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Tar Heel Blog

https://www.tarheelblog.com/ | 278 entries published

Tar Heel born, bred, and working on that third thing

Latest Entries

UNC vs. Syracuse: Three Things Learned

Despite being the better team, UNC fans braced for the worst when the North Carolina Tar Heels went into the half down four. After the break, though, the Tar Heels focused on what went right in the first half to dominate the second stanza. This Carolina team, under the unrelenting focus of the national microscope, […]

2 months ago | 0 reads

UNC Football picks up spooky win against Syracuse

UNC’s football game against Syracuse was one fitting of being played on Halloween night. It was scary for all involved and a Demon was the star of the show. No tape of this game should ever be preserved for any reason, but Carolina was able to take advantage of a terrible performance by the Orange […]

2 months ago | 0 reads

Friday Night Frights

Scene: Indoors, a rectangular room with a long table at the front. Microphones are clustered around an empty seat in the middle of the table. Assembled PRESS, their backs to the camera, shuffle quietly and clear their throats, evidently waiting for something or someone. Enter SUIT, who leans over the chair and speaks into the […]

2 months ago | 0 reads

Inside the Numbers: Orange vs Tar Heels Preview

My orange hate has nothing to do with Syracuse actually. That’s a Tennessee, Clemson, and Auburn thing. Syracuse chose Orange, though, so they chose poorly. Beat Syracuse. Badly. Please. It’s the only remaining orange on the schedule. My last chance. UNC faces Syracuse on the road in an ACC tilt Friday night, with kick-off set […]

2 months ago | 0 reads

Four burning questions for the 2025-26 Carolina basketball season

When will Luka Bogavac be cleared to play? Apparently the Serbian sharpshooter has been signed off on as eligible by the NCAA and he’s enrolled and going to class. The stonewall is some kind of administrative hold-up regarding processing his international transcript that UNC has been working on for months. It’s all very frustrating from […]

2 months ago | 1 read

How to Watch: UNC Football at Syracuse

Let me tell you about the biggest letdown I ever had on Halloween.  I was 10 years old, or somewhere around that age, and well into a night of trick-or-treating. As I moved between houses, I came across one with an old couple handing out goods. The place wasn’t very well lit, so I couldn’t […]

2 months ago | 0 reads

ACC Basketball Power Rankings: Preseason Edition

You may be rightI may be crazyOh, but it just may be a lunatic you’re looking forTurn out the lightDon’t try to save meYou may be wrong for all I knowBut you may be right You May Be Right – Billy Joel That, in a nutshell, sums up preseason rankings. They are based on very […]

2 months ago | 0 reads

THB Staff Basketball Crystal Ball

What will UNC’s men’s basketball season look like? We’ve argued all off-season about it. Now it’s prediction time. The roster has turned over almost completely. UNC men’s basketball doesn’t go into the season with quite the same number of questions as the football team did, but it’s close. Seth Trimble’s a significant known quantity, but […]

2 months ago | 0 reads

UNC Football vs Syracuse: Preview

The last time UNC Football played on a Friday night, it was the first time all season that they put up a fight against a Power Four opponent — the first sign we’d seen all season of a semblance of progress. Two weeks later, they’ll be looking to take that next step and find an […]

2 months ago | 0 reads

Takeaways from UNC’s 95-53 win over Winston-Salem

After losing their first exhibition game against BYU, the Tar Heels returned to Chapel Hill and blew out Winston-Salem State to earn their first exhibition win. There were a lot of good things that we saw in this game from a lot of different Tar Heels, which is encouraging considering that the regular season starts […]

2 months ago | 1 read

UNC Basketball’s breakout candidates in 2025-26

This year’s North Carolina Tar Heels men’s basketball team is an intriguing one. On paper, they have a lot of talent and seem to fit together coherently as a team more than a couple of other recent UNC teams. However, while they have players who have been good in college, they don’t have anyone on […]

2 months ago | 0 reads

Three things to watch for the UNC vs Syracuse game

For both UNC and Syracuse, the 2025 football season is rapidly slipping away. Both teams had high hopes when the season kicked off; Bill Belichick was supposed to bring a pro-style program to Chapel Hill, while Syracuse was looking to build upon a massively successful 2024 campaign where they went 10-3, and knocked off ninth […]

2 months ago | 0 reads

Betting odds for UNC’s road game against Syracuse

There’s nothing quite like ACC football on a Friday night. If that isn’t enticing enough for you, the game between UNC vs. Syracuse will take place on Halloween. It is certainly spooky hours for both of these teams, though we all know that the Tar Heels may be the most haunted team between the two. […]

2 months ago | 1 read

UNC Basketball Strengths & Weaknesses

The Tar Heels had a hard-fought two-point loss to the BYU Cougars in Utah on Friday night. It’s tough to know too much about a team from just one exhibition game, but let’s take a look at the perceived strengths and weaknesses of this roster so far. Strengths:  Height As Hubert indicated in the offseason, […]

3 months ago | 0 reads

ACC Football Power Rankings: The conference takes shape

Upsets and Blowouts. That’s the best way to describe the ACC this past weekend. Of the seven ACC games, six were either upsets or blowouts by at least two touchdowns. The seventh was an almost upset that fell just inches short (more on that below). Regardless, the upsets did a little ranking shaking, while the […]

3 months ago | 0 reads

UNC vs. Virginia: Winners, Losers,& Honorable Mentions

In a lot of ways the loss to Virginia can be summarized thusly: next verse, same as the first. Yet again the Tar Heels squandered points by fumbling close to the end zone, yet again the offense stagnated after a decent start, and yet again the Tar Heels lost to a Power 4 team. The […]

3 months ago | 2 reads

Georgia Tech, Miami remain in the top 10 in the AP poll

Compared to the chaos of the past few weeks, this Saturday was a relatively quiet one in college football.  There were still some great games: Oklahoma-Ole Miss and Vanderbilt-Missouri both lived up to their billing as top-15 matchups, Memphis stunned then-#18 South Florida with a fourth-quarter rally, then-#22 Texas stunned Mississippi State with a fourth-quarter […]

3 months ago | 6 reads

UNC Football vs Virginia: Position Grades

Let’s skip all the already-tired lines about how this was another close loss that came down to the UNC offense not being able to quite make it to the end zone and get to the evaluation. Spoilers: a lot of these will look better than they have for most of the year, but probably the […]

3 months ago | 0 reads

UNC vs Virginia Player of the Game: The Defense Rises.

Much of the blame (that’s not already attributed to the coaches) for UNC’s poor start to the season has been laid to rest at feet of the offense. And rightfully so; UNC’s offense ranked 132nd out of 136 FBS Division 1 schools in yards per game coming into the matchup against Virginia. They only fare […]

3 months ago | 0 reads

Three Takeaways in another UNC loss to Virginia

For the second week in a row, the Tar Heels had a chance to win the game late and were right at the edge of the goal line with it in their hands. Also for the second week in a row, they failed to get across the line, causing their opponent to win. For the […]

3 months ago | 0 reads

UNC falls short in overtime loss to Virginia

Today’s UNC game could have easily been a blowout with Virginia coming in ranked as the 16th best team in the nation and Carolina riding a three-game losing streak. The game was anything but a blowout, but it also never felt like either of the teams really wanted to win the game. Each side left […]

3 months ago | 0 reads

The Tar Heels seek their first ACC win of the season against Virginia

The North Carolina Tar Heels are just moments away from facing off against Virginia in what is bound to be a game that could either be really interesting or really awful. The Cavaliers have looked really good so far this season, and UNC has looked, well, the exact opposite. Anybody that didn’t watch the game […]

3 months ago | 1 read