The North Carolina Tar Heels was so unimpressive in their opening season game against the Virginia Tech Hokies that even the head coach of the team doesn’t think highly of them.
North Carolina head coach Mack Brown called his team “overrated” after the 10th-ranked Tar Heels suffered a 17-10 road loss to ACC rival Virginia Tech on Friday night.
UNC entered the season as a potential College Football Playoff contender, and quarterback Sam Howell did not help matters by tossing three interceptions.
“Obviously the shine’s off,” Brown told reporters. “The ratings mean nothing at this point. We were overrated tonight.”
Brown didn’t lay the blame for the struggles on his star quarterback’s shoulders, however.
“When you don’t run the ball well and you have six sacks and you have to run for your life—we have to do a better job of protecting him,” Brown said. “You can’t expect a guy to have a great game when he’s got people around him the whole game. You’ve got to protect your quarterback.”
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Howell completed 17 of his 32 passes for 208 yards and one touchdown to go along with those three interceptions.
“We can’t let this game define us,” Howell said. “We know what this team is capable of, even if we didn’t show it tonight. I think we just got beat [tonight]. I don’t think the pressure really bothered anybody in the program, and we had a good week of practice, and we just weren’t the better team.”
