What A Weekend For Football In The Triangle

Other than Duke's solid win over an admittedly weak Stanford team, it was a dismal Saturday for football in the Triangle.

N.C. State's failure was particularly egregious and inexplicable: with the game in hand, up 31-28 with six seconds left to play, all the Wolfpack had to do was kill a few seconds to put Vanderbilt away.

They might have punted. At best, Vandy would have gotten one play, one Hail Mary pass. But Dave Doeren didn't make that call. Instead, he chose to play for a sacrificial safety. It would have been a one-point win, but a win is a win.

Unfortunately, State's quarterback, CJ Bailey, fumbled, and Vanderbilt recovered, giving them a shocking 35-31 win.

To rub salt in the wound, instead of Vanderbilt getting a Hail Mary attempt, State had one last play, but they couldn't pull it off.

Doeren has never been wildly popular with the State fan base, and this will certainly not help. Calls to have him fired immediately sprang up online. Wolfpack Nation is not happy.

With the departure of the toadish Will Wade last spring, and now this bizarre ending, it's clear that whatever demons are behind "NC State stuff" are not yet through breaking the hearts of the faithful.

The Tar Heels led 17-15 and were in the red zone late in the fourth quarter. After a long weather delay they settled for a field goal to go up 20-15, then gave up two touchdowns after that for another humiliation.

After the game, UNC coach Bill Belichick had to answer questions about the game and the investigation into UNC's program, and his son's resignation.

Well, he had to listen to the questions; he didn't really answer them.

We missed this column by Art Chansky , but this isn't the first time he has called for Belichick to be axed.

You know things have changed when Duke is the defending ACC champion and, so far anyway, clearly the class of the Triangle again.

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