When we went over the best players in the ACC earlier this year, I had North Carolina players littered across my best ACC player rankings. This team had talent, but it was a rough start for the Heels as they opened the season 1-5. They were easily the ACC’s most disappointing team of the season’s first half, but an inspired 27-23 loss to Miami seemed to jump start this team, and they won 6 of their last 7 games including a 39-17 beating of a decent Cincinnati team.
Their only loss was to ACC Coastal Division Champion Duke. That’s another indication of the quality of this year’s Duke team. With North Carolina it’s another familiar theme to go along with Pitt and Syracuse. It is young talent. Marquise Williams the sophomore QB that showed good athleticism as he got more comfortable in the offense. Ryan Switzer as a freshman may already be the nation’s best punt returner. He tied an NCAA record with 5 returned kicks for TDs.
TE Eric Ebron is going to be tough replace. The All-American TE is basically unguardable at the collegiate level, but how Larry Fedora pulled his team together after that 1-5 start has to be encouraging to Tar Heels fans. He never lost his team. The coaches at Virginia and NC State can’t say the same this year. North Carolina is also recruiting and it looks like they will put together a top 30 class. The Heels always seems to have talent, but can they cash in over the course of a whole season? I wouldn’t bet against it.
The win sends the ACC to 3-0 on the young bowl season. Nope still not counting Maryland. Even the most optimistic ACC predictions had the ACC only going 6-5 at best. With the 3 wins early, 6-5 certainly seems possible. I think even 4 or 5 wins would have been good. There were a lot matchups that simply didn’t look very good on paper. Again there is depth to the ACC that wasn’t there 3-4 years ago.
The ACC has now won 7 of it’s last 10 bowl games. That’s pretty good by any measure, and that includes the Terps.
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