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September 27 Sheet

Georgia Tech at North Carolina (+2.5) - Saturday - 12:30pm Pacific
Continuing trend of 2nd year coaches, John Bunting proved his worth last season leading an 0-3 team to an 8-5 bowl winning season. The Tar Heels are coming off a 31 point loss to #3 Texas. Last year they rebounded from a 30 point loss to Texas with a 41-9 victory over Florida State.

The Tar Heels lost their season opener to Miami, Ohio in a game that can be thrown out in my book. UNC lost 9 turnovers in the game which was played in a rainstorm. They bounced back from that with a very nice road win at Syracuse that gave them some much needed confidence. They put up 436 yards of offense against a respectable Orangemen defense. QB Darian Durant had an eventful offseason as he opted to transfer but then changed his mind and had to fight to win the starting job over Florida transfer C.J. Stephens. He has had a rocky start to the season with 5 interceptions through three games but has still managed a 126.3 QB rating. He is a big time threat to both run and pass which is exactly the type of QB that has given the GT defense trouble in last two games. I look for Durant to have a solid game today.

UNC's question mark is on defense, but Bunting says his young defense will be ready for conference play. The Tar Heels lost a ton of talent from last years defense and only have 3 returning starters. They will benefit from the tough schedule they have faced to date. The team spent most of their off week focusing on defensive fundamentals such as alignment, assignments, and tackling. Bunting says they have more team speed than last year on this side of the ball with the strength being in the secondary led by Thorpe candidate DB Waddell and FS Dexter Reid (107 tackles last year). Look for improvement on this side of the ball this week.

Georgia Tech has not looked very good in their two games vs "real" opponents. They were beaten pretty soundly by Clemson in their ACC opener and last week were not impressive in beating a BYU team that was coming off a loss to Nevada-Reno. BYU turned the ball over three times in their first four possessions but still led 10-7 at half-time with a 192-102 yard advantage.

BYU had a backup freshman come in at QB in the 2nd quarter to replace struggling senior starter Engeman. Backup QB played well, led two touchdown drives, had some nice runs and some nice passes, but GT made adjustments and his inexperience showed in the 2nd half and enabled Tech to win the game. BYU failed on a critical 4th & 3 from their own 40 with about 9 minutes left and down by just 2 points. The frosh QB was sacked on the play. Georgia Tech scored the final 14 points of the game to win 28-19 but game was much closer than the final score indicates.

Before the BYU game, Georgia Tech lost their most talented defensive player, senior DE Greg Gathers (1st team ACC, 2nd team All-American last year), their all time career sack leader. With five minutes left in the BYU game, superstar RB Tony Hollings (could have been best RB in the country, led nation in rushing yards) was lost for the season with a knee injury. He was carted off the field in tears in a very unpleasant scene. The Yellow Jackets have now lost their most talented defensive player and offensive player in successive weeks.

Tech's second best RB Sydney Ford is still out with a concussion which leaves the RB duties to third & fourth stringers, both of whom are true freshman. This puts added pressure on the passing game. GT QB Suggs threw three interceptions vs BYU in addition to several other bad throws, a few that could have also been easily intercepted. Judging by the play calling, the coaches do not have much confidence in the pass attack, even before these interceptions, and even more so now. Suggs also has a propensity for being sacked (5 times vs Clemson, 2 times vs BYU). He does have playmakers at receiver but the passing game is hit and miss and without RB Hollings defenses can focus on the defending the pass much more which also happens to be UNC's strength. Hollings was responsible for 201 of the teams 317 total yards vs BYU (3 of 4 TD's) and 171 of 303 total yards vs Clemson (2 of 3 TD's). Even with Hollings, GT could not win at Clemson and looked sluggish offensively against a BYU defense that came in ranked 105th in the nation.

I get the feeling that the GT team and coaching staff is not entirely on the same page in Chan Gailey's first year here. In addition to the injuries noted above, DE Hobie Holiday and CB Albert Poree both left the team this week due to "personal" reasons. TE Will Heller (2 catches, 18 yards vs BYU) will miss the game with a foot injury. Bunting is only 6-9 ATS overall as UNC head coach, but 5 of the 6 wins have come in the underdog role, and 4 of those 5 were won outright. With the help of a BYE week and home field advantage, look for the Tar Heels to get a key win in their ACC opener.

North Carolina  1 UNIT

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