I'm just so tired of this football team.
Look, this game started out well. The Heels forced a fumble on the first play from scrimmage, and scored in a little over a minute. It was 7-0, and things looked pretty good. Carolina got a stop and drove back down to the VT five, where they were in position to score again and turn this into another Wake Forest-like rout. But instead Ryan Houston fumbles and Tech comes back to tie and then take the lead on a field goal. UNC's response? A missed field goal of their own, on a series that took Giovani Bernard out of the game with a head injury.
The second half was more of the same. Thomas Moore would miss a second field goal, this one from 38 yards out when the wind stopped it short. Dwight Jones would have a catch nullified for offensive pass interference. Thomas Hibbard would send a punt a whopping 28 yards, which Tech would fumble, and UNC would still get nothing from it. The Hokies would lead 24-7 with less than 10 minutes to play before the Heels would get a scoring drive underway. They then proceeded with a premature onside kick that failed, only to score again after the defense produced a stop. The second onside kick fared no better, and when Carolina finally got the ball back with 3 seconds remaining, they could do nothing but attempt another sad screen pass. It fell incomplete.
The defense did well, with only the occasional lapse. (A third and nine pass play that surrendered 39 yards comes to mind.) UNC outgained the Hokies on the field, holding them to 340 total yards while snapping David Wilson's streak of 100-yard games. The Heels own rushing game floundered without Bernard, and Bryn Renner only had an average game passing, but this was still a very winnable game for Carolina. And they just didn't.
Like I said, this team makes me very, very tired. There's a level of play it's capable of that they just don't live up to. One more game against Duke and a middling bowline late December and we can put this all behind us,