Cover Two: Two Plays Too Short for UNC Football
Is it starting to show up on the scoreboard?
Bill Belichick said after the Clemson game, in the lead-up to Cal, that his team was showing progress in practice. But if you had been sitting in Kenan Stadium for that Clemson game, you’d be forgiven for doubting this so-called “progress.”
During the bye week, members of the media piled on with a string of false stories — the most prominent being that Belichick was seeking a buyout. Inside Carolina later confirmed that never happened. Social media has only made media credibility more fragile, and some national outlets, even after the story was debunked, continue to repeat the claim.
The program has had its issues, and there are certainly areas in need of improvement. But in an odd twist, this river of false reporting — messy, misleading, and relentless — seems to have unified the team.
As fans, we enter every game hoping that no matter how high the odds, our team finds a way to pull it off. It’s why America loves the underdog. Whether ESPN still does is another question, given how College GameDay scheduling often favors tradition and record over actual performance.
North Carolina began the Cal game as disastrously as the media frenzy that preceded it, yet managed to settle in and play solid football. For a moment, it looked like the Tar Heels might steal a win. I found myself yelling at the television as Nathan Leacock appeared to be heading for the end zone and a game-changing score — until a Cal defender forced a fumble, ending UNC’s chance at a much-needed victory. Leacock was making an “effort play,” and the talented young receiver will learn from it.
Despite that improved showing, few gave North Carolina much of a chance against Virginia. Belichick and his team again faced waves of misinformation — this time, claims that they had passed on Chandler Morris, the UVA quarterback who could end up being All-ACC. Both Belichick and Morris have said they never even spoke, yet the rumor persisted. To their credit, several outlets finally refuted the story, offering a rare moment of accountability.
Still, the question loomed: could the Tar Heels block out the noise and compete with a Virginia team that had already beaten Louisville and Florida State?
On the second drive of the game, Kobe Pasour appeared to dive in for a touchdown, only for officials to overturn the call, ruling it a fumble out of the end zone and a touchback. For the second straight week, the Tar Heels saw a potential touchdown ripped away — as brutally as Lucy snatching the football from Charlie Brown. Pasour coming up a few inches short turned out to be painful foreshadowing.
In the first overtime, Belichick made the bold call to go for two after UNC answered Virginia’s opening touchdown. Quarterback Gio Lopez dropped back and hit Ben Hall in the flat, but a swarm of UVA defenders met him at the goal line. Hall stretched forward — and came up just inches short.
It was the second time in one game, and the second straight week, that “a few inches” made all the difference.
The Tar Heels showed real improvement defensively, holding Virginia to just 259 total yards and a stingy 1.7 yards per rush. But as the saying goes, the only numbers that matter are on the scoreboard. Or, as Hall & Oates once put it, the Tar Heels were “so close, yet still so far away.”
North Carolina now travels to Syracuse for a Friday night matchup on Halloween — a trip that, if the Heels don’t finish drives, could quickly turn into a Halloween horror show.
