Speechless in Chapel Hill: Carolina's new era facing old questions caused by its past

The Tar Heels can't explain why the offense has struggled

CHAPEL HILL — Too often over these past two-plus seasons, they’ve had to sit in the Kenan Football Center, tasked with answering questions they don’t have the answers to.

That all-too-familiar feeling was back on Saturday night as Appalachian State held off North Carolina for a 34-31 victory, yet again leaving them to try to explain what went wrong on a Saturday afternoon that something unexplainable was just a little off.

Only now, after dropping two straight games following a shocking 2-0 start, the feeling is worse than those nights the Tar Heels had to suffer through one loss after another.

“Once you get a taste of winning, you definitely don’t want to go back to losing,” receiver Beau Corrales said. “If you had told me we’d be 2-2 after the Miami game, heading into the Clemson week, I would have laughed at it.”

Two weeks ago, this place was on fire well into the night as players dove into the stands to celebrate with their peers, their former savior in Mack Brown back in town to stoke the fires of victory once more. A new era had arrived in Chapel Hill, right under that Bell Tower’s soft blue light.

Now, the new era is grappling with the previous era and the scars it left on a team that became accustomed to watching leads slip away.

No longer is the fourth quarter the problem.

Now, it’s the other three that are proving to be the issue for the Tar Heels and no one seems to have an answer as to why.

“Personally, I don’t think I can answer that question, but without a doubt, we’ve got to find an answer as a team,” Corrales said. “We can’t keep coming out, shooting ourselves in the foot and starting off slow.”

“Just kind of have to do better in the first half; that’s what it boils down to,” defensive tackle Aaron Crawford said. “I can’t pinpoint it on one certain thing, you can’t put it on one person, one side of the ball. We as a unit have to do better in the first half.”

Unlike last week at Wake Forest, it appeared the Tar Heels were on track for a hot start after Michael Carter’s long kick return set up a 21-yard touchdown pass from Sam Howell to Dyami Brown to give Carolina a 7-0 lead just 17 seconds in.

But just like last week, the Carolina offense was largely ineffective moving forward, managing just 23 yards over the next four offensive drives and falling behind 20-7.

And just like every week before it, it took a deficit for the Tar Heels to wake up and start moving the ball again, putting together a 61-yard drive for a field goal and a masterful nine-play, 75-yard drive that culminated in a Carter touchdown with one second remaining before the half.

Problem was, the score only helped cut App State’s lead to 27-17.

On the season, opponents have outscored Carolina 94-56 in the first half with the Tar Heels managing just one touchdown in either the second or third quarters.

“I feel like it’s just a sense of urgency,” Corrales said. “We’ve got to be able to play with the sense of urgency that we do whenever it comes down to a last-minute situation because when it comes down to crunch time, that’s when we’re really rolling, that’s when our offense has produced the best.”

The second half was emblematic of why the Tar Heels are 2-2 at this point.

Along with 98- and 80-yard scoring drives, there was an interception, a few costly penalties and even more busted coverages, allowing the Mountaineers to convert two third downs that could have changed the outcome.

Instead, a ninth straight loss to in-state FBS competition was cemented when Noah Ruggles’ 56-yard field goal attempt was blocked as time expired.

Despite outscoring opponents 45-9 in the fourth quarter this season, the Tar Heels have just two wins to show for it because of early deficits.

Afterward, Brown’s face was worn with emotional effort of trying to lead his football team through a storm and over its past trauma, speaking of its current identity and the one he’d like to see it achieve.

“It would look like playing consistently well instead of having great plays and bad plays,” he said. “We’ve just got to get to a point where we are what we are, it doesn’t matter who we play; we play the same way every play, we don’t have mental mistakes. We’re in great shape obviously, so that’s not an issue for us. Now, we’ve got to get over this hump and start playing consistently good with confidence.”

Two weeks ago, the Tar Heels said they were through with the past when they’d pulled off two straight fourth-quarter comebacks over Miami and South Carolina.

The past two weeks have proven the past isn’t through with them.

“The harder things get, the more animated you’ve got to be, the more you have to pull together instead of split apart,” Brown said. “There are some scars that we have to overcome.”

Four games in, the Tar Heels have reached a crossroads in their season.

If old doubts start to creep back in, those scars become reminders too painful to move past.

Or, if linebacker Tomon Fox has his way, they’ll be proof of just how far this team has come.

“All these guys know we’ve had these feelings, we’ve been in scenarios like this before,” Fox said. “I think it motivates us to be like, ‘Nah, we ain’t going back to that; we’ve got to keep working harder, we can’t let that happen again.”

Things are different for these Tar Heels, but until they find out the answer to their early struggles, they’ll be answering the same old questions every week.

“Something is wrong and we’ve got to be able to figure out what it is quick,” Corrales said. “The effort is there, the love for each other is there — we’re a close team — we’ve just got to figure out what we’re doing wrong early in the game.”