UNC football team gets first ACC victory against Clemson

In the week leading up to North Carolina’s Saturday home date against Clemson, the UNC football program suffered yet another series of damaging allegations regarding the NCAA investigation that has cast a shadow over the football program.

But for three-and-a-half hours between the hedges of Kenan Stadium, none of it mattered. The Tar Heels controlled possession, hung on to the football and ground out their first ACC victory of the season, 21-16.

“The things we can do with the amount of stuff that’s going on around this program is amazing,” senior quarterback T.J. Yates said. “If this team can get through something like this, we can get through anything.”

The Tar Heels (3-2, 1-1 ACC), down 15 players due to investigations, team rules violations and injuries, came out as if they had something to prove. The suddenly stout Tar Heel rush defense shut down Clemson’s Andre Ellington on three straight plays to bring the Tigers’ opening drive to a screeching halt.

Yates then picked up where the defense left off, orchestrating a nearly flawless 12-play, 48-yard touchdown drive capped by Johnny White’s four-yard touchdown run that gave the Tar Heels a 7-0 lead.

The early score was a sign of things to come for White. The senior tailback was both the game’s leading rusher and the team’s leading receiver, racking up two touchdowns and 179 all-purpose yards.

“That kid’s running his heart out and it says a lot about him,” Davis said. “He just keeps pounding and pounding and pounding and eventually he’ll find a crease and find a crack and bounce out the back door.”

Clemson closed the gap to four with a second-quarter field goal before White struck again, this time wounding the Tigers in the air. UNC capitalized on a play-action pass when Yates found White down the left sideline for a game-changing 51-yard reception.

Six plays later, Boyd got popped by Xavier Brewer going across the middle into Clemson’s end zone. He didn’t have a catch the rest of the game after an injury to his left shoulder, but held onto the ball to give UNC a 14-3 halftime lead.

“I guess I seen it coming,” Boyd said. “I tried to hurry up and bounce in the end zone, but he hit me and bounced me into the end zone. I just tried to hold onto the ball because I expected it to happen.”

Though previous UNC squads have struggled to close out games in the Davis era, the Tar Heels buckled down to put the Tigers away. North Carolina controlled play during the fourth quarter, leaving Clemson with less than two minutes of possession.

UNC chewed up eight minutes on a drive punctuated by a 26-yard touchdown jaunt by White. The drive was especially painful for the visitors, who would have stopped the Tar Heels on three separate occasions were it not for penalties on third and fourth down.

After a Kyle Parker 74-yard touchdown bomb to Jaron Brown, White choked out any hope of a Clemson comeback. White put the finishing touches on his standout performance by turning a broken play into a back-breaking third-down conversion, gaining 12 yards on a screen pass to secure UNC’s third-straight win.

“He just turned around right in the nick of time because I knew he wasn’t looking when I threw the ball,” Yates said. “He knew it was going to be coming to him quick and he did a great job of picking us up.”

Contact the Sports Editor at sports@unc.edu.