Tar Heels face short week after garnering first win
Maybe North Carolina should start the season with Pittsburgh.
The Tar Heels (1-2, 1-0 Atlantic Coast Conference) got their first win of 2018 with a 38-35 decision over the Panthers last week, their sixth consecutive victory in the series.
But after having extra time to prepare for the Panthers after their Sept. 15 date with UCF was cancelled because of Hurricane Florence, the Tar Heels have a short work week with a trip to Miami for a Thursday night encounter with the Hurricanes coming up.
“Really big win,” said running back Antonio Williams, who rushed for 114 yards and two touchdowns. “We need it. We are 1-0 in the ACC and that’s all that matters. We are in ACC play now and need to keep chopping each team down.”
The Tar Heels got a big game out of quarterback Nathan Elliott, who had been struggling in completing only 50.7 percent of his passes in losses to California and East Carolina to start the season.
He completed 22-of-31 attempts for 313 yards against the Panthers with two touchdowns against no interceptions.
“I think Nathan is really hard on himself,” coach Larry Fedora said. “He wants to please everybody, he wants to be as good as he can possibly be for his teammates and for the university and for the fans and for everybody.
“And so he puts a lot of pressure on himself and I think he probably relaxed a little bit, you know? And just said, you know what, I need to play ball.”
Elliott was 13-of-17 for 163 yards in the first half, which ended with the Tar Heels trailing 28-21. He completed all three of his attempts on a 56-yard drive for the tying score, then overcame a loss on a bad snap on the next drive to hit two big completions for the go-ahead touchdown in the third quarter.
“I felt confident coming into today,” he said afterward. “I did a lot of things in the last two weeks to put myself in a better position. I felt like for the most part I did. I was a lot more accurate. There are still obviously some things to clean up, but I thought it was a good day.”
Elliott did not have a great passing game with accuracy against Miami last year (16-of-39 with three interceptions) but he did pass for two touchdowns, both to wide receiver Beau Corrales. Corrales will be making his season debut after serving a three-game suspension to start the season.
