UNC comes home with a win…

How many times last year we watched our team fight to the end only to come up just short because of one thing or another? Not this time, not this defense, they didn’t let down and come up big when it needed to and brought home the second win of the season as 19th ranked North Carolina defeated Connecticut by the final score of 12 to 10. It was not pretty, but it was not a moral victory either, it was a real one, on the road on a soaked field. This is what makes a good team become better, it’s what makes a so-so become a good one. This is the way that North Carolina football is going to be from now on!

In this game we saw what the defense can do, and it can do just what we thought it could in the pre season. Basically what I am saying is that this swarming D can put pressure on anyone they want and get to them while being able to keep the wide outs in check and not give up the big play. Anyone that saw the game must have noticed that it was the defensive unit that gave the jolt to get back into the game, that forced the safety and shut down the opposing QB as UConn tried one last attack. But, maybe left a bit behind due to the D’s performance is the fact that T.J. Yates stepped up in a game where the rushing attack didn’t exist (35 yards on 38 carries). Yates did throw two interceptions, but while was a bad pass, the other was a ricochet. The UNC QB threw for 235 yards and a touchdown on a field that definitely was not fit for an aerial attack, and he did it while carrying his team to the touchdown that tied the game.

If you have been a fan of this program you know that close games are an MO of the Heels under head coach Butch Davis. Of the 27 games 16 have been within a touchdown or less, and while in the first two years they almost always resulted in a loss, it seems that with the 2009 season they might just be bringing wins.

Now for the bad part of this victory. On a team that is getting thinner and thinner hearing that Zack Pinalto, the junior starting tight end who scored the tieing touchdown in the game, suffered a subtalar dislocation of his right foot. His return can not be yet determined, as an MRI will have to be done to see the total gravity of the injury. From a post on Inside Carolina said that UNC has said it won’t be until Monday until more updates will be available. Add Pinalto to the list of two offensive linemen and the wide receiver with the second more experience on the team and you see what Carolina is going through. Over at the World Leader in Sports Heather Dinich in her ACC Blog gave the tight end an ACC Helmet Sticker.

I will end with this. The Citadel was not UConn and we saw that. I think that UConn is not East Carolina and we will see if I am right or wrong in the days to come. UNC must work hard on their running game in order to give Yates the chance to throw with less pressure (he was sacked 4 times in the first half of the game). The line must gel once again, no matter who is lining up where, the team as a whole must stop silly fouls from stopping their momentum, and the offense must rise up a lot because they can not rely on the D to win every game Carolina plays. Sounds like a lot, because it is, but this team isn’t the same as the last years and so I have a feeling that all of it can be fixed. Or at least it can be varied enough to be able to bring another win for UNC and keep them undefeated early in the season.

(Pictures from TarHeelBlue.com)

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