UNC's offense regresses in 45-22 loss to Georgia Tech, team record falls to 2-2

After North Carolina football's loss to Georgia Tech on Saturday, one word was repeated during the post-game press conference: disappointment.

Disappointment that after putting up 59 points against Virginia, the high-profile offense could only muster 22 versus Georgia Tech.

Disappointment that junior quarterback Sam Howell fumbled the ball three times, giving Georgia Tech the opportunity to put points on the board.

Disappointment that the Yellow Jackets were able to pressure the QB so easily, sacking Howell eight times.

“We still should’ve been able to move the ball better than we did,"  Howell said. "There’s so many things that we can do better on the offensive side of the ball, and it starts with me.”

In the pre-season, there was doubt over this Tar Heel offense that lost four key starters from a year ago. After the Virginia Tech game, those doubts were confirmed.

However, after two strong offensive games against Georgia State and Virginia, it seemed as if the offense was developing chemistry and picking up the pace.

That was not evident in the trip to Atlanta, though.

Within the first five minutes of the game, Sam Howell showed off his running skills with an explosive 23-yard scamper to the endzone, shaking off multiple Georgia Tech defenders. But the drives following this were anything but explosive as sacks hampered UNC from getting anything going. 

The most evident example of the offensive defectiveness was in UNC’s first possession of the second half.

Graduate running back Ty Chandler started it off with a nine-yard run to give the Tar Heels a second and one. In the next two plays, the Tar Heels did not managed to gain the one yard they needed.

They failed a fourth down and Georgia Tech got the ball at UNC’s 39. Three plays later, Georgia Tech would score a touchdown to go up 20-7.

“I can’t imagine if you go for a second and one, a third and one, a fourth and one and can’t make it, you’re going to get beat,” North Carolina head coach Mack Brown. “I mean that is really hard not to make and we were able to accomplish that tonight. So that’s when I knew we were in trouble when we couldn’t do that.”

Even the special teams unit had its unfortunate moments. In the second quarter, North Carolina was set to add a field goal onto the seven points they’d scored, but a false start negated the field goal and graduate kicker Grayson Atkins was forced to retake the kick, this time with it being a 53-yard attempt. Atkins missed the field goal and later in the second quarter, Georgia Tech took the lead and never gave it back.

All in all, the offense struggled. The aura surrounding this football program is dimmer following what was thought to be an afterthought of a game on the Tar Heels' schedule. 

North Carolina still has eight games on the schedule in which they can bring the hopes of the season back up. If the team seeks to find itself playing for the ACC title in December, the offense must take the next week to get themselves back on track and get prepared to win a crucial rivalry game against Duke.

“Everybody needs to go home, looks themselves in the mirror and see what they can do extra during the week to get better and be better for the team,” senior linebacker Jeremiah Gemmel said. “There’s still a long season ahead, every given Saturday somebody could lose.”

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