This blog entry is a reaction to what took place Saturday, Nov. 14, when Wake Forest tangled with North Carolina in Kenan Stadium in Chapel Hill. I belong to a UNC message board, and what follows is my take on a thread titled BE PATIENT. If you don't know the outcome (or care), UNC erased a 21-point deficit in the third quarter and ultimately claimed a thrilling victory, 59-53. Yes, you read that score right.
Like everyone else not rooting for WF, I had plenty to say at halftime. For some reason that I have yet to fully discern, instead of posting that ire everywhere on social media, i decided to mute the TV, and take a short nap. I figured the team was headed to a massively dismal outcome, one that would destroy a significant amount of what had been accomplished in regard to team growth.
I dozed deeply and opened my eyes in time to see WF go up by 21 midway in the third quarter. I glanced at the game thread, never a beacon of patience, but rather a G spot for venting, particularly by what might be termed amateur fanatics — those with armed with titanic passion and not much else. I know this kind of fan because I'm in that camp when it comes to football.
I've been for UNC my entire life: my family moved to Chapel Hill when i was 4, my cousin played for Jim Tatum. I've enjoyed the few highs and suffered the many lows as if a character in a Russian novel; the obvious gist has been that "we're never going to get to Moscow."
This, of course, has no bearing on my right of self-expression. And like most passionate fans, at times my emotions do most of the talking.
A friend texted me his observations about the first half defense, and most of his words can't appear here without the post being deleted. Let's just say if you were distraught, unhappy, psychically bruised and petulant, our conversation had it covered.
Then things changed. And this is where having acumen is akin to fortune telling. Those who noticed the personnel changes, those who were aware of the ferocious verbal challenge by Tim Cross at the end of the third quarter, those who gleaned that all was not totally lost were far ahead of the Rabid & Obsessed.
When UNC tied the game at 45-45, the first half, even the bizarre ruling that gave WF an interception — a play that I took as a sign that might have been an omen — all of that was muddy water under a bridge once considered too far.
Like everyone who bleeds sky blue, what transpired in the fourth quarter is a series of glorious, perhaps legendary, plays that will be in our collective memory forever. Sam Howell being Sam Howell, over and over and over again as well as his elusive, 20-yard TD scamper that gave UNC the lead. Great stuff.
But the one play that served as catharsis for where the program has been and where it hopes to go was Javonte's block — so lethal an official ruled it a penalty, but after reality took hold, taken back. THAT was a block for all of us. That was the block that cracked the gate on the bridge on the outskirts of our fantasy destination.
Almost too good to be true. But it is.
We are going to Moscow.
But what about the defense, a sane observer might ask.
Check out the title of the OP. He's got it covered.
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