Early in the fourth quarter of UNC football's rivalry game against N.C. State, Sam Howell rested.
Howell and the Tar Heels were leading their in-state rival by an impressive 24 points going into the final quarter.
The Tar Heels' starting quarterback, who is now over 5,000 passing yards in just 18 games for UNC, deserved the rest. The starting running backs — Michael Carter and Javonte Williams, who combined for 266 rushing yards — deserved the rest. Linebacker Chazz Surratt — who finished with an interception, a forced fumble, a sack and eight tackles — deserved the rest.
The starters were able to take a much-deserved seat on the bench to watch the backups close out the 48-21 victory, the third-largest margin of victory against an AP Top-25 opponent in North Carolina history.
After a frustrating game last Saturday against an unranked Florida State team that saw a too-little-too-late comeback attempt for the Tar Heels, subbing in first-year quarterback Jacolby Criswell for most of the final quarter felt like much-needed vindication for UNC. Not quite redemption, but it was a crucial bounce back for a team that has fought against the "overrated" label in recent weeks.
“We did not handle being fifth in the country well,” head coach Mack Brown said. “We were way too full of ourselves. They wish they had that (FSU game) back. You don’t get them back.”
The team will always have at least one mark in the losing column for the season, but that FSU hiccup seemed to push UNC to fix the costly mistakes from a week ago. Namely, the Tar Heels' lack of turnovers in the previous four games.
“It’s obviously the way you win football games,” Brown said. “We come in here on Saturday afternoon, we come in here on Sunday, I’m going to look right at that (rushing yards) stat and I’m going to look at turnovers and tell you who won the game.”
The UNC defense got the message: Brown wanted turnovers.