UNC Football Season in Review: East Carolina
The North Carolina Tar Heels football season kicks off on August 30th against the Liberty Flames at home in Kenan Stadium. To get you ready for the nationally ranked Tar Heel’s first game, Keeping It Heel will have an extensive football preview series previewing all of Carolina’s positions, games and reviewing 2013′s games. Check back to Keeping It Heel every afternoon for new preview posts. Today, let’s review UNC Football’s game against East Carolina
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Last season the Tar Heels hosted the East Carolina Pirates at Kenan Stadium in a game that all UNC football fans would like to forget about. The Pirates put the Heels away early and embarrassed the home team by a final score of 55-31.
Shane Carden had a big day through the air with 376 yards, three touchdowns. He didn’t have a lot of yards on the ground but he found the end zone on three separate occasions ECU. He and Vintavious Cooper were quite the thorn in the side of the Tar Heel defense.
Cooper ran for 186 yards on 35 carries and hauled in 8 receptions for 70 yards in the game. The only surprising thing about his performance was that he didn’t find paydirt.
The Pirates got their second score of the day coming off a Bryn Renner interception to Chip Thomas. ECU marched down the field where Carden capped off their second scoring drive with a seven yard touchdown pass to Lance Ray. With just over 3 minutes remaining in the first quarter, the Tar Heels were in a 14-0 hole.
Thomas Moore connected on a 21 yard field goal to get UNC on the board for the first time early in the second. The Heels looked like they might make a game of it when Carden was intercepted on the ensuing drive by Tre Boston. The Heels next drive fizzled out and they punted back to ECU. After the punt the Pirates scored again when Carden took one of his three rushing touchdowns in from one yard out. ECU was now up 21-3.
Quinshad Davis helped the Heels answer with a 32-yard touchdown pass to T.J. Thorpe to draw the Heels closer at 21-10. Not to be outdone, the Pirates answered right back when Carden capped off a 13-play, 76-yard drive on a one-yard touchdown run. Going into the half the Heels were trailing 28-10.
ECU’s Chris Hairston opened up the scoring in the second half with a 3 yard touchdown run to extend the Pirates lead up to 35-10. Bryn Renner tried to keep the Heels faithful into it with a 3-yard touchdown pass to Bug Howard on the following drive. Renner drove the Heels down the field in two minutes on 9 plays covering 73 yards. Once again the Pirates had the answer when Carden, for the third time hit paydirt on the ground.
Renner answered back with another touchdown pass, this time to Nic Platt for 23 yards on another quick touchdown drive. Five plays, covering 50 yards in 1:35 drew the game to 42-24. That score held up through the end of the third quarter.
Warren Harvey opened up the fourth quarter with a field goal on the first play to add three more to ECU’s lead. Renner was able to lead the Heels down the field for another quick score on a 56-yard touchdown in 4 plays, covering 81 yards in 1:03. With 13:52 remaining, the Pirates lead was 45-31.
Harvey added another field goal for the Pirates following the Davis touchdown. Carden added his third touchdown of the afternoon when he found Ray for another score from 48 yards out. That was the final scoring of the game as Pirates left Chapel Hill with a 55-31 romp of the Heels.