Heel Tough Blog: Charlotte Recap

David Jensen- Getty Images

After an embarrassing performance on Monday night to open the Bill Belichick era, the Tar Heels returned to the field in Charlotte NBC  to make a statement in the return game of a home-and-home with the Charlotte 49ers. In what was a very Belichickian type of performance, the Tar Heels were able to manage their way to a 20-3 to get their coach his first win at the college level. Here are our takeaways from that first victory for Belichick.

Offense Continues Its Struggles

A lot of the blame seems to be going in the direction of Freddie Kitchens for why the Tar Heels offense still felt like it was stuck in quicksand for most of the night and rightfully so. Kitchens rolled out another conservative gameplan that featured some head scratching third down runs, leaving you to question whether or not he truly believes in his quarterback and if he has any creativity that can help his quarterback out. As for Lopez, tonight’s performance was clearly much better, but there are limitations in his game that he has to work on. While he did hit a couple of throws down the field, it’s clear that the intermediate and deep passing games are not something that will be featured as much as they were under previous quarterbacks and he is not someone who is able to throw with much anticipation. Because of that, you have to question just how far he can actually take this offense. To his defense there are some things working against him. His play caller refuses to use his legs more in the running game and his center continues to struggle snapping the ball. Hopefully those are circumstances that can change for him as the season goes along. The offensive line as a whole needs to get better push as well, with this team wanting to be a smash mouth run team that leans on its back. All in all, there is still a lot of room for this offense to improve.

Defense Takes a Step Forward

You may be expecting me to be more positive than I am with this defense, but it is hard to express just how bad this offense that they faced and allowed 250 passing yards to is. The team’s zone-heavy scheme was picked apart at certain times once again, this time by a passing attack that will be one of the worst they will face this season. A big part of the reason that it was able to be exploited the way that it was, though, is because of the lack of pressure that has been generated by this defensive line on passing downs. Pryce Yates injury remains a huge issue for this group, but they need guys like Smith Vilbert and Melkart Abou-Jaoude to step up more than they have so far in the first two games. As a whole, the defensive line needs to be more consistent about winning their one-on-one matchups and can’t be getting pushed around like they were at points in that first half. The good news for this group was that they bowed up when they needed to and they had a good night as a whole on the perimeter in the passing game. The hope is that this unit can continue to trend in the right direction over the next couple weeks before they face UCF in an important road matchup that will be a nice measuring stick to gauge where this team as a whole is at.

Demon June Needs to Be a Big Part of the Run Game This Season

The Tar Heels needed someone to step up in the running back room last night and that person was true freshman Demon June Jr., who might have been the best player on the field the entire night. June led the team with nine carries for 52 yards and showed the North-South element that this staff is looking for from this running game. If this staff is smart, this will be a guy that is heavily involved in the backfield the remainder of the season.

Talent Deficiency Is Real

This became a conversation after the blowout loss to TCU and it isn’t going away anytime soon. This is a game where the talent gap should have been strongly in favor of Carolina and that just didn’t feel like it was the case for most of the night. The trenches are where it remains the most obvious that this staff simply wasn’t able to add the type of talent that they needed to because they were pushed around at times by a Charlotte team who will probably be the second-worst they play this season. The hope is that some of these guys can be developed by this coaching staff as the season goes along to mask the lack of talent that is on this roster.

It’s Time to Readjust Expectations If You Hadn’t Already

Some people may have still been holding out a little bit of hope with their preseason expectations for this team, but this game showed you that those need to be officially adjusted. This is a game that it feels like the Tar Heels should have dominated but there were multiple instances in this game where Charlotte was outplaying this Tar Heel team and this would have been a much closer game if the Niners had hit a field goal and not dropped a touchdown pass in the endzone. This should not have been a game that Tar Heel fans ever had to worry about and instead there were times where it felt like the Tar Heels could be in trouble. The good news is, this team can get better as the season goes along and they have a winnable schedule, but it is hard to imagine this team being better than 6-6 in the regular season.