North Carolina Must Take the Good From Notre Dame Game, Despite Loss

For what it's worth, North Carolina played an interesting game against Notre Dame on Saturday, showing it's not as far from competing against the top teams in America as some might think. 

While North Carolina came away with a 37-26 win, it was undoubtedly the toughest game Notre Dame has played all year. Notre Dame has been one of the top five teams in America and has proven that week in and week out since the season began. 

As for North Carolina, there was some good to take away from this. North Carolina put up points against the best defense in America, as Notre Dame has been unstoppable on the defensive side of things. 

Scoring 26 points despite only 285 yards of total offense was a somewhat positive sign. Questions remain about North Carolina's quarterback situation with Billy Edwards Jr., as he went 17-of-28 for 208 yards and three touchdowns, but threw two interceptions.

As for what North Carolina should take away from this game, there should be some confidence in being able to win at a high level through the rest of the season. 

The Tar Heels have some tough games coming up, taking on Pitt, Duke, and Miami in three of the next four weeks, and hopefully some of this Notre Dame game can carry over to other contests throughout the remainder of the season.

“We're all just moving forward, but that's what we do after every game. Once the game's over, it's over. You go back and look at the things you did well, and try to keep doing those, try to reinforce the positives of the fundamentals and the execution of those plays.

“Things you didn't do as well, you try to fix those, whether that's a coaching adjustment or whether it's improved fundamentals or technique by a particular player on a play or whatever happens to be. 

“You try to improve those, and it may or may not come up the following week. But it'll probably come back up again at some point and you hope that the recall on that will stick with everyone when that situation occurs again,” Belichick said, per Rodd Baxley.

Outside of its game against Miami, North Carolina definitely has an opportunity to win most of its games. I don't want to say it's going to be favored against a team like Pittsburgh, Miami, Duke, or Louisville, but there's an argument that, outside of that Miami game, it can win.

The bigger question is whether North Carolina will continue to build on what it did against Notre Dame. If so, it shouldn't find itself in a bad spot.