Edwards Debuts, North Carolina Tops TCU 15-10
Billy Edwards Jr. threw for 232 yards in his first start and a defense that ranked 134th nationally last year held TCU to one fourth-down conversion in five tries, in a 15-10 season-opening win in Dublin.
Edwards' first start ends in a signature win
Billy Edwards Jr. built 1,000 flashcards to learn Bobby Petrino's playbook cold this camp, and Saturday in Dublin the transfer made his first start pay off: 232 passing yards, according to ESPN, in a 15-10 win over TCU that doubled as revenge for last year's 48-14 blowout loss to the same program. Aeron Burrell hit both his field goal tries, including the 28-yarder that put UNC up for good in the third quarter, and Jaylen McGill scored the Tar Heels' only touchdown to tie the game at 10 in the first quarter. Beat writer Chris Vannini wrote that Carolina "settled for two short FGs in the red zone" while TCU "failed on 4th-and-short twice" — for once, he noted, "taking the points works out." Edwards did it without his starting tight end, J. Warren, who is out with an undisclosed injury and has missed an undetermined stretch, per Covers.
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Belichick sounded as pleased afterward as he ever does. "I'm just happy for the players. They've worked really hard," he said, according to Bleacher Report's rundown of his postgame comments. "It was a great team win for us... our scout players, guys that didn't even play in the game, did a great job of getting the guys who did play ready." It's the third straight year Edwards has won a starting job at a third different school, after stops at Maryland and Wisconsin — and the first time in a while a Tar Heels opener has looked like a plan coming together rather than a fire drill. North Carolina Beats TCU 15-10 In Belichick's Dublin Opener has the full breakdown.
The defense that ranked 134th on fourth down just stopped TCU cold
Last season this defense ranked 134th nationally on fourth down, letting opponents convert 24 of 32 tries, according to ESPN's recap. Saturday, TCU went 1-for-5 on fourth down against it, including a goal-line stop and another with the lead and the clock working against them late — the kind of sequence the UNC account greeted in real time with "ANOTHER FOURTH DOWN STOP!!!!" Vannini's read on the whole afternoon matched the stat sheet: Carolina's "defense got better as the game went on," and it "let TCU make more mistakes." Xavier Lewis was at the center of it, batting down a would-be sack into an intentional-grounding call and forcing a third-and-long stop, and the team named him its player of the game.
Xavier Lewis, player of the game! t.co/owBE3BBApH
Belichick's explanation was typically dry: "Once we kind of got settled down a little bit on the outside runs... we kind of forced him to cut back and those guys did a good job inside." TCU coach Sonny Dykes gave Carolina the compliment straight, telling reporters afterward, "They've improved." It helped that TCU took the field short-handed — leading receiver Jordan Dwyer, who caught 54 balls for 730 yards and 7 touchdowns last season, made the trip but didn't play through a lingering foot injury, Pete Thamel reported, while defensive lineman Zach Chapman also sat out after missing camp hurt, per On3's Pete Nakos. Harvard transfer Jaden Craig took the Horned Frogs' snaps in Dwyer's place, making his first Power Four start in the process.
Next up: a home opener against a team that just lost by 12
The Tar Heels get one trip home before anything else matters: they're back at Kenan Stadium on September 12 vs. East Tennessee State, a program that opened its own season with a 37-49 loss to Campbell and sits at 0-1. There's no line up yet on this one, so there's nothing on the market to lean on either way — just a first look at this team in Chapel Hill in front of its own crowd.
It's a soft landing after Dublin, but Belichick has made clear all camp he's judging execution, not opponents, and a home crowd getting its first look at Edwards, Petrino's offense and a defense that just erased last year's fourth-down problem is its own kind of event. The Tar Heels head into it 1-0 for the first time since last year's stretch run went the other way.