Deacs' Air Attack Maligns Unprepared UNC Defense

Rather than get beaten on the ground against the ACC's top rushing team, the Tar Heels managed to let the conference's worst passing team beat them through the air.

Wake Forest doubled its season total of two passing touchdowns Saturday in a 31-0 shellacking of UNC at Groves Stadium.

Against the Demon Deacons, UNC broke most of the trends it had set during the season. The Tar Heels' high-powered offense failed to register a score for the first time since September 1996 against Florida State. The offense relied more on the run than the pass in the first half and actually rushed the ball with some efficiency until the deficit became too great and UNC was forced to the pass.

And despite Wake's 267 rushing yards on the day, the Deacon ground attack was not the primary reason North Carolina lost. The failure to stop the run had been the largest factor in most of the team's previous losses.

But Saturday, the culprit was poor secondary play and foolish penalties. The game was out of hand by halftime, with the Deacons leading 17-0 mostly on the strength of quarterback James MacPherson's 116 passing yards and two touchdown throws. The bulk of Wake's rushing yardage came in the second half, when it amassed 171 yards on 34 carries to keep the clock moving.

"Defensively, the disappointment to me more than the run game is we just couldn't knock any balls down," said UNC coach John Bunting. "At one point they completed like 10, 12 balls in a row, it seemed like anyway. You've got to be able to compete with those guys, to stop the pass when they do pass."

MacPherson still dropped back sparingly, but when he did he had more than ample protection to pick the Tar Heel secondary apart. His first touchdown pass, a 17-yard strike to tight end Ray Thomas with 5:36 left in the first quarter, was set up by play action that UNC bought because Wake had rushed the previous six plays.

The Tar Heels were so focused on stuffing the Deacon running backs that they got no pressure whatsoever on the quarterback, failing to tally a sack or even come close to doing so.

Contrastingly, UNC's C.J. Stephens was hurried often and sacked four times in his first start at quarterback.

Two of those sacks belonged to senior defensive end Calvin Pace, giving him 29 for his career, one shy of the Wake record.

"We stopped the run and the pass very well," Pace said. "They had a young QB so we wanted to get in his head and try to stop him."

The UNC coaching staff eased Stephens into the offense, leaning heavily on the run in the first half. On the Tar Heels' first drive they rushed 10 times and passed twice, and surprisingly, they were able to move the ball.

But the 65-yard drive stalled on Wake's 15-yard line when Jacque Lewis was stuffed on third-and-two, forcing Dan Orner to attempt a 32-yard field goal, which he pushed right.

"That's frustrating and that's a problem that I think we've had all year," Stephens said. "We've moved the ball extremely well at times, but we've always seemed to be one play away, one play from completing the drive, from doing everything and really getting the job done.

"Whether it's a penalty or a turnover or just flat out missed assignments, whatever it may be, we're just unfortunately finding a way to shoot ourselves in the foot and keep us from getting the job done."

The Tar Heels really hurt themselves on their second and fifth possessions of the game. The second drive was thwarted near midfield by a Lewis fumble, recovered by Wake's Caron Bracy.

The fifth possession was UNC's last chance to make the game competitive. MacPherson had just completed a 32-yard touchdown pass to Jason Anderson, and UNC needed to answer.

But the Tar Heels were behind the eight-ball from the onset when a 27-yard Wallace Wright kickoff return was negated by a holding penalty. Yet UNC still managed to move the ball effectively, reaching their own 48 before three penalties in four plays stopped them in their tracks. An illegal formation penalty, a personal foul and an offensive pass interference call set up a long-yardage situation, forcing Stephens to throw. He was picked off by Quintin Williams, and UNC never threatened again.

"Going into the game, I know and they know by being around me, that we will not win football games if we shoot ourselves in the foot and have foolish penalties, and we had a number of them today," Bunting said. "I think (personal fouls are) very undisciplined and selfish."

The Sports Editor can be reached at sports@unc.edu.