Brownlow: After heartbreaking Holiday Bowl, UNC looks to the future and making the most of Maye

By Lauren Brownlow, WRALSportsFan columnist/reporter

As an historically .500 football program, it's difficult to look at any season that ends in nine wins and a Division title as disappointing.

North Carolina's season does not qualify as that, but the way it played out with four straight losses made it feel that way.

The moment UNC kicked a field goal late to go up by six points against Oregon when its defense that had held up admirably started to give way late, it felt inevitable that Oregon would score. And the final tease of Oregon's game-winning extra point bouncing off an upright before ricocheting in somehow felt appropriate, too.

"The saddest thing for me is that they played their hearts out, and they’re one point away from being out there on the field and having a great time and feeling great about themselves. That’s one of the very difficult things about sports," UNC head coach Mack Brown said after the Holiday Bowl.

In the first 10 games of this season, Carolina had sort of overcome itself historically. The Tar Heels have had plenty of close calls in their history and even in the Mack Brown era, and had often fallen just short. Brown has talked frequently about the team learning how to win those types of games. And early on, they did. Six of Carolina's first 10 games were one-score games, and UNC won all six of them.

But in the last four games, all losses, three were decided by four points or fewer. So UNC won all its close ones early and lost all of its close ones late. But in total, nine games were decided by 7 points or fewer and UNC went 6-3 in those. Could have been 3-6, could have been 8-1, could have been 1-8.

"We came down to the last drive in most of our games. Notre Dame beat us. Clemson beat us. We beat Pittsburgh. We beat Virginia Tech. All the others came down to the last drive of the game, every one of them. And that means that’s a team that’s fighting their guts out to try to win," Brown said. "We won (six) of those that came down to the last play of the game. We lost a few. Oregon is the best team that we played that came down to the last play of the game, and we lost it with a chance to win."

It wasn't as simple as a few good bounces turning to bad ones, though. UNC's offense with superstar quarterback Drake Maye carried the team through most of the season but seemed to hit a brick wall in mid-November, starting with the Georgia Tech loss.

The offensive drop-off was dramatic.Carolina averaged 6.8 yards per play in its first nine games vs. FBS and that fell to 4.8 in its final four games.

Carolina scored on 39 of its first 44 red-zone possessions against FBS teams (88.6%) and 33 of those 44 scores were touchdowns (75%). In the last four games, Carolina scored on just 12 of 21 red-zone trips (57.1%, which is very not good) and just SEVEN of those 21 scores were touchdowns (33.3%). It's a limited sample size, but Carolina would have ranked second to last in the nation in touchdown percentage if that had been their season-long percentage.

UNC offensive coordinator Phil Longo took the same job at Wisconsin and in spite of all he accomplished at Carolina, having them in the top tier nationally year after year in yards per play, the offense really did sputter late in the season and especially late in games.

The Tar Heels outscored its first nine FBS opponents in the third quarter seven times. They tied in one third quarter and were outscored just once. That's the sign of a team that came out eager to close out opponents and playing complimentary football, of a team that made adjustments. They averaged a +6.0 scoring margin, 11.7 scored to 5.7 allowed.

But in its final four games, UNC scored a grand total of zero third-quarter points. It allowed fewer, slightly (5.5 on average) but the whole scoring zero part was a problem. The fourth quarter, UNC was +0.8 in the first nine and -3.5 in the last four, so it breaks somewhat even. But the second half differences as a whole were stark. First nine, UNC averaged 20.8 second-half points to 14 allowed, a +5.7 margin. Final four? Carolina scored a TOTAL of 20 points in four second halves, allowing 12.5 for a -7.5 margin. Not going to win a lot of close games that way.

After leading Georgia Tech at halftime 17-7, UNC failed to outscore an opponent in 12 of its final 14 quarters of regulation. And the Tar Heels were outscored in eight of the 14. To put that in perspective, UNC was outscored in just eight of 36 quarters in its first nine games vs. FBS.

Carolina piled up at least 470 yards of offense in eight of its first nine games vs. FBS teams and at least 367 yards in all of them. And then after the Wake game, UNC eclipsed the 367 mark just once and didn't crack six yards per play in any of its final four games after eclipsing that mark in eight of its first nine FBS games.

The offense looked closer to its old self in the final game, and that was without Longo. Wide receivers coach Lonnie Galloway and tight ends coach/running game coordinator John Lilly put their heads together, along with Maye himself. And without a lot of their key personnel and in spite of their inexperience, the offense looked noticably more potent, even if it stalled some late in the game.

"We had a (graduate assistant) coaching offensive line. We had a guy calling plays that’s never called plays before," Brown said. "We’re playing freshmen wide receivers. We got (freshman receiver) Doc Chapman out there. He hadn’t played any. Andre Greene got to play only because the NCAA gave him an extra game because freshmen that played in four could play in five because we were so thin. Poor Drake has new receivers running out there he hasn’t even thrown to in the middle of the Holiday Bowl.

"(Galloway) and John Lilly both did an absolutely amazing job without an offensive line coach of having a chance to beat a top 15 team in a bowl game. I had no clue what was going to happen, and they have worked their rear ends off."

