Brownlow's GIFs: UNC tries to conquer Virginia demon while Duke, NC State need wins
Posted September 17, 2021 2:38 p.m. EDT
Hey, football on a Saturday for all three Triangle teams for the first time all year! And an ACC Network double-header with Duke and Carolina! Get ready for all of your favorite infomercials.
Northwestern comes to Duke for an Alliance Special between two teams that have a history (we'll get to that shortly), then UNC hosts Virginia in the Oldest Rivalry in the South That No One Outside the ACC Knows when Virginia comes to Chapel Hill. And then NC State will host FCS Furman to try to get back to feeling good about itself after the Mississippi State debacle.
So let's get to the GIFs!
NORTHWESTERN (1-1) AT DUKE (1-1)
Time: 4 p.m.
TV: ACC Network
#ANALYSIS
The most famous matchup between these two schools this side of a quiz bowl is in ... a football stadium? Yes, sneakily, these two academic powerhouses actually do have a football history with one another. Duke actually started out the 2018 season 4-0 and one of those wins was against Northwestern. The next win was against Baylor, and that was the last time Duke has beaten a Power 5 team from outside the ACC. It's been three years. Duke has won 16 games since the 2018 season began and of the nine that were P5 wins, two were against Northwestern (four against Northwestern and Baylor). That's ... pretty wild! But this isn't your slightly-older-sibling's Duke football.
Northwestern's teams under Pat Fitzgerald usually have like one really good running back and a pretty pedestrian offense, but a nasty defense. The offense currently ranks 108th nationally in yards per play after two games, which in theory is good news for a Duke defense that has been gashed. There's no reason to think that Duke's inexperienced front is going to have a better time containing Northwestern than it did Charlotte or A&T. So the key for Duke is going to have to be what it will be all year against most teams, frankly — score lots of points! And weirdly, Northwestern's defense is far more accommodating in that department than it usually is, ranking worse than Duke's defense in yards per play allowed. It's still early but if the number holds up (5.67 per play), it'd be the Wildcats' worst defense since 2011. To be fair to Northwestern, they've played two games and one was against Michigan State. They held FCS Indiana State to just six points and a paltry 2.96 per play, but the Spartans' 8.11 per play was the worst mark allowed by the Wildcats in over 12 years.
Duke in theory should have to win this game with its defense. But from what we've seen so far from that unit? Not going to happen. Northwestern actually averaged fewer yards per play against their FCS opponent (4.4) than against Michigan State (4.9), so while the defense might have just faced a superior foe in Game 1, Game 2 showed the offense might just be bad. But if Duke's defense is also bad, how much can that matter?
This game feels like a measuring stick for Duke. The Blue Devils were in legit trouble last week against A&T before David Cutcliffe decided to onsides kick it (which was the right call), and that helped turn the tide. The offense does look genuinely much improved. The defense, though, is a hot mess express. Facing a bad offense, though, can it muster some sort of magic? Or will the offense be forced to try to outscore Northwestern? If Duke's defense can't stop or slow Northwestern, is there a team left on its schedule that it can stop?
THIS GUY
Hunter Johnson. What better way to get your offense jumpstarted than by bringing in a Clemson transfer quarterback? Just ask Jacksonville State, right? And also Duke...oh no. Johnson was a 5-star recruit, though, and he beat out the more experienced South Carolina transfer Ryan Hilinski for the job. Clemson beats South Carolina yet again! And Johnson had and still has his work cut out for him, considering Northwestern returned practically no experience at the receiver spots and they lost their best running back before the season. Johnson actually started for Northwestern back in 2019 and completed a paltry 46.3% of his passes before getting benched last year, but managing to win the job back this year. And I mean ... other than the numbers being pedestrian (349 total yards in two games and just 5.9 yards per attempt), he's done ... OK? Four touchdowns to one pick is fine, as is completing over 66% of your passes. But he completed just 9 of 16 against Indiana State and averaged just 4.1 yards per attempt, which is absolutely not what you want to see. He'll have to be more accurate and take care of the football against a Duke defense that can't manage to force a turnover.
HERE'S A GUY
Gunnar Holmberg. I'm not going to say that things would have turned out differently last year if David Cutcliffe had gone to Holmberg sooner, but I'm not *not* going to say it. Holmberg has been really good, completing 40 of 56 passes (71.4%) for 498 yards (8.9 per attempt). He has just one passing touchdown, but guess what? He has no interceptions! And he does have two rushing touchdowns. But while this might not be a vintage Northwestern defense, it will still be the best defense Duke has seen so far this year, and Duke's offensive line still has its share of issues. Northwestern is going to try to force Holmberg to be the one to beat them. Duke will have to be somewhat patient with the run game, though, because it needs it. Duke went without a turnover for the first time in nearly two years on Saturday, though, and that does matter. Duke has two turnovers this season but both were in the opener, and two still felt low for them after last year's 39. Holmberg's ability to take care of the ball appears to have set a tone for his teammates as well, and Duke absolutely needs to have that carry over. Holmberg and this Duke offense have no margin for error here.
