For the players hopefully it wasn’t so much a “lack of effort,” or anything like that, as much as simpy not knowing what to do. Those coaches sent their players into that game unprepared.”
It’s obvious that there was a lack of effort, and I think it was mostly from being unprepared; the players on defense knew that their coaches mailed it in, so why shouldn’t they have done the same?
For his part, I thought Shoop called a decent game. The offensive line was dreadful as always, but I thought Shoop did what he could do to win. You can win a lot of games on 24 points.
I have completely lost all sorts of respect for Withers. All that praise I’ve heaped on him for holding the ship from sinking is out the window. He was content to let those players go out there and get humiliated. The guy just pretty much decided to stick it to UNC for passing him over, and what a way to do so. Does that sound a little too harsh? Maybe, but to me this was a pretty obvious screwing over. You don’t send a base 4-3 defense out there against a team that runs 4-5 wide out there on offense for an entire first quarter. It may work on Madden, but it sure as hell doesn’t in real life.
I’ve never been an Ohio State fan, but I now have a vested interest in them getting blown out in every game they play in from here on out. If Columbus was on his mind since Fedora was hired, he could have done UNC a service and bowed out of the bowl game and let someone else take over.
I hope this puts the Butch Davis and the Dick Baddour era behind us. To celebrate, I’m breaking out a bottle of White Merlot tonight.(Right, I’m not a wine connoisseur . . .)
william, I always look for your comments here because they are spot on. Thanks for another post with dignity, insight and clarity.
Andy, I was thinking the same thing about Withers. “I bleed Carolina blue”, yeah right…
Sam, it is uncommon but there are many examples of white wines made from merlot, cabernet, etc. grapes. Remove the skin and you will get a white wine from the red grape.
I think all the crap about how much credit Withers should get goes right out the window after last night.