UVA Football: What fans need to know about North Carolina

This doesn’t count for much, but UNC absolutely has to be the best 4-4 football team in the country.

The Tar Heels beat a South Carolina team that has a win over Georgia and a win over a Miami team that beat UVA a few weeks back.

Then a pair of narrow losses to Top 25 Appalachian State and Wake Forest. And a failed two-point conversion away from upsetting defending national champion Clemson.

And that six-OT loss at Virginia Tech.

What the heck, right?

This is a battle-tested Carolina team.

Inside the Numbers

Pretty solid across the board. The Heels are fifth in the ACC in total offense (434.3 yards per game) and seventh in total defense (381.3 yards per game).

The one weakness is special teams. The ESPN Football Power Index has the UNC special-teams unit ranked 107th nationally (of the 130 FBS teams).

(For comparison, the FPI has UVA at fourth nationally.)

The quarterback situation there: good. Sam Howell, a 6’2”, 225-pound freshman, has thrown for 2,119 yards and 22 touchdowns, with a 58.9 percent completion rate, and just five interceptions.

The run game is a two-headed monster: Javonte Williams, a 5’10”, 215-pound sophomore, averages 80.0 yards per game and 5.5 yards per carry, and Michael Carter, a 5’10”, 200-pound junior, averages 67.8 yards per game and 5.0 yards per carry.

Six receivers have double-digit catches, led by 5’11” junior Dazz Newsome (13.9 yards per catch), 6’1” sophomore Dyami Brown (18.4 yards per catch) and 6’4” junior Beau Corrales (13.2 yards per catch).

The offensive line does leak a bit in terms of sacks allowed: opponents have registered 27 sacks, 121st nationally. Could be an issue with the UVA defense being fourth nationally with 32 sacks.

Virginia’s issues are almost entirely on the offensive side of the ball.

The UVA offense is 13th in the ACC and 108th nationally in total offense (345.3 yards per game). The run game is almost nonexistent – 14th in the ACC and 123rd nationally (105.5 yards per game).

And senior quarterback Bryce Perkins has, surprisingly, struggled in his second year as a starter. Perkins threw for 2,680 yards and 25 TDs with nine INTs in 2018, completing 64.5 percent of his passes, and he gained 923 yards and added nine more TDs on the ground.

In 2019, he’s thrown for 1,803 yards in eight games, which would actually put him on pace for 2,930 yards full-season.

But he has just nine TD passes, eight INTs. His completion rate is down slightly (to 62.7 percent).

His passer rating is down significantly (147.5 in 2018, 122.5 in 2019).

And his run numbers are way, way down: 275 yards through eight games, a 447-yard pace, not even half of what he did on the ground in 2018 (923 yards).

The defense is ranked second in the ACC and 11th nationally in total defense (281.5 yards per game).

You’ve got that great special teams, you’ve got that great defense. The offense is the reason Virginia is just 5-3, all three of those losses on the road.

The question heading into Saturday: can UVA fix its issues with the offense to steal a road win in Chapel Hill?

Story by Chris Graham