The 15

By Vinny Jace, Special to the15net dot com:

Little was expected from North Carolina as they entered Ireland to play the TCU Horned Frogs in the season opener—the same team that thrashed them 48-14 and set the Tar Heels on a path of endless ridicule. Revenge never tasted so sweet, as Bill Belichick and his boys white-knuckled a 15-10 win. What makes this moment sweeter for a Belichick fan such as myself is the sense of how hard the team worked the entire offseason just to put their best foot forward. The roster turnover was jaw-dropping in its magnitude, akin to selectively thinning a forest to burn away the smaller, weaker underbrush and dead wood.

UNC introduced 59 new players to the squad this offseason, including 19 transfers and 40 first-year players. Meanwhile, 31 players departed through the transfer portal alongside standard graduations. Most of the team is made up of underclassmen, which hopefully signals the job security Belichick has for this season and the next as he develops them into effective juniors and seniors.

On top of that, Belichick brought in Bobby Petrino to replace Freddie Kitchens. It’s too early to say whether UNC will improve from their dastardly, last-place mark in the ACC offensively from the year before. But his coaching, fused with the new crop of players led by 23-year-old journeyman Billy Edwards Jr., breathed fresh air into the system. The stat sheet was not lit up with gaudy numbers. But playing nearly error-free football on a sloppy field, combined with a modest 16-of-28 passing performance and 232 yards, is a hell of an improvement. Petrino was brought in to implement a balanced, pro-style offense mirroring the system Belichick ran in New England. So far the marriage has worked out well—and dare I say, it breeds confidence going forward.

But as Belichick says, coaches lose games; players win them. You’d be hard-pressed to find positive performances from UNC last season, especially on offense. The defensive side yielded hard-nosed, gritty efforts that typically went unnoticed. The only player on offense I can think of who left a mark on me from last year was running back Demon June (today he ran for 25 yards on 6 rushes), who now shares backfield duties with Benjamin Hall (11 carries, 36 yards) and Jaylen McGill (5 rushes for 33 yards and UNC’s lone touchdown).

But let us start by exalting the defense. Xavier Lewis served as UNC’s wrecking ball on the interior, dismantling TCU’s blocking and racking up 2 sacks and 4.5 tackles for loss on his own. Coincidentally, Lewis was one of Bill’s first recruits.
Linebacker Derek McDonald led the entire team in total production. He clogged the running lanes all afternoon, securing a team-high 9 tackles. Defensive lineman Jaylen Harvey provided excellent edge containment and registered 5 combined tackles.

TCU did not score a single point in the second half. While everyone rushes to blame Sonny Dykes and try to place him on the hot seat, we should keep in mind this is a TCU team that won 9 games the last two seasons. They are a good program, and beating them is no small feat. Offensively, just by staring at the team stats you get a sense of how quietly UNC dominated TCU: 322 total yards to their opponents’ 281; 5.6 yards per play to their even 4. UNC committed just 3 penalties to TCU’s 11.

The team might have a legitimate weapon at tight end in Jelani Thurmond, who caught 4 passes for 94 yards, including an explosive 35-yard catch to ignite the Tar Heels’ opening scoring drive. Jordan Shipp went into the game expected to be Edwards’ most sure-handed receiver and lived up to the expectations, snagging 5 catches for 71 yards.

Overall, a solid opening for UNC hoping to wash away the bitter taste of last season 4-8 record. There’s a lot of work to be done; bumps in the road are surely to be expected. Progress is typically nonlinear. But as of now, the sky appears less filled with doom and gloom.

Vinny Jace is a special contributor to The15net.com.