After a difficult week at North Carolina, finally a big win the Tar Heels can feel good about
Drake Maye, in uniform, found his way on the field afterward toward Tez Walker, who wasn’t allowed to wear his. Mack Brown insisted the ineligible transfer stay with the team Saturday after his latest appeal was denied Friday, and Walker was able to celebrate, if not play.
As Maye and Walker shared a long hug, a North Carolina staffer walked past with the game ball that country-music star Eric Church would shortly present in the locker room to Walker, who was recognized for the contributions he was unable to make Saturday night while stuck in cruel NCAA limbo.
Then there was British Brooks, back after a year away, unsure if he’d ever return, sobbing on one knee at Mack Brown’s feet, completely overcome with emotion of his own. He hadn’t just made it all the way back. He was the focal point of a resurgent running game.
It all came pouring out Saturday. Relief that an offseason of hype, for the Tar Heels and Maye alike, hadn’t combusted at first asking. Frustration over the hurdles the Tar Heels faced, the distractions they swatted away this week. Elation in a massive, prime-time win to open the season. Emotion piled upon emotion, in victory, uncontained.
“With Tez, with everybody, everything going on, we showed the grit we had,” Maye said. “And the grit the defense had. How about them boys tonight?”
Photos: UNC defeats South Carolina 31-17
Everything that happened this week, from Monday’s shooting that left the campus locked down in horror, to Walker’s ongoing battle with the worst of the NCAA’s heartless bureaucracy, to an ACC expansion vote that went against North Carolina’s express wishes – it was all washed away in a commanding 31-17 win over South Carolina that may not have burnished Maye’s Heisman candidacy, although it certainly didn’t hurt it.
“You can’t make everything in your life good but what you can do is handle things that aren’t going well and aren’t good,” said Brown, who won his 100th game at UNC. “That’s what we’re trying to teach these players. You try to keep from having problems. You’re still going to have some tough things in your life as they come up. But the way that you handle them is the success rate you’re going to have with you and your family.”
This win offered evidence that so many of the things that went so wrong a year ago, the defense and the offensive line and the running game, had been successfully retooled since the last time North Carolina took the field, a late collapse against Oregon in the Holiday Bowl that concluded a closing run full of them.
Most of all, though, the defense, mocked and maligned last season starting with the fourth-quarter implosion against Appalachian State. Not only did it make two big fourth-down stops in the fourth quarter to preserve the win, it had more than half as many sacks Saturday (nine!) as it had all of last season (17).
“I think it was a little bit of everything,” linebacker Cedric Gray said. “We’ve been a whole year in this new system with coach (Gene) Chizik. I think we had some personnel changes, blitzing a lot more this year. And mentality. We had a culture change on the defense. There were a few things that happened to us last year that we said weren’t going to happen to us this year. So it was a combination of all of that.”
The Tar Heels’ ongoing travails were all in evidence before the ball was even kicked, from a moment of silence before the national anthem to Church, an honorary captain, wearing Walker’s No. 9 jersey out for the coin flip. The ruffled feathers over Friday’s vote to add California, Stanford and SMU to the ACC played out in two of UNC athletic director Bubba Cunningham’s pregame conversations: a short one with ACC commissioner Jim Phillips, and a longer and very cordial one with SEC commissioner Greg Sankey.
But over the next four hours that was all washed away, the kind of cleansing that not merely meeting but exceeding expectations can provide. Brooks ran for 103 yards. “Drake,” as Brown put it afterward, “was Drake.” He did throw two picks. He also wasn’t sacked once.
It’s exactly what North Carolina wanted. It’s exactly what North Carolina needed. And disputes among the administrative class aside, the UNC fans still indulged in an “ACC! ACC!” chant after snuffing out the Gamecocks’ last hopes in the fourth quarter. They’re still flying that flag, for now. So, for that matter, is Maye.
“They say welcome to the SEC,” Maye said, having procured Walker’s jersey to wear during his postgame interviews. “Let’s talk about some ACC football.”
It was that kind of night, to let the feelings flow, good and bad, finally released. It doesn’t get Walker any closer to the field – his next appeal will be heard Thursday – and it can’t turn back the time on Monday’s tragic events. It can’t get Brooks last year back, although his present is brighter than ever.
But it was otherwise everything North Carolina wanted, a proper end to a difficult week, a proper start to a promising season – something, finally, to feel good about.
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