North Carolina 28, Georgia Tech 7. One of the best signs that North Carolina is a better team -- a much, much better team, at 7-2 after winning a total of seven games in John Bunting's last year and Butch Davis' first -- is that the Tar Heels are
owning the "margins" categories. They're not vastly improved over last year in any offensive or defensive category, but they are
fourth in the nation in turnover margin, and they've won games against bowl-bound foes UConn, Miami, Notre Dame and now Georgia Tech despite being outgained in all of them. They're consistently blocking kicks, recovering fumbles, and generally doing things not-very-good teams need to do to defy the odds.
Saturday, the Heels benefitted both from their own opportunism and the Yellow Jackets' generosity. UNC only led 7-0 entering the fourth quarter, thanks to an opening touchdown drive in the first quarter and a series of Georgia Tech miscues: Turnover on downs, turnover on downs, missed field goal, field goal on consecutive drives ending in Carolina territory in the first half. Completely terrified of their kicking game, the Jackets also punted from the UNC 30 in the third quarter, for a net of 10 yards after a very predictable touchback.
You could say UNC's offense "came alive" from there, scoring on a subsequent 80-yard drive to go ahead 14-0, but it's hard to separate the Heels' success from the circumstances: Carolina added two quick touchdowns in the fourth following a Yellow Jacket fumble, and, after allowing an 85-yard run by Jonathan Dwyer, put the game away on a 39-yard "drive" following the subsequent onside kick.
Georgia Tech's yardage advantage can be explained away by Dwyer's big run and the futile 46 yards it picked up on a final, meaningless drive as the clock expired, but Tech was solid defensively most of the game and missed too many opportunities to keep an otherwise close game within striking distance.
