Cole Holcomb without answers as UNC football loses in season finale against N.C. State

There were some moments, throughout his North Carolina football career, when Cole Holcomb didn’t have an answer to give.

There were times like this last season when a stockpile of injuries made it hard to tell how good this Tar Heel team could have been. There was a time like this three years ago when only an offsides call and 50 yards separated the Tar Heels from an ACC Championship title. 

And there were times like this in these past few months, when this Tar Heel team was just a few plays away from changing the narrative of Holcomb’s senior campaign.

“The hardest (part) is when guys are looking at you, and you don't have an answer,” Holcomb said. “And you have to come up with one.”

One of these times came after Saturday’s 34-28 loss to N.C. State, when the Tar Heels fell in overtime and lost a game by seven points or less for the fifth time this season.

The rivalry game resembled many of the close games this team had battled in before. In the first half, when dropped passes and poor field positioning characterized the cold and wet afternoon in Kenan Memorial Stadium, the Tar Heels relied on their defense — and the unit answered. UNC only allowed one touchdown, and even that came when the Wolfpack started an offensive series on North Carolina’s 4-yard line after UNC’s Hunter Lent mishandled a snap taken from his own end zone.

In the second half, North Carolina’s offense — led by true first-year quarterback Cade Fortin who still has his redshirt eligibility status intact for next season — woke up. A touchdown pass, two touchdown runs (one by Fortin) and a two-point conversion later, UNC found itself in a position to win late against an impressive opponent.

But, just how it started, it ended in an all-too-familiar way. In overtime, North Carolina’s senior place-kicker Freeman Jones sent a 37-yard field goal wide left, and N.C. State running back Reggie Gallaspy Jr. — who ran for 129 yards and five touchdowns on Saturday — punched in the game-winning score.

Low expectations, then hope, then disappointment. Again.

“I told them it’s my responsibility to put them in a position to win,” head coach Larry Fedora said. “I got to find a way to do a better job of that. We’re not asking for them to do anything superhuman, to just make the routine plays. That’s all we need to do, and when we do that, we’ll be a really good football team.”

Fedora had accumulated the most wins by any Tar Heel coach in his first five years at UNC. But over the course of the last two years of his tenure, he’s been the supervisor of a program in free fall — one that’s plummeted from an 11-win 2015 season to a two-win season in 2018.

During the last two years, his team’s total points per game have steadily declined compared to the first five seasons. His ability to recruit the best high school talent within the state of North Carolina has seemed to dwindle. Tar Heel fans have grown more and more impatient with his stick-to-the-plan doctrine that he’s clung to relentlessly.

The University will not retain Fedora's services, the athletic department announced Sunday.

And as the 2018 season went on, people began to ask what this team was now playing for.

“A bunch of you guys probably asked Fedora: ‘What are they going to play for now? What are they going to play for now?,’” senior safety J.K. Britt said after Saturday’s game. “But you never saw us, not once, lay down and quit in any games on offense or defense. Every guy came out to practice every day, each week, (and we) battled our asses off, and we did the same thing in our games."

After the game, Holcomb said he just sat in the locker room for an extra few minutes, soaking everything in.

He was digesting the final game he’ll ever play in Chapel Hill, trying to justify how his promising beginning as a Tar Heel had turned into something so hopeless by his final game. 

“It’s not how anybody wanted it to turn out, but that’s life,” he said. “We’re all going to be fine.”

Just like in a few instances throughout his career, Holcomb couldn’t find a suitable answer.

And maybe, this time, it’s because there wasn’t one.

@alexzietlow05

@DTHSports | sports@dailytarheel.com