UNC, NC State football are both 8-3, but rarely have identical records been so different

A silly-but-fun college football question to ponder this season and last has been this: What if N.C. State’s defense could be combined with North Carolina’s offense? How good would that team be?

That’s an ACC championship caliber team, probably. A College Football Playoff contender? Maybe. It’s a fun thought exercise, to pair a Drake Maye-led offense with a Payton Wilson-led defense, and to imagine the possibilities.

But a better question has emerged, now that State and Carolina will (somehow) enter their regular season finale with identical 8-3 records. What if UNC’s supposed talent — all those players who entered college with four or five stars next to their names on the recruiting websites; all those guys whose signings elicited a lot of hype and hope — had N.C. State’s coaching staff?

Because this much has become clear (if it wasn’t already) while the Wolfpack and Tar Heels traveled vastly different roads only to wind up in the same place: N.C. State more often than not finds a way to get the most out of what it has, so much so that the sum always seems greater than the individual parts would suggest.

And Carolina? Well, the signing day hype and recruiting success has to count for something, right?

Exactly a month ago Sunday, on Oct. 20, the figurative distance between these programs appeared as wide as it’d been in a long time. “Appeared,” being the word of emphasis there.

The Tar Heels were 6-0, ranked 10th nationally and, outside of an early-season overtime victory against Appalachian State, looked just about as formidable as any team in the country. With Drake Maye and an offense that could almost score at will, and with a defense that appeared (there’s that word again) competent, the thought was that it was all there for the taking.

You may have even read, right here in this space, that an ACC championship (UNC’s first since 1980) was a realistic possibility; that a College Football Playoff appearance was not out of the question. And on Oct. 20, the day before UNC lost against Virginia, that was all true. Every word.

It was also true, then, that N.C. State’s season appeared in serious jeopardy. The Wolfpack on Oct. 20 was in the midst of its off week, one it hoped might provide a reset. State was 4-3 after a miserable 24-3 loss at Duke, a defeat in which the Wolfpack set offensive football back generations. Payton Wilson, State’s sixth-year senior linebacker, apologized to fans for his team’s effort.

Forget touchdowns, State had trouble enough as it was with first downs. Its upcoming schedule, with Clemson and Miami and road games at Wake Forest and Virginia Tech, offered no favors. It was fair to wonder when, or if, the Wolfpack might win another game. And on Oct. 20, eight days before State’s victory against Clemson, that was all true. Every word.

And now, look: State and Carolina meet again Saturday in Raleigh, with identical records — and with the Wolfpack a game better in the ACC. If you’d fallen into a month-long slumber and awoken Saturday night to the news that these teams are now both 8-3, you’d have some serious questions. Like: Did Maye get hurt and miss games? (No.) Did State hold an open tryout and discover a Sidd Finch-like quarterback talent among its student body? (Also no, apparently.)

You’d probably wonder if UNC’s defense reverted back to 2022 form (well, yes). Or if State somehow, some way figured out a way to make it work with what it had on offense while its defense reached an even higher level (also, yes).

But still: 8-3? For both these teams? How?

The turnaround — positive for State, negative for Carolina — is difficult to fathom. In the broad, view-from-30,000-feet sense, it underscores the reality, again, that State and Carolina are essentially the same program. Coaches come and go. Players come and go. Yet the results are quite similar over the past 40 years, which puts us close to the most recent ACC championship for both.

State last won the conference in 1979, UNC in 1980. Over the past 40 years, since 1983, State is 271-223-3, and 151-168-1 in the ACC. UNC during the same span: 261-231-3, and 156-162-3 in the ACC.

Head-to-head, over the past 40 years, they’re 20-20 against each other.

While the results are similar and the records, this season, are identical, the paths both State and Carolina followed to those records are as different as their identities. We joke about “Salty Dave” and “hand in the dirt” and “blue collar” this or that, but Dave Doeren has indeed built a culture of toughness — mental and physical — at N.C. State.

And that culture has served the Wolfpack well — especially well this season, when it didn’t have much of an offense during the first part of the season and when then-starting quarterback, M.J. Morris, up and quit earlier this month. The response: two straight road wins with a rejuvenated Brennan Armstrong.

