North Carolina Tar Heels: Stakes versus the Wolfpack
The North Carolina Tar Heels and NC State Wolfpack meet Friday with a lot of things on the line.
The North Carolina Tar Heels and the NC State Wolfpack will meet on Friday in what has become a season ending tradition. This weekend is rivalry weekend and many big and small matchups will take place across the country. Some are in conference like Ohio State-Michigan or out of conference like Clemson-South Carolina but they will all see the light of play this weekend.
The Tar Heels-Wolfpack game sticks out as a sore thumb amongst all these rivalry games. It is not because the two teams are not big rivals. They are. They are the biggest rivals that they play in football. It is odd position of playing a cross division game a week before the ACC Championship.
It won’t matter this year since State cannot make the game and the Tar Heels need help to get there, but if the two ever had the opportunity it is possible that they could play each other two weeks in a row. No other ACC rivalry is scheduled that way. Everyone else is playing intradivisional or interconference games instead. Why do it then?
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The answer is to build up the rivalry, but the State-North Carolina rivalry doesn’t need building up in the state itself nor will it compete for now with national audience eyeballs with the likes of Auburn-Alabama or Florida-Florida State. So why take the risk of the rematch? The Tar Heels could just as easily play Duke as they used to and there would be no conflict at all the next week. State could play Wake the same way.
But enough about the lack of logic about playing this game now. It will be played and there is a lot on the line for each team.
State must win if it wants to go bowling. That should make them the more desperate team entering the game. They also have Matt Dayes running well and enough trickery to keep the Tar Heels offense on their toes. The Tar Heels played against the option last week so anything will be a bit different.
The Tar Heels must win to have any chance of punching a ticket to Olando for a rematch with Clemson. That would also require Virginia to defeat Virginia Tech, something that would rate high on the scale of unlikely outcomes.
The postseason storylines also start to converge on the Tar Heels. Mitch Trubisky is rated high on the draft boards while T.J. Logan, Ryan Switzer, Bug Howard, Jon Heck, Lukas Crowley, and others are due to leave with him. The offense will be a whole new world even if Trubisky stayed for some reason. That offensive reset could have other implications.
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Those implications rest on Larry Fedora. He will likely be sought after for one of the jobs that are open or seem to be open. That is LSU, Texas, or Baylor. LSU or Texas would be a no-brainer for him if they came calling. Baylor would be less attractive since Fedora has already fought tough circumstances once. If the Tar Heels do not go to Orlando, a team could try to hire him away Friday night if they wanted.
These are the storylines going into tomorrow’s game. A loss could mean the end of Dave Doeren. A win could mean the end of Larry Fedora.