North Carolina goes to Virginia this week to play football in a city still consumed by the shocking basketball news of last week.
Tony Bennett's abrupt retirement as the Cavaliers' men's basketball coach stunned everyone, sending reverberations through Charlottesville, the state of Virginia, the ACC and college basketball as a whole. Bennett, who guided the school to the 2019 national championship, cited the changed sports landscape as a reason in his decision to step away at 55.
"The game and college athletics is not in a healthy spot," Bennett said at a Friday news conference. "It's not fair to these guys and the institution I love so much to continue on when you know you're not the right guy for the job."
That might strike a nerve with UNC football coach Mack Brown. At 73, he's trying to coach a team through a challenging season that has had the Tar Heels lose their past four games. The Heels lost their starting quarterback to injury in the season opener, played without their best defensive player for a month and now are trying to cope with losing a player, Tylee Craft, to cancer at 23.
Members of the UNC team attended a "Celebration of Life" for Craft on Sunday in his hometown of Sumter, South Carolina.
Coming off a bye week, the Tar Heels (3-4, 0-3 ACC) are gearing up for a road game against the ACC team that handed them their worst, most bewildering loss of the 2023 season.
UNC was 6-0 after beating Miami and ranked No. 10 when it faced a 1-5 Virginia team at Kenan Stadium. The Cavaliers, with transfer Tony Muskett at quarterback, rallied in the second half and left Kenan with a 31-27 victory.
The Cavaliers, three-touchdown underdogs in that game, are favored this week -- the early lines say by 4.5 points. Virginia (4-3, 2-2) is coming off an ACC road loss, taking a 48-31 beating Saturday at Clemson.
The Tigers threw for 345 yards and had 540 yards in total offense in a game they led 38-10 after three quarters in Death Valley. Virginia finished with 345 total yards, rushing for 68 against the Tigers.
Sophomore Anthony Colandrea was the Cavs' starting quarterback Saturday but Muskett came off the bench to complete six of seven passes late, with two TD throws. That could give UNC coaches something else to think about this week.
For the first time since the opener at Minnesota, the Heels might be getting rush end Kaimon Rucker at full-go on defense after the bye week. After 54 snaps in the opener, Rucker had a weight-room mishap that kept him out of the next four games, including UNC's debacle against James Madison.
Rucker was in for nine snaps against Pittsburgh, all but one on passing downs, then had 55 snaps against Georgia Tech before the bye week. The last five games of the regular season offer a chance to again showcase his strengths for the pro scouts while making UNC's pass rush more of a snap-to-snap threat.
"It's just exciting to see him back out there," UNC defensive coordinator Geoff Collins said. "I'm ridiculously proud of him and thankful that he's healthy and hopefully being able to contribute more and more as we go forward."
UNC has 15 sacks in its seven games and three in ACC games. Having Rucker back and fully engaged should help that down the final stretch of the season..
If it's a close game, red-zone conversions could be the key. UNC is last in the ACC in red-zone defense at 92.9% and Virginia 14th at 89.7%.
The Tar Heels have allowed 18 TDs and eight field goals defensively in 28 red-zone trips by opponents - only Stanford (19) in the ACC has given up more touchdowns. Virginia's defense has given up 15 red-zone TDs and 11 field goals.
The early lines have installed Virginia as a 4.5-point favorite and set the over/under at 57.5.
The game will be televised on The CW. Streaming options include fubo TV, Hulu + Live TV, YouTube TV, DIRECTV Stream
Series history: It's a long one. UNC has a 66-58-4 record against Virginia in a series that dates to 1892. The Cavaliers have won five of the last seven games, although the Heels won their last game at Scott Stadium, taking a 31-28 win in 2022.