It Is Time

This season marks Head Coach Larry Fedora's fourth season in Chapel Hill. This is the season that he has to show that the North Carolina Tarheels are headed in the right direction. He took a major step in the off season by hiring Gene Chizik as his defensive coordinator. Chizik Immediately switched the Tarheels defense to a more traditional 4-3 and the "bend but break like a twig" 4-2-5 of Vic Koenning is gone.

The biggest questions the Tarheel football team faced coming in to this season was their defense and special teams. Both performed well enough to win the opener against South Carolina. The defense gave up 394 yards, 254 yards of those were rushing yards, but only 17 points. That point total already best last season's lowest points allowed of 20 against Duke. The Tarheels were facing a South Carolina Quarterback that had only thrown two collegiate passes coming into the game.

The kicking game for the Tarheels was among the weakest in college football last season. The Tarheel kickers did not have a field goal longer than 29 yards last season. Nick Weiler had two field goals (47,30) longer than that in the first game. This was another critical improvement for the Tarheels.

What was not expected to be a problem for the Tarheels was the offense. Their high scoring offense was expected to be even better this season. They have weapons at all of the key positions- Quarterback, Wide Receiver, and a stable of Running Backs that run four deep. The veteran offensive line had several penalties and outside of his touchdown pass to Bug Howard, Starting Quarterback Marquise Williams could never seem to get untracked. He threw three interceptions against South Carolina, two of those in the end zone. Running Back Elijah Hood had 13 carries for 138 yards but was conspicuously absent at key moments in the game.

Coach Fedora's play calling, the fact that he stuck with Williams for the entire game, and the fact that he did not use Hood more was all called in to question after the game. The bottom line is that the Tarheels need to win the games they have a chance to win and they should have won the South Carolina game. The team showed critical improvement in two of the three phases of the game, but the team's strength, their offense, let them down.