On Friday night in Berkeley, UNC positioned itself to win a football game for the first time since a 41-6, Week 3 domination of Richmond in September.
North Carolina entered the fourth quarter down 11 points, but scored its second touchdown – and succeeded on the ensuing 2-point conversion – before getting a rare late, defensive stop.
The Tar Heels nearly took a fourth quarter lead against 4-win Cal, but fumbled at the goal line, losing 21-18 for their third consecutive defeat.
During postgame media availability, UNC (2-4, 0-2) head coach Bill Belichick doubled down on his team’s improvement, while also highlighting costly mistakes proved the deciding factor in a heartbreaking loss.
“As I’ve said, we’ve been improving every week, so I’m not going to back off that,” Belichick said. “I think that’s true. But you can’t turn the ball all over and win. It’s just too hard. And then we’ve got to eliminate some of those kinds of mistakes. We need to tackle better, play better on third down, both sides of the ball. So still, things we need to do that it might have been enough. We hadn’t turned the ball over, but we did, and we didn’t get any turnovers on defense. So until that changes, it’s a little bit of an uphill struggle.”
North Carolina fumbled on the game’s first play from scrimmage, after Gio Lopez completed a 7-yard pass to Shanard Clower. The Tar Heels also fumbled on the game’s final play, when they tried a trick play to complete their comeback.
UNC failed to force a turnover, which prove to be huge momentum-shifters, for the second time in three games. North Carolina generated 59 tackles, while Cal (5-2, 2-1 ACC) converted six of its 16 third down opportunities.
If there’s one positive takeaway from Friday night, the Tar Heels avoided a blowout loss for the first time against Power Four competition. Will UNC finally capitalize and upset a ranked Virginia squad next week?
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This article originally appeared on Tar Heels Wire: Bill Belichick says UNC football improving, turnovers lost Cal game
