Historic night a meeting of strengths, weaknesses

TV/Radio: TV coverage will be on ESPN. Radio coverage will be provided by WCHL 1360 AM and WRDU 106.1.

It’s Thursday Night Football in Chapel Hill.

For one night, ESPN will set its base camp at Kenan Stadium, and the nation will gather around its televisions to watch the Tar Heels take on the Seminoles of Florida State.

The stadium will be loud, the lights will be bright, and Big and Rich will be there to sing the famous Thursday Night Football song.

OK, so that last part isn’t true, but the rest is.

The matchup between North Carolina and Florida State features two struggling teams with two different problems.

UNC has the ACC’s best scoring defense, while simultaneously having the league’s worst offense.

Against Virginia, the Tar Heel offense could only muster three points while the defense struggled to keep North Carolina in contention.

In a nail-biter against Connecticut, the defense bailed out the offense with four quarters of tenacious defense.

Florida State’s problems are the exact opposite. Its total defense is last in the ACC, while it has the league’s best offense.

Seminoles quarterback Christian Ponder threw for five touchdowns and 359 yards against Georgia Tech, but FSU still fell to the Yellow Jackets when its defense allowed 49 points.

North Carolina’s most recent opponent was Georgia Southern, a team it was able to beat handily.

But Florida State will prove to be much more of a challenge for UNC’s offense, and whether or not the Tar Heel offense can overcome that challenge could be the difference.

Ponder has had an outstanding year, but UNC’s defense should hold well and forfeit a manageable amount of points if history is any indication.

 North Carolina has given up only one touchdown through the air.

Whatever transpires, it is an intriguing matchup — the league’s worst offense against the worst defense, and the best offense against the best defense.

The old cliche is that defense wins championships.

But UNC’s defense isn’t impregnable. In order to get the win, the Tar Heels’ offense must produce.