A loss is a loss, but things are changing.
While North Carolina lost a very disappointing game Saturday against Clemson, dropping the contest 28-20 in what was a blown opportunity in the fourth quarter, the Tar Heels fell to 2-1 on the season.
They allowed Clemson to score two touchdowns with about five minutes left after holding a 20-15 lead.
There was a lot to take away from this game, but most of it suggested that North Carolina just isn’t the team we all thought it could be.
There were times over the past two weeks, and even for most of this game against Clemson, when it looked like North Carolina had a real chance to be an above-average team. An above-average team would have taken care of business against this Clemson squad, especially with how bad it currently is.
At the end of the day, North Carolina wasn’t able to win this game, and head coach Bill Belichick understands that. Speaking to reporters, he admitted that his team missed a lot of opportunities.
"Proud of the way our players competed. Clemson's a good football team. In the end, they made a few more plays than we did in the last eight minutes of the game. We missed a couple of opportunities on offense and missed some tackles on defense.
“Had a couple long runs that obviously hurt us, so, you know, disappointing again. But we've just got to keep working and keep getting better, which we are. So there's really not too much to say. Give Clemson credit; they made the plays at the end of the game they needed to make,” he said, per Yahoo.
I’m glad Belichick isn’t beating around the bush with some of these situations.
Instead of saying that his team did all it could and that he’s content with the outcome after how bad things were a year ago, he knows that losing games like this is inexcusable.
Clemson is a very average team, and one could even call it below average in the ACC. North Carolina should have won this game, and it missed a golden opportunity to prove something for once.
