The More You Know...About North Carolina

Dan E. Dangerously · Oct 13, 2013

Miami faces it's first real road test of the season in UNC this Thursday night. Let's see what the Tar Heels are all about.

Miami is ranked in the top 10 for the first time in 4 years. That's nice and all, but if your goal was for the team to be ranked in the top 10 in October then GTFO. Ask the 2009 Hurricanes how cool it was to crack the top 10 in October. Anyways, we are 1-3 against these guys at their place since joining the ACC and 4-5 overall. That's obscenely bad. Don't waste all your rage on UNC though, because we have the same 4-5 record against UVA in that same span.

The game against USF was almost 50/50 Canes and Bulls fans, so this is gonna be our first real road game of the season. ****, we're halfway through October and this is the 1st time we will have left the state of Florida this season. So we really have no idea how this team will respond in certain situations in a tough environment. Especially if the Heels hit 1 or 2 big plays to start the game.

1. Where they are in the standings/rankings:

Remember when UNC was supposed to be good this year? No clue what's happened there, but it's never a good thing when Duke has 4 times as many wins as you do in football. ECU came into their place a few weeks ago and dropped double nickels on them. Things are so rough that they need to win out, and have Virginia Tech lose 3 conference games to have any chance at the Coastal Division crown. So us beating them would solidify the division as being a 2 team race between us and the Hokies for the remainder of the season. The Tar Heels had a bye week just like us to get ready for this game. Before that they lost to Virginia Tech 27-17 up in Blacksburg.

Here's what Virginia Tech fans are saying about North Carolina:

From: Gobbler Country

chicagomaroon said:
...The Hokies were dominating at half, having racked up 277 total yards, including an efficient 230 through the air from Thomas (which would've been considerably more without costly drops), and allowed the Tar Heels only 145 yards of their own.

In the second half, that all turned around. The Tar Heels gained 232 yards to the Hokies 67 (before kneeling twice for a loss of three yards on their last possession to run out the clock), making Tech the ONLY FBS team not to rack up 400+ yards on the Tar Heels so far this season. Tech had at least three plays where the snap was fumbled or arrived at Logan Thomas' feet, and all three resulted in possession killers. The offensive line had absolutely ZERO push in the run game, making it impossible to have any kind of consistent threat on the ground...

Much like Georgia Tech, Logan Thomas looked efficient and poised dropping back to pass against Carolina's defense. If he can complete 67% of his passes and go for nearly 300 yards through the air, one would think Stephen Morris could at the very least match those stats. But Morris struggled against UNC last year before he hurt his ankle, so I'm hesitant to predict a big game for him on Thursday. UNC did however hold the Hokies to under 50 yards rushing. I gotta think we can do better than that.

On the offensive side, UNC threw for almost 300 yards with a backup QB (Marquise Williams) on the road. The Hokies have a pretty good secondary too, so let that sink in on how good their offense is in the passing game.

2. What happened the last time Miami played North Carolina?

From the Associated Press:

Giovani Bernard ran for 177 yards and two touchdowns and North Carolina survived a slew of penalties to beat Miami 18-14 Saturday, handing the Hurricanes their first Atlantic Coast Conference loss. Bernard scored on runs of 10 and 17 yards for the Tar Heels (5-2, 2-1). It was the fourth straight win for North Carolina, which was penalized 15 times.

Mike James rushed 22 times for 96 yards, both career-bests, and he and Stephen Morris each had touchdown runs for Miami (4-3, 3-1), which may have lost more than a game. Morris, Miami's quarterback, was helped off the field with 8:26 remaining after apparently hurting his left ankle. He had a large icepack strapped to the ankle shortly afterward and did not return.

Backup Ryan Williams was called in and threw an incompletion on fourth-and-6 from the North Carolina 26 with 5:45 left. North Carolina took nearly four minutes off the clock before punting to Miami with 1:47 left, then held on from there...

This was one of those losses that when you reflect on the season as it ends, really ****es you off. It was the week after Notre Dame ran train on us in Chicago. Former St. Thomas Aquinas star Giovani Bernard was a one man wrecking crew in this game. We really shouldn't have been in this game anyway, but turnovers and penalties by UNC allowed us to stick around. Then when Morris went out, Williams couldn't step up when called upon.

There was other crazy stuff that happened too. Like UNC going for 2 and getting it after lining up in the Emory and Henry formation. We were so lost...had no clue what to do. Then we tried to go for 2 to tie it at 15, but we got flagged for snapping the ball too early. Jake Wieclaw had been struggling with a case of the shanks for the past few games, so we couldn't rely on him on our 2nd to last possession. And of course Morris getting hurt, which put Williams in a tough spot in crunch time. The injury lingered to the following week and really hindered Stephen against FSU. He was a sitting duck against their front 7.

