To tell the dressed up summary of what happened this afternoon, the North Carolina Tar Heels took down Pitt on the road to earn their first ranked win under head coach Bill Belichick. The reality of the game, though, is that it was one of the sloppiest games that we’ve seen all season from both teams, but some really bad decisions from the Panthers ultimately gave the Heels the opportunities to come away with a win. Is that to say UNC didn’t earn the win? Of course not. But for those fans who watched the game, you know exactly what I am talking about.
Things didn’t start off great for the Heels when they allowed Pitt to march 75 yards down the field for the touchdown. UNC tried to answer back, but the offense struggled mightily dealing with the Panthers’ defensive pressure for a good amount of the first half. The run game was non-existent to put it nicely, and Billy Edwards Jr. was extremely uncomfortable in the pocket because of the blitz packages Pat Narduzzi threw at him. The positive was that Pitt backup quarterback Holden Geriner also struggled after the opening drive, so it took a while for things to get interesting again. Ultimately both teams went into halftime with Pitt up by three.
Things got marginally better for UNC in the second half, but considerably worse for Pitt. Both teams were basically at a statemate in the third quarter until Demon June scored a touchdown with 22 seconds left to give the Heels a 14-10 lead. The fourth quarter, though, is where things got really interesting. The Panthers ran seven plays for 75 yards to re-take the lead, but Edwards immediately answered by throwing a 75-yard strike to Shamar Easter to take the lead back. Pitt would proceed to run a number of head-scratching plays while they were on offense, only to give the ball back to the Heels. While Edwards & Co. attempted some slightly smarter plays to try to bleed the clock, they gave the ball back a couple of times. On Pitt’s last drive, Geriner threw passes everywhere but where they needed to go, and ultimately the Heels earned last possession of the ball and was able to take the clock down to zero.
Before we talk about what went right for the Heels, we have to talk about Pat Narduzzi’s decisions down the stretch. After running the ball really well in the first half, Narduzzi insisted on putting the ball in Geriner’s hands to try to make plays that he didn’t need to make. It led to a lot of bad passes, two interceptions, and going 1-7 on third down. It was fair to wonder if Narduzzi was low-key trying to lose the game on purpose because of how bad some of the calls were, but perhaps not having his starting quarterback had him feeling a bit lost out there. That should never be the case for any head coach, but how things should go didn’t seem to matter today.
That said, the Heels do deserve a lot of credit for how they responded in the second half, regardless of how sloppy they were. Edwards also threw two interceptions, but he made a number of good plays that helped the Heels take the lead. The defense also deserves credit for what they were able to do against Pitt’s offense. After getting beaten pretty badly in the run game in the first half, things were much better in the second half, which is likely why Narduzzi decided to air it out more. Aside from the positives, though, it’s safe to say that we shouldn’t have to watch such a chaotic game for the rest of the season if given a choice.
All and all, UNC earned a much-needed win over a ranked opponent on the road, and now all focus is on facing Duke next weekend in Durham for the Victory Bell. At the time of writing, the Blue Devils are undefeated pending the results of their game against Georgia Tech. Should that hold, it would be really fun if the Heels could deliver them their first loss.