NARRATIVES
Duke Win:
Duke Loss:
PREDICTION
Northwestern, 38-29. I don't and can't really trust Duke right now.
VIRGINIA (2-0) AT NO. 21 NORTH CAROLINA (1-1, 0-1)
Time: 7:30 p.m.
TV: ACC Network
#ANALYSIS
A lot has been made of what UVa defensive lineman Mandy Alonso had to say about North Carolina, but tell me if anyone can find any lies here:
“They always try to come physical,” Alonso said. “It’s our culture versus theirs. We’re going to go harder, longer each play and the whole game than they will. Even if they come out swinging, we just have to be able to sustain it and we know they can’t sustain it, because the past four years, they haven’t been able to.”
If you started college in the fall of 2017 and graduated in four years, you have not seen UNC beat Virginia in football OR men's basketball. Of course, I went to Carolina for four years and saw them lose to Virginia three times. Plus a lot of other teams. Including Miami of Ohio. But anyway.
But it's true — Carolina has lost four straight to Virginia in the South's Oldest Rivalry. And based on what we've seen so far from both teams, there are not a lot of obvious reasons why it won't be five straight. Last year, Bronco Mendenhall had a pretty unconventional strategy with a banged-up secondary — hold the ball as long as possible on offense (we saw Virginia Tech do this in the opener against UNC as well), sell out to stop the run and if UNC hits a big play or two for a touchdown, so be it. At least their drives will end faster, right? Then Virginia can play more keep-away. And that's precisely what they did,
UNC averaged a mind-blowing 6.1 yards per first-down run a year ago with its two great running backs. On average, they gave themselves two downs to make 3.9 yards. And they were usually successful! But do you know what that first-down rush number is so far this year? Just 2.97. It's actually way better on second down, weirdly (8.8), but when you get almost nothing out of first down runs, you almost ensure you'll have a third and long. There were exactly three times last year that UNC's run game couldn't get going, and all three of those were losses: Notre Dame (2.9 per rush), Texas A&M without both backs (2.65) and ... Virginia (2.82). Virginia and UNC were two of the stronger teams in the country in time of possession a year ago (for whatever that stat is worth to you), and both have struggled with it at times this year. But no doubt Mendenhall will try to take the air out of the ball again, so to speak, to keep the ball away from Sam Howell.
That means it will be up to UNC's improved defense to slow down Virginia's improved offense. The Cavaliers were 62nd a year ago in yards per play and were pretty pedestrian. But this is Mendenhall's best offense at Virginia so far and the Cavaliers are 10th in total offense through two games, averaging over 8 yards a play. Of course, even a Carolina offense that has taken a step back without its two great backs is still "just" 21st in yards per play and "only" averages 7.2 per play, so there's that. But the defense is what is and will be at issue. Virginia's run game has still been just all right, but its passing offense? Whew. Exactly 10.6 yards per pass attempt in each game so far. Interestingly, Virginia is 10 of 23 on third down (43.5%), which seems like it'd be a tad higher. Not that all that matters much since Virginia was just 3 of 11 last year on third down against UNC and still won. Carolina did a better job on third down last week (5 of 17) than it did in the opener (6 of 13), but that was to be expected considering the opponent. It absolutely has to get off the field as quickly as possible in this one and keep the ball in their quarterback's hands. If it can't do that, UNC can't win because Howell can't do it all by himself.
THIS GUY
Brennan Armstrong. I'll admit it — I was kind of lukewarm on Armstrong coming into this season. I remember seeing a list somewhere that had Armstrong ahead of Devin Leary, and while I understood the rationale, I disagreed. Suffice it to say that so far, it looks like I was incredibly wrong. Armstrong's numbers were fine last year: 58.6% completion, 7.9 yards per attempt, 18 touchdowns to 11 picks, plus 552 yards on the ground (4.4 per rush) and five more touchdowns there. But Armstrong had a weird habit of making at least a handful of plays per game that made you wonder what he was seeing. This year, he's not running it as much (just 12 attempts for 31 yards, although he has two touchdowns) but hoo boy is he throwing it well: 71.6% completion, 11.1 yards per attempt, seven touchdowns to one pick. He has 744 yards through two games! That's pretty remarkable. And he did better against the Power 5 opponent (Illinois) than the FCS one, throwing for five touchdowns and 405 yards against the Illini and adding all 31 of his rushing yards this season. Dual-threat QBs have been a bugaboo for UNC for years, and last year, Armstrong had 66 rushing yards on 20 attempts and a touchdown. He completed just 12 of 22 passes, but three of those completions were for touchdowns and he averaged 9.5 yards per attempt. It was boom or bust last year for Armstrong, and this year it's been all boom and no bust. UNC will have to reverse that trend and fast.
