A unified New York on 9/11 did not last very long. In a microcosm of our country today, the moving celebration at Citi Field before the Yankees and Mets played on Saturday night turned into a near-brawl 24 hours later. After the U.S. was attacked by its own hijacked airliners on September 11, 2001, America […]

Can we please get a handle on the hype for football? I know it doesn’t really matter how many points one team is favored by over another, unless of course you are betting on one side to cover the spread. Other than that, it’s just pre-game noise. But haven’t we had enough of that leading […]

Carolina got more from Larry Fedora than Carter and Javonte. When Mack Brown took over the UNC football program in late November of 2019, academic schedules were already set for most of the players. And classes were all in the afternoon, when Brown had conducted practice for almost 30 years as a head coach. Fedora […]

UNC basketball is getting an oddly low-key start to the season. Hubert Davis’ first Tar Heel team is working out in small groups, according to NCAA rules, and will begin full practices on September 28. That’s a lot earlier than the old October 15 date, and it varies among schools based on when they start […]

The ACC took it on the field and in the polls during week one. Clemson was the only ACC team that lost and did not plummet in the various top 25 polls. Guess that’s because the Tigers and Georgia Bulldogs were equally inept at moving the football. Not a single offensive touchdown the entire game? […]

Mack Brown says teams have to find a way to win openers. His didn’t. When Carolina won the coin toss Friday night, Brown made his usual decision to defer receiving the ball until the second-half kickoff. He obviously hoped his defense was better prepared to stop the Virginia Tech running game than it had been […]

Carolina cannot get off to a bad start tonight and hope to win. The long off-season is over and the Tar Heels aren’t exactly easing into the 2021 schedule. For the first time in Mack Brown’s second tour as Carolina’s football coach, his team opens with a true road game at Virginia Tech this evening […]

How Sam Howell earned QB1 as a true freshman at Carolina. There are stories this week that all three quarterbacks who competed for the job in the summer of 2019 are starting in their opening games this season. Don’t believe a single word of them. From the moment Howell agreed to flip his commitment from […]

COVID is back this season, maybe with a vengeance. We thought we were on the other side of the pandemic, heading into an interim year that I’ve been calling the period of personal preference. Even if all the protocols were lifted, the infection rates declining and the stadiums sold out, some people will still stay […]

Was that the real Mack Brown who stood up on game week? He didn’t exactly have his game face on five days before the Tar Heels kick it off at Virginia Tech, but Brown seemed ready to play and take what may come Friday night in Blacksburg. He even said something about possibly losing, which […]