UNC Preview

Well, we made that a lot more stressful than it  had to be after a great first half.  But it was a win at least.  Good game from the offense, scoring pretty efficiently against really a pretty good defense.  The defense and special teams struggled, and Duke isn't particularly good at offense or special teams, so that's... concerning like it always is.  But we are at the point of this season, I think, where any win is a good win.  We very likely aren't going to be contending for anything important (to win the Coastal we need to win out and get a lot of luck).  So 7 or 8 wins and going bowling again would be great.  This helps in that regard, even though it was very stressful.

So, UNC?  An interesting team this year.  They lost to UGA, a loss that looks worse and worse by the week.  And were blown out by VT, although VT is very good and that was in a hurricane.  Of course they beat Pitt and Miami (two teams that beat us) and FSU (a team we surely would not beat).  I would say they are the kind of team that in the past few years has become a fairly typical UNC team.  Explosive if not consistent on offense, mediocre to bad on defense, but lots of good athletes all over the place.  A curious team to try to beat, especially with our set up (Good, possession based offense and struggled everywhere else).

Oddly enough, UNC isn't ranked very highly on offense, at least in football outsiders (per possession based efficiency stats that I prefer).  They are 51st.  We are 14th.  So, that metric would have you believe we are significantly better on offense than UNC.  I could believe it.  We were comparable against Pitt and Miami in total points (but on fewer possessions for us) and we are likely to do better against VT.  We'll see about UGA.   But basically, we are more efficient with the ball.  UNC isn't bad.  Certainly good enough to beat up our 100th ranked defense.  They are #77 on D.  Just looking at those two gives the impression we might be the better team.  I'm skeptical.  Vegas has UNC favored by 10 and I think that's about right.  We'll find out, but I expect this game to see both teams move the ball pretty well.  Think similar to the Pitt game, except UNC may get a couple more stops than Pitt did.  We need a key turnover or two, probably, to win here.  Although it is possible.  I'll call it 35-28 UNC.  Close game and we cover the spread, but no luck on getting the win.

I hope I'm wrong.  As always, Go Jackets!