What is the culture, meanwhile, at UNC? What is the Tar Heels identity?

With victories against State and in a bowl game, Mack Brown would be 40-25 through his first five seasons of his second stint at UNC. That would only tie him with Larry Fedora’s record through his first five seasons at UNC. Since Brown has returned, UNC has recruited well. The university has invested in facilities upgrades. Fan support, while always iffy at UNC, has usually been there.

And yet the hope of a true breakthrough season is gone. A 6-0 start has turned into 8-3. It’s a good record. It’s a great record, if you’ve dealt with the sort of stuff that has challenged N.C. State. UNC, though, has another NFL quarterback, in Maye. It has stars, literal and figurative (in the recruiting sense) all over the field. And now, best case, it can only tie the Wolfpack in the ACC.

Carolina fans will undoubtedly wonder what if. What if UNC hadn’t lost, as a double-digit favorite, against Virginia or Georgia Tech? A better what if, in hindsight: What if N.C. State had just held on against Louisville? The Wolfpack would be playing for the ACC championship.

One big thing

State and Carolina meet for the 113th time on Saturday, with the latest installment coming under the lights at Carter-Finley Stadium and starting a little after 8 p.m. Expect the post-Thanksgiving crowd in Raleigh to be ... festive. UNC no doubt dominated this rivalry in its earliest days, and held a decisive edge in the days of Model T automobiles and silent films.

In more modern times, though, the series has been far more competitive. Since the formation of the ACC in 1953, UNC holds a 37-33 edge. It’s even over the past 40 years. And State is 14-9 since 2000. A victory here for the Wolfpack, given how these teams started the season, would be especially sweet. And a loss especially crushing for UNC.

Carolina fans love to say this is State’s Super Bowl. The reality, this season: UNC needs it more.

Realignment rumblings

OK, hear me out: Kudos to our ACC in-laws out West, where Stanford supporters (and a fair number of those rooting for Cal, presumably) actually managed to show up for The Big Game on Saturday between Stanford and Cal at Stanford Stadium.

The attendance at both Cal and Stanford home games has been worthy of mockery this season, with fans apparently saving their money and their voices for next year, when the likes of Louisville, SMU and Syracuse (among others, yes) make the trip to the Bay Area. But Saturday at Stanford, it looked like a real, live college football game, with more 50,000 people in attendance.

How ‘bout that, for a game that henceforth will count in the ACC standings. The thought of attendance for Cal and Stanford home games does, though, bring to mind the specter of some potential future ACC championship game match-ups that’d be a tough sell in Charlotte.

Cal vs. Boston College, anyone? The ACC did survive Wake-Georgia Tech in 2006.

Three things to like

1. N.C. State’s resolve, again. Raise your hand if you saw four consecutive victories coming when State was 4-3 after that humbling loss against Duke. There should be no hands going up, because no one believed it possible. Dave Doeren won’t win ACC Coach of the Year (Louisville’s Brian Brohm probably has that honor secured) but Doeren deserves more votes than he’ll receive. There’s a case to be made that he’s done the best coaching job in the league.

2. Appalachian State, again showing its mettle. Best program in the state? Look, it remains arguable. Again. Just when it looked like the Mountaineers were taking a step or two in the wrong direction, they responded with a four-game winning streak of their own. App’s 26-23 victory at previously-unbeaten James Madison, in overtime, is just another moment, in a long line of them, of rising to the occasion. No program in the state has done a better job of it, for longer.

3. N.C. Central, FCS playoffs bound. The most consistently good college football team in the Triangle? That’d be the Eagles of NCCU, who wrapped up a 9-2 regular season with a 55-14 victory against Delaware State on Saturday. NCCU amassed 669 yards, third-most in school history, and quarterback Davius Richard became the all-time leader in total offense. Up next for the Eagles: the FCS playoffs. They open on the road against Richmond, with the winner of that advancing to face Albany, the No. 5 seed in the tournament.

