FB: Wake Forest 28, North Carolina-Chapel Hill 27

[Devil in the Blue Dress]

Wake just beat Carolina in Winston-Salem. Welcome to the ACC, Coach Fedora!;)

[davekay1971]

Wake just beat Carolina in Winston-Salem. Welcome to the ACC, Coach Fedora!;)

That game made me smile. Very, very broadly.

The only thing better than Carolina losing is Carolina losing when they're up 6 with the opponent pinned inside their own 10 yard line in the second half of the fourth quarter, and Carolina manages to make Tanner Price look like John Elway.

[Olympic Fan]

I too was happy to see UNCheat go down.

But I have to admit, there was a part of me that wanted them to have a great football season.

Hear me out. A year ago, everybody in the football world knew that UNC was going to be penalized by the NCAA for agent-gate (at the time, we didn't know about the bogus AFAM courses, although we did know that UNC players hadf received illegal help from their tutors). The only debate was whether they would get a one year or a two year bowl ban.

Miami, faced with a similar prospect, expected to get its punishment out of the way and self-imposed a one-year bowl ban. A lot of people thought UNC should do the same -- after all, what were they giving up? A chance to go to the Independence Bowl under an interim coach and get pounded (41-24) by Missouri?

But no, the Tar Heels were so damn arrogant that they were convinced that the NCAA would never give THEM a bowl ban. They happily bowled in Shreveport under Googie Withers and to their utter shock, left first-year coach Larry Fedora with a bowl ban for this year.

Now, that bowl ban doesn't mean very much if they go 5-7 and fail to qualify for a bowl. It would turn out that they made the right decision to take the crappy bowl last year. And if they end up with 7-8 wins and have to sit out another crappy bowl (time out, as a Duke fan, In understand that I have a lot of gall talking abiout crappy bowls, but when programs that cheat as much as UNC wind up in Shreveport, it IS a crappy bowl), the whole thing would be a wash (although I imagine they would have preferred that Fedora got to start his regime with the crappy bowl and the extra practice time that goes with it).

But what would have happened if UNCheat was to win the Coastal Division this season? What if UNC had played itself into position to play in the ACC championship game -- but couldn't because they are ineligible? What would have happened if UNCheat had put itself in position for the Orange Bowl, but couldn't play for the chance because they chose to go to the Independence Bowl last year?

Now that would have been sweet ... can you imagine the howls of anguish from Chapel Hill?

Of course, watching the Cheaters choke it against Wake Forest was pretty sweet too.

[Acymetric]

I totally get what you're saying, but I think the boost to the Carolina program having a highly successful season under first year coach Fedora would outweigh the negative of qualifying for the ACC champ game or a high level non-BCS bowl and being forced to miss it. Plus if I have to read any more articles about Fedora's unstoppable offense in the N&O I think I'm going to lose it.

[moonpie23]

how bout they go undefeated in regular season (can't now) but that would have been SWEET........

[Devil in the Blue Dress]

how bout they go undefeated in regular season (can't now) but that would have been SWEET........

Let's not give them the Oct. 20th. game!

[Olympic Fan]

I really don't know the answer to this, but several UNCheat fans seem to think that Renner suffered a concussion late in the first half, but was sent back in the game by Fedora.

Renner did take a blow to the head and had to leave the game, but he returned and played the entire second half. Interesting statistical split -- before he took the blow, he had hit 10 of 12 passes for 119 yards and a TD. After the blow, he hit 13 of 27 for 152 yards with 0 TDs, an interception and a lost fumble.

It will be interesting to see if there is a followup to this.

[moonpie23]

i was listening to the game on the radio and the unc announcers were talking about "something just wasn't right about his passes"....they were pointing out how wobbly and off the mark they were....