3. Who to be scared of:

Bryn Renner

To date, Jeff Driskel is the best QB we've faced. And as bad as he is, he was still able to throw for 291 yards and complete 67% of his passes. Now were facing a guy who's better than that, and doesn't have a propensity to turn it over multiple times in a game. After playing Georgia Tech (who doesn't throw the ball at all) we're ranked #1 in Pass Defense. So after Renner makes a couple of plays and the announcers start being all like, "OMG guyzm, Renner is doing this against the #1 Pass Defense in the nation", it doesn't mean anything. Renner can throw it and he has lots of weapons at his disposal. The ACC's official site rated him as the 16th best player in the conference before the season started. Here's a quick highlight video they made of him:

[video=youtube;N_IVsnf0O1k]www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_IVsnf0O1k[/video]

So glad we have a pass rush now. He missed their last game against Virginia Tech with a foot injury, but is expected to make the start against us.

4. Player that will score against us:

Eric Ebron

Amazing tight end. I mean, just look at this:

He is absurd. Easily the best TE we'll face all year. He leads their team in both receptions (23) and yards (333). Here's a short highlight video from last year and this year:

[video=youtube;UTUfBK9tmgE]www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTUfBK9tmgE[/video]

Yikes. Nothing else to say. Prepare your ****.

5. Person that will **** you off:

Tre Boston

Boston is a senior and is a pretty good safety. He's started since he was a freshmen in 2010. He came in as a corner and was pushed into service early because of all the suspensions UNC had that year. You'll probably remember him from last year when he grabbed 1 of Morris' 2 interceptions. Why will you get ****ed at him? He's from south Florida...Fort Myers, FL (North Fort Myers HS) to be exact. At 6'1 he even fit Randy Shannon's absurd height requirements for DB's. So naturally, Randy didn't give him the time of day. Instead, Randy brought in these DB's in 2010:

[TABLE="width: 500"]
[TR]
[TD]S[/TD]
[TD]9[/TD]
[TD]

[/TD]
[TD]Latwan Anderson
(Glenville HS)
Cleveland, OH[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]Miami (Fl)[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]CB[/TD]
[TD]19[/TD]
[TD]

[/TD]
[TD]Keion Payne
(St. Thomas Aquinas HS)
Fort Lauderdale, FL[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]Miami (Fl)[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR="bgcolor: #EEEEEE"]
[TD]CB[/TD]
[TD]114[/TD]
[TD]

[/TD]
[TD]Devont'a Davis
(Gainesville HS)
Gainesville, FL[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]Miami (Fl)[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]CB[/TD]
[TD]14[/TD]
[TD]

[/TD]
[TD]Kacy Rodgers
(Carroll HS)
Southlake, TX[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]Miami (Fl)[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]CB[/TD]
[TD]50[/TD]
[TD]

[/TD]
[TD]Jeremy Davis
(Cape Coral HS)
Cape Coral, FL[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]Miami (Fl)[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]

Of those 5, only Kacy Rodgers was still on the team a year after Golden was hired. Latwan Anderson was, "just a track guy", Keion Payne transferred, Devont'a Davis sucked, and Jeremy Davis never even stepped foot on campus. I'm content with our DB situation as is, but when Tre Boston makes some play in the secondary (deflecting a pass or god forbid another pick) be prepared to kick your dog. Here's him making a play against UVA:

[video=youtube;4czGp1hy1Vc]www.youtube.com/watch?v=4czGp1hy1Vc[/video]

Having him in the secondary sure would've been nice when we played UVA last year. Say it with me now...thanks, Randy.

6. Some other guy:

Quinshad Davis

When Renner isn't looking for Ebron, he's looking for sophomore WR Quinshad Davis. He was a 4 star kid out of South Carolina who chose UNC over the likes of Tennessee and Clemson. He's the team leader in touchdowns (4), and 2nd on the team in receptions (19) and yards (298). I'm pretty comfortable in saying he's the best WR we've faced all year to this point. He did this in a losing effort against ECU:

[video=youtube;GKyjov684W0]www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKyjov684W0[/video]

I'm anxious to see how our secondary holds up against him and the rest of their offense.

7. Official internet meme for this game:

Well, There's Your Problem

[video=youtube;pele5vptVgc]www.youtube.com/watch?v=pele5vptVgc[/video]