To keep pace with North Carolina, they’ll have to do a better job of moving the ball into scoring position.
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Among the Tar Heels’ goals this season is getting their hands on a made-up state championship they say they’d win by beating every team from this state that they go against. See the two most recent home games with Central Michigan and Pittsburgh as prime examples. The Wolfpack have a great deal of offensive talent that can pose serious threats to the Cavaliers Thursday night. Lamar Jackson remains a Heisman frontrunner with another multiple-touchdown performance but did the Blue Devils expose a weakness in the Cards’ game?
FSU remains unable to put together a complete performance on both sides of the ball.
After seeing what he has been doing all season – especially to better defenses like Florida State and Clemson – the fact that Duke was able to hold Lamar Jackson to just 325 yards of total offense is something to build on. “I like how hard they try and how they’ve embraced the culture”.
Along with Virginia Tech, UNC sits atop the ACC Coastal Division standings after knocking off a ranked opponent for the second time in three weeks with its 20-13 win over Miami last weekend. No one on UNC’s offense looked good that day, though, and the weather conditions were indeed quite bad.
At 2-4, Virginia is a long shot to win four more games and clinch its first bowl berth since 2011, but spoiling the division title hopes of one of its Coastal rivals wouldn’t be a awful consolation prize. North Carolina quickly built up a 11-3 lead that ballooned to 17-4 and forced another Boston College timeout.
This week, it was a different story, as the Hokies lost on the road in Syracuse and North Carolina beat Miami in what was a pretty much worst-case scenario for the Panthers, despited their 45-31 win over Virginia. The secondary features one of the best safeties in the ACC – Quin Blanding ranks second in the league and 15th in the nation in tackles.
Virginia (2-4, 1-1), in its first year under coach Bronco Mendenhall, has yet to beat the Tar Heels since Larry Fedora became coach five years ago, losing all four previous meetings, and six straight in the series.
Virginia: QB Kurt Benkert. The Cavaliers opened the season with three straight losses before picking up a pair of two-touchdown wins over Central Michigan and Duke. We love the height we’ve got this season in 6-6 Naomi Van Nes, 6-4 Emily Sullivan, 6-3 Alyssa Okoene and 6-2 Tayloer Koenen, but they’re all freshmen. Sam Hayward has gone 1-1 on field goals, with a long of 36 yards. There was promise in the performance but that lends no solace to the team at this moment.
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“I think we just feed off it”, Mitch Trubisky, the UNC quarterback, said earlier this week of playing on the road. The spread suggests that the Tar Heels are favored to win the contest. Virginia Tech and Virginia, the last Coastal unbeatens, are ideal no more in league play after Saturday defeats. Should Virginia get down by two or more TDs, Virginia’s defense is going to struggle to climb back in the game. Still, the Hoos’ offense showed more signs of life than it had possibly all season in Saturday’s loss. North Carolina is a very balanced offense with a 119/94 run/pass ratio and the Heels are excellent at running run-pass options plays – something that has and likely will give Virginia trouble.
