UNC Football History: Programs that Tar Heels have never beaten

The North Carolina football media guide is a quite useful resource. For one, it gives you plenty of information on the players, coaches, and more for a given year’s team. It’s also a nice easy way to look up stuff like school statistic records. In general, the history portions of it are very useful.

One of the things listed there is UNC’s head-to-head record against every opponent they’ve ever faced off with. Obviously, it has all the results of games against all ACC and other classic matchups listed, but it’s as detailed enough to include stuff like the lone game against now Division II Lenoir-Rhyne in 1941.

Those lists of old-timey results — and some modern ones too — also shows up what teams the Tar Heels have an all-time winless record against. Some of them are not particularly surprising, but some very much are, at least on paper. With that in mind, let’s go through those 0-for records and try and figure out some ways to try and fix it.

The Maybe Obvious Ones

Some of the teams UNC has never beaten are historical powerhouses, making it not shocking that no Heels’ team ever managed a win. Those teams include Alabama (0-1), Oklahoma (0-7) and Texas A&M (0-1). Those teams have also have had various amounts of success in recent years. It’s possible that if Carolina could face them in some kind of bowl game in the coming years, and maybe they could figure something out then.

Powers 5s UNC should be able to be competitive with

There are also a could major conference teams UNC hasn’t beaten that they theoretically could should a game arise. Those teams include Arizona (0-1), Baylor (0-1), Cal (0-2), Missouri (0-3), Nebraska (0-1), and Wisconsin (0-2). A couple of those have come in recent years and in frustrating fashion. While some of these teams have been good in recent years and wouldn’t be easy to beat, there’s no reason Carolina should be winless against them all-time.

G5s

No offense meant to any of these teams, but they feel like ones UNC could schedule and easily get a theoretical monkey off their backs. G5s that the Tar Heels have never beaten include Rice (0-1) and South Florida (0-2).

The Funny Ones

Alright, now we’ve reached the interesting portion. None of the teams listed here have faced off against UNC in a very long time. That’s why the Tar Heels are winless against them and why it’s amusing that the records are what they are.

For one, Carolina is winless all-time against a bunch of Ivy League schools. They are 0-2 against Harvard, 0-2 against Princeton, and 0-7 against Yale. That may seem weird now, but Princeton and Yale in particular still top the list of most claimed national championships, even if they haven’t played at the FBS level in a long time. The most recent of those claims in Princeton in 1950. In the decades where they did play at the highest level, UNC never managed to pick off a win against any of those three, and are unlikely to even get the chance now. In a similar vein, the Tar Heels are collectively 0-3 against Lafayette and Lehigh, having not played either since 1906.

Last but certainly not lease, UNC is 0-1 all-time against the Charlotte YMCA. I don’t know about you, but I think it’s time UNC take on some kids taking swim lessons and right that wrong.