Tar Heels face Boston College in ACC tilt

With the last home game in Kenan Stadium behind them, the UNC football team hopes to finish off the season in its current form.

After struggling in losses against Georgia Tech and Virginia, the Tar Heels have responded with five straight strong efforts and emerged with four victories.

Against those last five opponents, which included three of the top four passing offenses in the ACC in Duke, Florida State, and Miami, the Tar Heels yielded just 284.8 yards per game.

While the defense has done a phenomenal job of keeping the game close, what separates the late season stretch from early season is UNC’s ability to put points on the board.

UNC has scored more than 20 points in four of the five games. It scored 19 against Duke.

The Tar Heels now must turn their attention to Boston College.

The Eagles (7-3, 4-2 in the ACC) have extra motivation, as they are only a Clemson loss away from being in the driver’s seat for a bid in the ACC Championship.

“It is a unique place to play, Chestnut Hill,” Davis said. “It’s loud, so it should be quite a challenge for our football team.”

The key matchup of the game figures to be Boston College’s offensive line against the defensive line of UNC. The Eagles’ line is a smashmouth unit which ranks in the ACC’s top four in both sacks allowed and rushing offense.

UNC’s defensive line will be a stiff challenge, as it ranks first in rush defense in the conference and second in sacks.

“We talked about this as a team, and we talked about this in a press conference four or five weeks ago — what a huge challenge the second half of the season is going to be,” Davis said.

“We knew it was going to be a meat grinder.”



Contact the Sports Editor at sports@unc.edu.