AND THREE THINGS TO ... NOT LIKE AS MUCH

1. Biff Poggi and his over-the-top support of Jim Harbaugh. We get it, Biff. You spent some time on Harbaugh’s staff at Michigan, first as an analyst in 2016 and more recently as an associate head coach. But now it’s all becoming a bit much. Poggi, the head coach at Charlotte, has portrayed his former boss as some paragon of honor amid the sign-stealing scandal that has embroiled Michigan and led to Harbaugh’s suspension. It’s pretty laughable, and only feeds into the stereotypes Biffs everywhere have long sought to break.

2. Duke, injured and out of gas. UNC and N.C. State do not own a monopoly on the what ifs that have defined this college football season. Maybe the greatest of all, among the Triangle’s ACC schools: What if Riley Leonard doesn’t get hurt? With a healthy Leonard, Duke is probably a top-15 team (and maybe higher). Without him, the Blue Devils are limping to the finish line. Their rough second half of the season shouldn’t tarnish the luster of what Mike Elko is building there.

3. ECU’s offense reaches bottom. Well, we hope it’s the bottom. The Pirates’ 10-0 defeat at Navy came in another one of those games that is best forgotten, to put away and not mentioned again. The numbers were ghastly for ECU: 189 total yards. Nine first downs. Two-for-13 on third down. Ack! Or, AAC, as it were. The good news, for the Pirates: It’s almost all over. Now we wait to find out if the same can be said for Mike Houston’s tenure. It’d appear safe, given that Houston on Sunday announced that Donnie Kirkpatrick, the Pirates’ embattled offensive coordinator, would not be back next season.

This week’s ‘Best Program in the State’

We’re throwing it back old-school this week. Back to the program that was the original inspiration for this season-long silly bit. Back to the mountains. To the land of impressive peaks and equally impressive grit. To the champions of doing less with more.

Yes, back to Boone and Appalachian State. Come on down, Shawn Clark, your Mountaineers are this week’s best program in the state! [Holds for applause, raucous cheering, boos from Wake Forest fans]. In all seriousness, App has undergone a turnaround similar to the one witnessed in Raleigh. There were some who wondered if Clark might not be long for the job.

Those rumblings are quieter, now, after the Mountaineers went on the road and spoiled JMU’s perfect season. And did it with ESPN GameDay there to watch, no less.

Carolinas ranking

1. N.C. State (insert mechanical wolf sound effect from Carter-Finley Stadium here); 2. Clemson (the Tigers are playing their best ball, as Dabo Swinney might say and, besides, who else should it be here?); 3. North Carolina (a third consecutive loss against State would not do wonders for growing angst among fans); 4. Duke (Blue Devils must avoid any Pitt-related weirdness this weekend); 5. Appalachian State; 6. South Carolina; 7. Coastal Carolina; 8. Wake Forest; 9. Charlotte (let me know if Harbaugh shows up on 49ers sideline); 10. ECU.

Final thoughts, in no particular order

▪ I think multiple things can be true at once: Mack Brown is the best football coach in UNC history. And he’s also, in recent years, responsible for some of the most confounding losses in school history and, ultimately, for defenses that have no business performing as poorly as they have.

▪ I think, too, that UNC’s relative “struggles” — and 8-3 is good for UNC, historically — offer another reminder that you can’t just go off recruiting rankings and assume they’ll translate into results. Georgia and Alabama and a few others recruit at such an outlandish level that success is almost a given. UNC doesn’t. Culture matters. Coaching matters. Player development matters. That’s been missing in Chapel Hill, especially on defense.

▪ I think, speaking of coaching, that it’s time for State fans to embrace Doeren and accept the bad with the good. The bad was earlier this season. The bad is also that State has had chances to break through, and hasn’t. But Doeren is routinely putting the Wolfpack in positions to have those opportunities, and to a greater degree than any State coach since Dick Sheridan.

▪ I think this stat, from ESPN’s David Hale, is remarkable. And thus, my remarking on it. From Hale: Four Power Five teams have won at least eight games the past four seasons — Georgia, Alabama, Notre Dame and ... N.C. State. Granted, that time span includes the bizarre pandemic season of 2020, when a lot of teams played condensed schedules. But still. Impressive company for the Wolfpack.

▪ I think, as it stands now, the college football program with the best chance of breaking through nationally in this state is not the one everyone always assumes. But you’ll have to wait a week for the expansion of that thought.