Lessons Learned from UNC football program's victory over Wake Forest

Travis Shaw steps up

This season has seen some of North Carolina's top high school recruits finally deliver on their promise as upperclassmen.

Junior defensive tackle and former five-star recruit Travis Shaw has had a bit of an underwhelming start to his career, but last night was his coming out party. He followed the example of Jahvaree Ritzie and Des Evans, who have been absolute nightmares on the D-line this season and terrorized Wake Forest at the line of scrimmage. He had four tackles (three solo) with two for a loss. Additionally, he batted down a pass on third down to kill a drive.

With Kaimon Rucker showing why he was so valuable to the team and the general improvement of the run defense, UNC is showing that their star power is strong enough to ride the defense to win games. If you sprinkle in some defensive scoring (like Power Echols did with a nifty pick-six), all the better: