The sentiment among UNC fans is that the Heels should win the game, but whether it's a close game or a blowout is the question. I'm in the camp of, "Be happy with a one point win and get the heck out of Blacksburg."

Newsome is replaced by Josh Downs, who had an excellent game against Texas A&M in the Orange Bowl, and without talking down Newsome, our coaches have essentially said they think Downs is an upgrade at the slot position for UNC. Who will replace Dyami Brown is not quite as clear, but the first name on the list is his brother Khafre Brown, who is faster than Dyami and has some big game experience and deep touchdowns under his belt. However, he had surgery in the offseason and word is that he's not 100% yet. Behind Khafre is Beau Corralles, Emery Simmons and Antione Green, along with Stephen Gosnell (Benji's brother). My best guess is either Simmons or Green will end up taking over for Dyami, but the cupboard is not empty at that spot. Longo has a history of putting WR's in the league, so even with the loss of Dyami and Dazz, most UNC folks aren't too worried about who will be catching deep balls from Howell this year.

As for running back, Carter and Williams had somewhere between 2100-2200 years rushing last year together, and if we can get 1300-1500 rushing yards out of our backs this year, that will be a success considering the circumstances. Certainly VT is aware that a kid can transfer in behind a stout offensive line and have a successful year running the ball, and I think Ty Chandler from Tennessee could have a similar type of season behind our veteran offensive line as Herbert did behind y'all's last year. However, I don't expect UNC's ground game to be as productive (i.e. we ain't rushing for 2100-2200 yards this year), and my best guess is that Chandler will rush for somewhere between 800-1000 yards. The rest will have to come from an unproven player or combination of players. One name to keep an eye on is Caleb Hood from Richmond County, NC. His father Errol Hood played DB at UNC back in the late 1990's when that meant something. Caleb is 5'11 225, and supposedly was able to run a 4.5 forty at one point in high school. I don't know if that's still true or not, but he's come in as a true freshman and seized the number two spot behind Chandler, per Mack Brown. I saw him truck some d-lineman in the Spring game, which makes him an intriguing replacement option for JaVonte Williams. Can he pass protect? Probably not yet, and that's going to matter with Howell. So we'll see about the RB position. Expect our TE to have a much larger role this year.

As for defensive improvement, we got better in the second half of the WFU game last year when our coaches finally pulled the plug on a couple of veteran defensive lineman and veteran defensive backs and put in the younger guys with more talent. We were better on defense the last four games of the season after that, and I think we'll be significantly better this year on the back end and noticeably better along the defensive line than what y'all saw from us when we played VT earlier in the season.

We lost a really athletic player in Chazz Surratt from the LB corp, but he's replaced by Eugene Asante who we swooped in and grabbed away from y'all at the last minute back in 2019. He played well in the Orange Bowl, recording a team high 10 tackles, and his running mate Jeremiah Gemmel is a Senior you can count on to be in the right spot. For me, I think our LB's will be fine; our DB's will compete for "best in the league" status; and our dline will be improved but the weakest of the three units. I think it won't be until the end of the 2021 season before you see our dline get a lot better.

I also think the holes in VT's recruiting won't show up in a big way until next year, assuming your first team guys stay healthy this year. Losing Belmar out of the gate was not a good start for y'all on that front. I think y'all's first team is still talented enough beat to anybody in the ACC on a given day, except Clemson. Heck, a similar VT roster to what UNC will face on 9/3 was down to Clemson last year by only seven points with five minutes to go in the third quarter. Of course, the talent took over and Clemson wore y'all out in the fourth quarter, but the same thing could be said of UNC about what happened to it against ND and A&M last year. This, along with the crowd and the need for Fuente to win this game, is why I'm in the, "Be happy with a one point win and get the heck out of Blacksburg" camp among UNC fans.





[Post edited by RoanokeHeel at 08/17/2021 10:08AM]