There was plenty of blame to go around in that last loss. We can’t lay it all on one guy who was pressed into service and as unprepared (for whatever reason that is). I don’t think anyone is.
If anything, having one guy go down and cause that sort of impact just shows you where the program is. The replacement is either too young, not prepared mentally, not knowledgeable enough, doesn’t have the right physical assets, hasn’t had enough real reps to handle the pressure or some combination of these factors (and maybe something else).
To me, that’s also a sign of youth. In college or high school football, when your best talent is young, then I think the team is going to struggle. The NFL is different and that’s more position by position.
What that also tells me is that we may be in for a bumpy year next year as well. Even if we come on strong late in recruiting (which I kind of expect we will), those guys are going to be young. People should keep this in mind when thinking about their expectations for the season.
Note, this isn’t the UNC spin of the consistently youngest team in America. I don’t hear (at least at this point), the staff saying that. It’s just something to be mindful of — the recruiting class rankings based on graduation year, and the notable differences in those rankings by year.
