North Carolina walks into Saturday’s matchup with Notre Dame needing more than a clean game plan. It needs hope, a fast start and probably a little chaos, too.
The Irish have spent the early part of the season looking every bit like the team many expected them to be. Notre Dame is 4-0 and has already stacked up some eye-catching wins, which is why it comes into this game as the clear favorite.
For UNC, the bar is much lower and much more immediate: show something. The Tar Heels are not expected to win, and according to the outlook in the source, they may not even be expected to really hang around. But even a competitive showing would count as a positive sign for a program that could use one.
That’s the reality here. Small wins matter.
Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman has had plenty to point to, and he said the success has come from steady work behind the scenes rather than any kind of magic.
"They're executing better," Freeman said, per ESPN. "There's no magical formula.
It's work, it's practice, it's understanding the whats, the whys and the hows of executing on game day. It's the belief in what we're doing and in playing fast with velocity and violence."
The biggest problem for North Carolina is what happens if its offense stalls early. If that side of the ball doesn’t show up, Notre Dame has the kind of defense that can turn the game into a runaway in a hurry.
The numbers are ugly for opposing offenses. ESPN noted that Notre Dame is allowing just 199.3 yards per game, the only FBS team under 200. The Irish are giving up only 8.3 points per game, trailing just Iowa’s 8.0, and that’s a sharp drop from last year’s four-game average of 27.8.
There’s more. Notre Dame has allowed only one second-half touchdown, and that came with 6 seconds left in last weekend’s 49-10 win at Purdue.
So yes, UNC has a small chance. But Saturday looks like one of those games where the Tar Heels need a lot to go right just to make it interesting.
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UNCs Next Two Games Could Decide Billy Edwards Jr.s Role
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Now the Tar Heels are heading into a pair of games that could define how long he keeps the job. With Notre Dame and Pittsburgh on deck, Edwards Jr.s future as UNCs starter may come down to how he handles two challenging opponents in quick succession, making the next two weeks feel a lot bigger than just another run on the schedule. [Read more 🡒]