What Did I Miss?

Great win by the Heels.

Let me first note that the ESPN Zone at Time Square in New York was not showing ESPN2 on any of their TVs.  That is pretty much par for the course where ESPN is concerned, just look at Heather Dinich.  Anyway, I did find a place that had the game on and saw the big Shaun Draughan TD run as well as Marvin Austin living out every defensive lineman’s dream.  My take on the game is limited since I did not see much of it.  Here are a few observations:

• The UNC defense and special teams was dominant.  Bruce Carter had three blocked punts, one of which setup a touchdown.  Marvin Austin takes the wayward pass created by EJ Wilson’s take down of UConn’s Zack Frazer and runs it in for a TD that put the game away at 31-6.  UNC held UConn’s Donald Brown to 4.9 yard per carry down from the six yards per carry he had been getting.  Overall, the team defense UNC plays, while not spectacular in terms of yards allowed, does the job in creating turnovers.
• What is to be done with Greg LIttle?  Shaun Draughan was very good and Ryan Houston seems to be the answer for some short yardage pounding.  It appears that the Greg Little Experiment is either on hold or presently being reinvented by the coaching staff.  Little to too good of an athlete to waste on the bench so I using him in other spots might be in order.  It will be interesting to see what Butch Davis and John Shoop decide to do with him.
• Cam Sexton was adequate in this game and since UNC actually had a running game working and the defense/special teams was providing the short field, the passing game saw less action.  Sexton was 9-16 for 117 yards, 1 TD and 1 INT.  Not a bad day and enough that you feel comfortable with Sexton running the show going forward until TJ Yates returns.  Apparently Sexton is it since Davis answered the question as to how he would insert Mike Paulus into the game: He didn’t.  I thought it was an odd committment to make in saying Paulus would play given the possibility he might not play if Sexton continued to perform well.
• Casey Barth was back kicking FGs and Jay Wooten handled the kickoffs.  Barth missed a 30 yard FG which is one he should be fairly automatic on.  So the FG kicking remains a concern with neither Barth or Wooten impressing anyone and making that a nervous aspect of the game for UNC.
• UNC is a ranked team for the first time in 2001.  UNC enters the AP Top 25 at #22 just below Wake Forest.  No ranking yet in the coaches poll.
• Caulton Tudor is so impressed he things UNC can run the table and end up 11-1 with a possible berth as an at-large BCS team.  I am not there yet on that but the idea he puts forth that UNC can still be 9-3 even if “the roof collapses” is even a winning scenario in my book.  All that being said, the coaches will need to be on the players this week to avoid the team getting too high on itself and reading the papers.  Notre Dame is not you father’s Notre Dame but dangerous enough to clip an unfocused Tar Heel team in a classic trap game.
• The rest of the ACC was interesting.  BC found some offense versus NCSU winning the TOB Bowl for the 2nd straight season.  Miami and FSU had nothing but offense between them.  FSU won which sort of shocked me.  Georgia Tech brought Duke back to reality and proved that the Blue Devils might not win again this season.  The game everyone was shocked by was UVa beating Maryland 31-0.  Except I was not shocked and even said so on Friday: “As bad as UVa is, them beating Maryland would not shock me because Maryland seems to be in possession of that sort of maddening inconsitency that leads fans to episodes of ripping their hair out.” Granted I will picked a Maryland win but who in their right mind would pick UVa to win that game?  Anyway, I ended up 4-2 for this week and 36-16 for the season.
• In the ACC Now Pick Six, I finished 4-2.  Joe Giglio and Caulton Tudor both went 3-3 to the win goes to your humble blogger.

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