Football's Badness Defined

The query is usually followed by a sigh and a perplexed look, as if to say, "Aren't we supposed to be building off last season?"

Or, sometimes, "The whole Peach Bowl thing did happen -- didn't it?"

Perhaps last year's success -- and the graduation/departure of many keys parts of that 8-5 season -- were the worst things that could have happened to North Carolina football circa 2002.

Well, that or Darian Durant's broken thumb. Or Will Chapman's bum wrist. Or Carl Torbush's horrible recruiting of offensive and defensive linemen during his last two years here in Chapel Hill.

Regardless of the reason, and there are obviously many of them, UNC stands at 2-6, 0-4 in the ACC. Quite a few people thought this team would have six losses this year, but most didn't think they'd reach that number so quickly.

But how incredibly bad is 2-6? What does that particular record really mean?

Honestly, each loss has given me a new perspective of the Tar Heels, one that only gets worse as they continue to trudge through the conference season.

I like to think of it in terms of levels of badness. Being bad is definitely a gray area, and sometimes it's difficult to get a handle on how inept you actually are.

So, the best way to determine the overall suckiness of a team is to break it down into delineated levels that allow you to figure out exactly how bad the team really is.

For example, last year's men's basketball team was cry-to-your-mother bad, while Duke's football team throughout its heinously long losing streak was more along the lines of I-can't-believe-this-is-actually-happening bad.

That said, from Day One UNC fell into the first category of badness, the commit-nine-turnovers-in-your-season-opener-and-lose-to-a-team-from-Miami-(Ohio) bad.

Obviously, there are other factors that came into play in this loss, including the inclement weather and the basic inexperience of all involved, but it still portended future poor play.

This first level is not exactly the pit of badness hell, but it's at least near the on-ramp to the road there.

The Tar Heels moved up (or down, considering how you conceptualize badness) to the next level against Georgia Tech.

The fumble-at-the-1-yard-line-and-struggle-to-stop-a-freshman-running-back bad taste from that day was just the beginning of UNC's inability to stop the run and propensity for inopportune turnovers.

It started getting really bad, though, when North Carolina dropped to the level of winning-against-your-rival-before-eventually-getting-punked-at-home bad in a 34-17 loss to N.C. State.

That one probably eroded the fan base a bit and definitely took some sort of intangible spirit from UNC's players, who haven't bounced back since.

But Fall Break brought the Tar Heels to new lows when UNC ventured into the level of give-up-37-points-in-the-second-half-to-Virginia bad, which is not only inexplicable, but it's also just sad.

And now? Losing by 31 to Wake Forest is really, really bad. Getting shut out by the Demon Deacons is really, really bad.

That's four really bads between them. You get the picture.

That might seem to be as bad as it gets, but remember, there are four games left in the season.

In other words, this group could be worse than the 1999 no-fun-in-Kenan team. Duke, with its old streak and its newfound mediocrity, is all that stands between UNC and 2-10.

And losing to the Blue Devils would put the Tar Heels smack in the pit of badness hell.

Ian Gordon can be reached at

igordon@email.unc.edu.