HERE'S A GUY
Sam Howell. Could I have picked another player? Maybe. Is there a player UNC has that will matter more than Howell? Also maybe, but not likely, right? Howell has had a stellar career against Virginia in nearly every way except for the final result, completing 38 of 57 passes over two games for 796 yards, eight touchdowns and no interceptions. Last year it was as if UNC had to score every time it had the football or it had no chance, and it felt unfair to Howell with how well he performed in spite of his running game being shut down. Except that's basically going to be his whole season, so he'd better get used to it. He looked far more like the Howell we know in his second game, completing 21 of 29 passes for 352 yards and three touchdowns in the rout. But he obviously struggled in the opener, completing just over 53% of his passes for just 6.5 per attempt, his fewest yards per attempt since September 2019 against Clemson. But like most things with Howell, he has decided if something can't be done, he will do it himself. Through the first 25 games of his career, he had a total of 181 yards on 186 attempts and six touchdowns. (Sacks do still count as rushing attempts, mind you.) This year, Howell has 139 yards on 24 attempts and two touchdowns in spite of the sacks. He has -28 rushing yards on 17 attempts against Virginia in his career, but he'll likely have to at least help keep the run game a threat in this one.
NARRATIVES
North Carolina Win:
North Carolina Loss:
PREDICTION
Virginia, 30-24. I'll believe UNC beats Virginia when, you know, it actually does.
FURMAN (2-0) AT N.C. STATE (1-1)
Time: 7:30 p.m.
TV: RSN
#ANALYSIS
Remember when I, in this very space, counted NC A&T out against Duke because it lost to Furman and got down by like 20 points early? Well don't look now, but the FCS Paladins are 2-0 and first in others receiving votes in the FCS top 25. Furman has made its last two FBS opponents sweat, falling 48-42 at Georgia State and 24-17 at Virginia Tech. And in this space last week, I also trusted NC State to take care of business on the road. They did not, in fact, take care of business. Unless the business was of a variety that one's dog does in the yard. But like that kind of business, it can be flushed, and NC State is trying to do. We haven't heard a lot of talk about Furman this week from the Wolfpack, and that's to be expected when a team loses a game like that. But NC State and Furman have their own unique history, and Furman has indeed beaten NC State before. This isn't one of those FCS teams where a Power 5 team can win by virtue of showing up. NC State is going to have to earn it. Furman coach Clay Hendrix summed it up well in the above piece: “In these games, you’ve got to find a way to hang in there. The longer you hang in there, the tougher it gets for them because of expectations.”
We've seen NC State exactly twice now. In both games, the defense has been very good. I don't even care what happened to NC State's defense in the second half against Mississippi State. They're not superhuman. They got absolutely NO help from the offense in the first half and lost two starters. What was bothersome about the loss was not the loss itself so much as the way that NC State did not respond to adversity within the game. The Wolfpack was very good at that last year, save the Virginia Tech game, and that wasn't the same character of the team we saw last week.
But this game will sneakily test NC State because they can't just show up and expect to win it. They'll have to be as well-prepared and businesslike as they were against South Florida in the opener.
Just not, you know, the bad kind of business.
THIS GUY
Hamp Sisson. If I told you that the name Hamp Sisson was important to this game, what would you think? Me personally, I'd assume that good ole Hollerin' Hamp used to coach Furman back in like 1945, when they beat NC State 6-2. Hamp was the coach, quarterback and punter. Sisson did not have the kind of season he or his team wanted in 2020, but he's off to a better start this year, completing 42 of 69 passes for 558 yards, three touchdowns and a pick in two games. Sisson also has an experienced running back and a First Team All-American at tight end to throw to. NC State lost two key players on its defense and the backups will have to be ready.
HERE'S A GUY
Jaylon Scott. NC State's sophomore linebacker out of Shelby is a name you should hear plenty on Saturday, and it's because he's getting his first start this season and second start of his career, replacing the injured Payton Wilson. He first started in place of Wilson in last year's TaxSlayer Gator Bowl, and 74 of the 148 snaps he played all of last year were in that game. He responded well with a career-high seven tackles. He obviously hasn't been needed as much this year but does have four tackles through two games, including a tackle for loss. He finished last season with 16 total tackles in his limited snaps and an interception, so he made an impact when he was on the field. You don't replace Wilson, but Scott will need to ensure there's not a huge drop-off.
NARRATIVES
NC State Win:
NC State Loss:
PREDICTION
NC State, 48-20. I think the game is close early before NC State pulls away with its superior depth and talent.
Last week: 2-1
Overall: 3-3 (0-1 ACC)