Going into next season, the Tar Heels will still have Maye. Freshman receiver Andre Greene only had three catches for 26 yards but one of those was a touchdown and all of his catches were impressive. UNC finally got its tight ends involved to the tune of a combined six catches for 61 yards and a touchdown. The Tar Heels still have talent at that position.

The way Brown talks about the offense, it will be a genuine team effort. UCF offensive coordinator Chip Lindsey is on board now in that same role, and even his hiring had input from Brown's star quarterback.

He sat down with Maye and ran through it all with him: what did he think about the offense? What did he want to get better? What did he think about the names Brown had spoken to so far?

Both of them agreed on what they wanted North Carolina to be: the same passing attack with a good running game, something Carolina hasn't had since 2019 with the duo of Javonte Williams and Michael Carter.

Both agreed the red zone offense had to improve, and particularly the ability to run the ball down there.

And both agreed on Lindsey, who had UCF's offense at No. 33 nationally in yards per play, just nine spots behind UNC. His offense was 20th in yards per rush this year and featured a dual-threat quarterback like Maye in John-Rhys Plumlee.

So yes, UNC's offense slumped to end the season. But it's reasonable to think it will still be potent next season, especially with Galloway, Lilly and Larry Porter, the running backs coach collaborating with Lindsey and trying not to fix the parts that aren't broken.

"Lonnie will be very, very involved with Chip (Lindsey) in the passing game because he's really good at it. He's one of the best recruiters we've got. John Lilly is going to be really involved in the running game with (Lindsay) and Larry Porter, but he's also going to be more involved in red zone offense with Chip," Brown said. "The teams that are scoring touchdowns in the red zone are running the ball and they're using the tight end more. We were doing that early, and then we weren't. ... I needed to hire somebody who came in with ideas but didn't want to come in and just absolutely redo everything."

Plenty of fingers have been pointed at UNC's defense, and somewhat justifiably so. It started out the season a hot mess. In the first three FBS games, UNC's defense faced 39 drives that weren't the end of a half and allowed 21 scores and 18 touchdowns. That's a 53.8% score percentage and 46.2% touchdown percentage.

And if you added back the two missed field goals, which were scoring chances, it could have been as high as 59% scoring on ALL POSSESSIONS. The offense had to be nearly perfect to make up for it, and it was.

But quietly, the defense improved. It wasn't by a lot, but it was enough. In the final 10 games, UNC dropped its score percentage allowed to 47.3% and its touchdown percentage to a much more reasonable 31.8 percent. And UNC averaged allowing six touchdowns PER GAME in the first three compared to 3.5 in the final 10. It's not the Iron Curtain defense, but it's an improvement.

And in their final game of the year, the defense held the nation's No. 4 offense to its fourth-worst total of the season in yards per play. And they did it without several starters, particularly in the secondary. No one would have imagined that in September.

UNC's defense seemed to improve when the younger players behind the starters played more, and that carried over into the bowl game. That was the best offense UNC had seen all season and severely short-handed, they performed well against it.

"Our defense, they have continued to get better. After Appalachian State, everybody said, ‘They're so awful’ so they didn't get a chance at anything," Brown said outside the locker room Wednesday (Inside Carolina UNC-Oregon Postgame Quotes).

Brown was not content with just showing signs of improvement, though. He knows big things need to change for that unit, which will be going into its second season under defensive coordinator Gene Chizik.

"We've talked hard about stopping the run on first down, which is why you get tackles for loss and why you get sacks. And we haven't had enough. And you saw the one sack tonight we had was by Kaimon Rucker. It's quicker guys up front that are fast twitch. So we've really got to look at, did we get too big? Did we get where we’re catching instead of attacking?" Brown said.

"It's easy in (the media) business and (for) fans to say, ‘This is who they are and you never change'. We have changed, and they're getting better."

All UNC needed this year was for its defense to be average. It was far below that on the whole, and especially early. But if it can get its offense back on track and its defense can be closer to average, that will be the recipe for better things in 2023.

"So that excites me, the fact that most of these kids will be back. We've done a better job in the transfer portal than in our past. We’ll have 19 new guys here this spring, which is amazing that there's that many — or that's what we're planning on out of 85. So it'll be pretty much the same team that you saw tonight with more help. And that's why I'm excited."

The four-game skid to end the year and a Heisman campaign that fizzled both felt disappointing, yes. But UNC still has Maye, and it still has plenty to feel good about when looking back on the season as a whole, missed opportunities or not.

"What I see is that we close the season with nine wins, which is it only has happened only one other time since I left (UNC), and I left here a long time ago. So this is one heck of a season for North Carolina," Brown said. "Most of them are coming back, and that’s what I’m looking forward to. Second time in school history we won the Coastal.

"A lot of people would like to swap their season for ours. A lot of people would have liked to be in the Holiday Bowl playing a great team like Oregon. I put these guys in a tough spot because we’ve got a chance to be so good next year, but I wanted to play the best team that we could possibly play because that’s who we’ve got to start beating to take our next step."