By Jerry Ratcliffe
Considering the controversies swirling around Chapel Hill, I couldn’t help but ask Tony Elliott this week if Saturday’s game at North Carolina is a dangerous pot hole in Virginia’s road.
The Tar Heels are 2-4, 0-2 in the ACC, have had trouble putting points on the board and all sorts of stories coming out of the program about Bill Belichick and his general manager, Michael Lombardi. Virginia, ranked No. 16 in the nation and riding a five-game winning streak, is favored by 10.5 points.
Elliott said that every game the rest of the season is dangerous, just as was last Saturday night’s game with an improved Washington State team that took the Cavaliers to the wire. The UVA coach expected a test from the visiting Cougars and as much as he tried to warn the fan base, many weren’t listening.
Now comes Carolina, all the hubbub about “Chapel Bill,” the grand experiment by UNC’s administration who were swinging for the fences in hiring one of the greatest coaches in NFL history. If the Tar Heels want to make a statement, turn things around, what better timing than to upset a top-20 team?
“But if their back’s against the wall, it’s fight or flight, right?” Elliott said, answering my question. “And I don’t think they’re going to flight. I think they’re going to fight and they’re going to fight with everything that they have because they have nothing to lose.”
Virginia is not about to disrespect UNC, if for no other reason than last year’s game in Scott Stadium.
“I know it’s a different staff, but that group down there embarrassed us last year,” said UVA offensive coordinator Des Kitchings. “And it’s still Carolina, right?”
The Heels humiliated Virginia last season, 41-14.
While Kitchings was correct in that it’s a completely new staff, it’s also a completely different team with more than 50 new players on UNC’s roster, some who have already jumped ship, including three Tar Heels who departed the team this week: true freshman tight end Yasir Smith, former UConn standout Pryce Yates and offensive tackle William Boone. At least seven players have left the program this fall.
“It’s still a big game for both universities,” Kitchings said. “It’s an opportunity for us to go on the road. That’s part of our quest to try to go play in Charlotte. We’ve got to go win on the road.”
Like Washington State last week, Elliott believes Carolina has improved, plus playing at home.
“I think that their coaching staff and the players have a ton of pride,” the coach said. “So the biggest thing for us is to block out the noise and can’t listen to what people say. You can’t look at records, you can’t look at stats. You’ve got to evaluate the film, and the film says, based off what I saw on tape last week, that this is a football team that’s getting better, that has powerful talent.”
What Elliott saw was Carolina with a chance to win on its last drive of the game at California when a fumble kept the Heels out of the end zone. During that game, quarterback Gio Lopez reconnected with receiver Koby Paysour, who had kind of disappeared, but reemerged against Cal. Paysour gives Lopez two legitimate receivers to target.
Also, running back Benjamin Hale rushed for 68 yards to help open up the offense.
Defensively, UNC is ranked No. 36 nationally in stopping the run, giving up only 119 yards per game on the ground.
“They’re starting to get a little bit of rhythm offensively, defensively,” Elliott said. “They’ve improved each week, they’ve been able to stop the run.”
Virginia needs to return to its old ways of starting the game fast, something it failed to do in its last two outings against Louisville and Washington State, ending up sweating out close games.
“That was something we’ve been doing pretty good throughout the year, scoring early in the first quarter,” Kitchings said. “Get back to converting our third downs and just continue our trend of scoring in the red zone. If we do those three things, plus not turn the ball over, that’s really the formula.”
Virginia is one of only five FBS teams that has not lost a fumble this season and quarterback Chandler Morris has been picked off four times.
It will be the second time in Kitchings’ career that he has coached against Belichick. Kitchings was running backs coach for the Atlanta Falcons in 2021 when Belichick’s New England Patriots came to town.
“He obviously has a wealth of knowledge on defense, and we were expecting one thing and got another,” Kitchings said. “You know, that could happen on Saturday. We’ve just got to be prepared to make adjustments. The [Atlanta] staff I was working with had faced him years before and they just talked about, like, man, we know we’re gonna get something different … just don’t know what it is. And sure enough, we got something different and we had to make adjustments.”
Apparently not enough, as New England won, 25-0.
But in Kitchings’ film study of the Tar Heels, he hasn’t seen much change schematically by Carolina. Certainly it’s not as easy in college ball because of much less preparation time, in addition to having professional players with years of experience.
This Week’s ACC Schedule
Friday
Virginia Tech 42, California 34 (2OT)
Saturday
Virginia at North Carolina, Noon (ACC Network)
Syracuse at Georgia Tech, Noon (ESPN)
SMU at Wake Forest, Noon (The CW)
NC State at Pitt, 3:30 p.m. (ACC Network)
Stanford at Miami, 7 p.m. (ESPN)
Boston College at Louisville, 7:30 p.m. (ACC Network)
