Welter: UNC is the "Man of Steel" of this college football season
Posted October 11, 2021 10:32 a.m. EDT
Updated October 12, 2021 10:54 a.m. EDT
Most guys around my age would say their favorite movie is "The Dark Knight." Coming off the heels of Christopher Nolan's masterful Batman trilogy came "Man of Steel," a movie that had the potential to be the Superman equivalent. I remember getting chills watching the trailer in the theater. Slow-motion space fighting, sparse piano music, a red cape flying in the wind, Russell Crowe's voice over, "good bye my son, our hopes and dreams travel with you."
Unfortunately for the Superman franchise, the hopes and dreams of that franchise rested with director Zack Snyder not Christopher Nolan, Nolan was just a producer on the film. "Man of Steel" had Nolan's look and Hans Zimmer's epic soundtrack, but the movie was like a two-hour-and-twenty-three-minute, over-dramatic car commercial. It was one of the most disappointing movie-going experiences of my life. It's not a horrible film in a vacuum, but it massively missed on most comic book lovers hopes and expectations.
UNC is the "Man of Steel" of this college football season.
(Full disclosure: This is my first season covering the Tar Heels. In the past I've covered James Franklin's Saquon Barkley teams at Penn State and Dan Mullen's three New Years Six bowl appearances at Florida. UNC obviously doesn't have the history of those programs, but when I got the job at WRAL I thought, "Wow, I might get to see one of the best North Carolina seasons ever!")
The trailer for this year looked great. Mack Brown is Russell Crowe, the wise father figure guiding his supernaturally talented quarterback Sam Howell. The team was coming off a trip to the Orange Bowl. They earned a No. 9 preseason ranking in the coaches poll, their highest preseason ranking since being ranked seventh during Brown's previous tenure in 1997. In fairness, Brown tried to tell us the movie wasn't going to be good. The problem was that he waited until we had already paid for our tickets and were eating popcorn.
"We're not the 10th best team in the country," Brown said after UNC's season opening loss at Virginia Tech. "We got back down to earth, we got a lot of work to do."
It was clear after the Tech loss that Superman was going to be more grounded this season. Just like Nolan to really make it a gritty tale, right? Any good sequel finds a way to strip the hero of his powers, and Howell was going to have to work. He no longer had NFL running backs Michael Carter and Javonte Williams. He no longer had Dyami Brown at receiver. At the time the Tech loss felt like a humbling experience, not necessarily foreshadowing.
"My expectation is to win every game," Brown said after I asked him how much UNC had failed to meet his expectations after a 35-25 loss to a historically bad Florida State team. "Three times we've met it, and three times we haven't. The national media expectation, the expectations for us to be a top ten team were wrong, so I guess we should all be critical of the media for picking us too high."
Like a true director, Brown turned my question around on the critic! Funny tongue in cheek from Brown, but I don't see very many people laughing.
It's one thing to lose to Virginia Tech in a road conference opener. You can even understand at Georgia Tech, but Florida State at home??? The same Florida State team that lost to Jacksonville State?
Florida State used to be one of the best brands in college football, now they are the comic book movie equivalent of the Green Lantern franchise. UNC made the perennially benched quarterback Jordan Travis look like Thanos.
I refuse to accept that "Man of Steel" couldn't have been better. I say the same thing about UNC. At their peak, they are genuinely one of my favorite teams to watch play. When Sam Howell releases a pass, you can feel the crowd gasp with excitement. He is a special, special talent whom I believe should be this year's first overall draft pick, but we are halfway through this movie. The supporting cast and director suggest we should probably all go home and turn on Netflix.
