The North Carolina Tar Heels face a very important season. Head coach Larry Fedora is not on the hot seat, but he is in a position where a very successful year could make him a top target for other schools searching to fill a potential coaching vacancy this upcoming December. Fedora came to North Carolina from Southern Mississippi, which he led to a Conference USA championship. North Carolina is a basketball school, however, and there are several schools higher up the food chain in terms of offering prestige and glory for winning and football. Most of those schools are in the SEC, and Fedora could enter their radar if their current coaches fail in 2017.
Yet, while Fedora is a potential candidate for bigger jobs, he needs to prove something to his fan base as well. North Carolina put together an 11-1 regular season in 2015, but the Tar Heels weren’t nearly as good last year. They were wildly inconsistent despite having Mitch Trubisky, a No. 2 NFL Draft pick, as their quarterback. If Fedora has a bad season in 2017, he will be in an uncomfortable position in 2018. It’s a remarkable time in Chapel Hill.
How Did They End 2016
The Tar Heels were terrible in their home-field rivalry game against North Carolina State, starting slowly, making a small rally midway through the game, but having nothing left in the fourth quarter. The game in many ways represented their season, which never truly found a groove. The offense was too erratic, the defense not nearly strong enough to compensate. North Carolina’s penchant for inconsistency continued into the Sun Bowl against Stanford. The Cardinal’s best player, Christian McCaffrey, sat out of the game to prepare for the NFL Draft. North Carolina’s offense still couldn’t muster enough points to outscore Stanford. Trubisky was inconsistent with his decisions. The running game didn’t offer as much support. This is what UNC is battling in 2017, trying to fight against inconsistency.
Offseason Changes
Gone are Mitch Trubisky and defensive coordinator Gene Chizik. Some could reasonably make the argument that as good as Trubisky was, the loss of Chizik will matter more, because Chizik came in and got this defense to play better in 2015, when the Tar Heels went 11-1 through 12 games before losing to Clemson in the ACC Championship Game. The new defensive coordinator is John Papuchis, who has some very big shoes to fill.
Team X-Factor
Linebackers have to knit together the defense under a new coordinator. The UNC linebackers will have responsibilities in both the running game and the passing game. They will need to make split-second decisions and reads, and have to be practiced and polished at it in order to give structure and cohesion to the defense as a whole.
What To Expect From The Tar Heels This Year
This was a decent but not great team last year, and given the specific losses of Trubisky and Chizik – who were both very important in their own ways – it is hard to see how this team will make up enough ground to create a hugely successful season.
Record Last 5 Seasons
2016: 8-5
2015: 11-3
2014: 6-7
2013: 7-6
2012: 8-4
Schedule & Outlook
The Tar Heels will have a challenging start to the season. They’ll host California in Week 1, which is an expected win since the Golden Bears are a mess, but it’s still a Pac-12 team. It’s not exactly a showdown with a Division I-AA school. After that, they’ll go to Louisville and have a brief respite versus Old Dominion before facing Duke. Realistically, they should be 3-1 but if they are any worse, that likely foreshadows trouble.
The good news is that the rest of the schedule is soft. Absent from the menu are Florida State and Clemson. However, there are potential landmines at Virginia Tech, versus Notre Dame, versus Miami and at North Carolina State.
The Tar Heels will go 8-4 this year, which isn’t terrible, but will certainly not make anyone in Chapel Hill particularly happy. Such a record will make Fedora’s future uncertain from both the viewpoints of other schools wanting to hire him and from North Carolina – not for 2018, but 2019.
Regular Season Win Total Prediction: Over 7
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