Final: Virginia 16, Miami 13
And that's a final. VT 22 - Cheaters 19.
Gotta love the Tarheels giving their fans hope at home and then giving it away and blowing it. Only bad thing is this is one loss closer to getting rid of Fedora. Fedora has their program heading in the right direction and really just needs more time.
Final: Virginia 16, Miami 13
Bob Green
Clearly we were VT's Superbowl.
That was beautiful to watch! Cherry on top of that the look on The Hats face when the clock struck zero. I honestly thought the man was going to cry! Eat that 1 and 4 record Hat man!
VaTech is showing that they played well above their heads against Duke and also caught us on a night where we were very flat. I think we can beat any Coastal Team left on our schedule. Maybe pull a miracle against Clemson to boot! ... Ok that was Ozzie-esque but a man can dream right?
VT 3-0 ... GT ... BC ...@Pitt ... Mia ... UVa
UVa 2-1 ... @Duke ... UNC ... Pitt ... @GT ... @VT
Mia 2-1 ... @BC ... Duke ... @GT ... @VT ... Pitt
Pitt 2-1 ... Duke ... @UVa ... VT ... @WFU ... @Mia
Duke 1-1 ... UVa ... @Pitt ...@Mia ... UNC ... @Clemson ... WFU
UNC 1-2 ... @Syr ... @UVa ... GT ... @Duke ... NCSU
GT 1-3 ... @VT ... @UNC ... Mia ... UVa
Some nice love from this week’s ESPN power rankings, where our boys check in at #19(!):
“...Yes, [Duke] looked off their game in a loss to Virginia Tech, but it's hard to overlook the quality of the opponents they've beaten to date.”
It was just three short years ago that Fedora led UNC to an 8-0 sweep of the Coastal division on their way to an 11-3 record and a final national ranking of #15. They were 8-5 (5-3 in the ACC) just two years ago. It appears they are getting good recruits. They have had the 4th or 5th best recruiting class in the conference every year since 2013. When you consider they are probably never going to beat schools like Clemson and FSU (and only rarely will they beat Miami or Va Tech) at recruiting, consistently being 4th-5th in the league isn't at all shabby.
Now, if they continue to lose every game, he may be in some trouble, but I think Fedora gets at least one more season. Don't forget that he has a massive buyout after they gave him a 7 year contract a couple years ago that pays him $3.5 mil a season. As a result, if they fire him this year, he gets a $14 mil buyout. It drops to $10.5 mil after the next season, $7 mil after 2020 and $3.5 mil after 2021. I have a hard time seeing Carolina sucking up a $14 mil buyout.
-Jason "like all of you, I am happy to see him stick around, not because he sucks but because I worry they will get someone really good who will turn the program into a powerhouse" Evans
Why are you wasting time here when you could be wasting it by listening to the latest episode of the DBR Podcast?
We are #18 in the Massey Composite of a couple dozen ranking services.
Why are you wasting time here when you could be wasting it by listening to the latest episode of the DBR Podcast?
I used to worry about this, but no longer. Carolina Football is and will always be a jumping off point to the powers of college football. It will never be a destination. Let's face it, they put a basketball player on their football jerseys this year. Do you think Nick Saban would ever allow that? Urban Meyer? Dabo Sweeny? Jimbo Fisher? The only coach I can think of that might be happy with that is Mike Leech because he's crazy.
Do you think a program that just went from almost 63,000 seats to 50,500 seats is a destination program?
Do you think a big time coach is going to want to play second fiddle to basketball? Do you think Carolina will ever bring the fans like Clemson, Bama, Auburn, Michigan, tOSU, etc?
There is no Frank Beamer out there for Carolina. There is Bobby Bowden out there. There isn't even a Cutcliff or Jim Grobe for Carolina.
It's far more likely that NC State gets a "program changer" to stick around simply because we do have the football culture and fans that will create loyalty. Even then I'm not sure we have pockets deep enough to fend off the big programs. I'm hoping we get the chance to find out with Doeren. (which either means he wins big and bolts for a larger program, or he wins big and sticks around...either way we would have won big ;p )
Of course, many of those arguments could be used in looking at Duke. But when the administration finally got serious about putting some real money into the team, we went and got a pretty good coach who was coming off getting fired at Ole Miss and had slunk back to Knoxville.
There are good folks out there that are better than The Hat. And there are folks willing to put up the $$$ in Ramville. I do worry that their next hire is a big upgrade.
I am certainly not saying that their next hire won't be better than Fedora, but I think someone good enough to turn Carolina into a power is going to bolt and want a shot with a program that will worship them. No matter how good Carolina is in football, as soon as basketball season starts football is over.
I present to you the 1997 Tarheels - They went 11-1 with a top 5 ranking.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1997_N..._football_team
Once they lost to FSU, they couldn't even sell out the game against Duke. Now think if their stated attendances was ~4,000 less than earlier home games for Indiana, Stanford, UVa, UVa and Wake how bad must the real attendance actually have been.
...and that's why the Tarheels will never be a power in football. They do no care like they do for basketball. They never have and they never will. Once the fans in '97 realized they weren't going to be ACC champs, they weren't going to play for a national title, they moved onto basketball. No big time coach is going to put up with it. I do believe that Duke game was the ultimate reason Brown bolted. He didn't want to be second fiddle.
I don't know how good Duke with Cutcliffe can become. They are certainly more consistent and better than the heels under Fedora. At the same time, Carolina would never hire a "has been" like Cutcliffe. Cutcliffe is unique in that he found a home at Duke. He doesn't care about being is K's shadow. I doubt that Carolina will ever hire someone with a personality like Cutcliffe. They want the razzle dazzle big name with the big ego...and that is never going to end well for them.
At least that's my take
But wouldn't that argument hold for Duke too? I mean, as a guest on this board I hesitate to characterize the mid-90s through early aughts Duke football program . . . but suffice to say it was significantly behind the success level of the basketball program. And yet, Duke has now managed to build a consistently good program. Not sure why the Heels couldn't do the same.