The masterpiece complete and NCAA history now in his possession, Michael Carter thought back to North Carolina’s arrival for Saturday’s game and his sense of a certain anticipatory energy that seemed undeniable.
When he approached backfield partner Javonte Williams, the feeling became unstoppable.
“I could see the look in Javonte’s eyes before the game,” Carter said afterward, “and I just told him, ‘We’re about to do numbers today.’ ”
How prophetic and prolific that pregame moment proved to be, with Carter and Williams running wild at a record rate as the 20th-ranked Tar Heels mauled No. 9 Miami 62-26 in Atlantic Coast Conference football, delivering a dominating closing statement to end the regular season and improve their positioning in the league’s lineup for bowl bids.
Carter piled up 308 yards alongside two touchdowns and Williams pumped out 236 yards and three touchdowns at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Fla., a combination that produced 544 rushing yards, the most ever by a pair of teammates on the bowl subdivision level.
It was a two-for-one tour de force marking the seventh time in college football history that two teammates ran for at least 200 yards apiece, and the first time it has happened in the ACC. Carter’s rushing total ranked as the fourth-most in ACC history. He came up 20 yards shy of Derrick Fenner’s North Carolina school record set in 1986.
North Carolina coach Mack Brown said he took a few awe-inspired glances at the growing rushing statistics on the stadium scoreboard during the course of the game — “I’d say, ‘Really? Oh my gosh’ ” — while on the sideline, linebacker Jeremiah Gemmel and the team’s defenders found themselves watching and appreciating the prodigious performance on display.
“Our two running backs are not good players, they’re great players, and our whole thing is based on the success of our running game,” Brown said. “We got Michael in space, we got Javonte in space, and when we did they made people miss or they ran over them time and time again. You just see chunk after chunk after chunk.”
All of which served to steamroll Miami (8-2 overall, 7-2 ACC) and perhaps pave the way for North Carolina (8-3, 7-3) to reach a prominent postseason destination.
The Tar Heels could vault past Miami on Tuesday when the College Football Playoff rankings are updated, and could have a path to their first appearance in the Orange Bowl, one of the prestigious New Year’s Six assignments, if Clemson defeats Notre Dame in the ACC championship game next weekend.
“To be honest with you, for us as a team this was a must-win,” North Carolina quarterback Sam Howell said. “This is a game we couldn’t lose and we knew that as a team, we talked about that coming in.”
Howell and Co. proceeded to unload a tsunami of firepower on the host Hurricanes and amass a school-record 778 yards of total offense, the most ever allowed by a Miami defense. North Carolina secured a signature victory here in the concluding stages of Brown’s second season in his second stint on the job.
The Tar Heels claimed their first defeat of a top-10 opponent in 16 years, since October 2004. Howell, who finished with 223 passing yards, threw for a touchdown, ran for a touchdown and even caught a touchdown pass on a trick play.
North Carolina built a 34-3 lead by late in the first half, a juncture by which Carter and Williams had combined on 233 rushing yards and four touchdowns, and were averaging a robust 13.7 yards per carry.
The blowout was on before the first quarter ended. North Carolina linebacker Chazz Surratt stuffed Miami running back Donald Chaney Jr. in the hole on a fourth-and-1 in Tar Heels territory, a defensive stop that returned the ball to North Carolina. On the next play, Carter bounced outside and broke away on a 65-yard touchdown burst, the sequence surging the Tar Heels ahead 21-3.
“I really feel like this is the first time we ever played a complete game,” Williams said. “Just both sides playing together, playing for all four quarters, it shows just how special we can be when everybody’s working together. I feel like (Saturday night) that’s the first time it’s happened.”
North Carolina never punted and didn’t commit a turnover in shredding the Hurricanes. The Tar Heels scored on seven of their first eight drives and the only outlier in that group occurred when they took over with 10 seconds remaining in the first half. Dyami Brown hauled in four catches for 167 yards, including an 87-yard bomb from Howell.
Carter carried 24 times and Williams had 23 attempts on the day. They ripped off 10 rushes of 23 yards or more. They eclipsed the previous record of 506 rushing yards for bowl subdivision teammates, achieved by Buffalo’s Jaret Patterson (409 yards) and Kevin Marks (97 yards) against Kent State.
Early on, Williams’ pair of hard-earned 1-yard touchdowns pushed North Carolina to a 14-3 lead during the game’s opening 12½ minutes. In the fourth quarter, his third score supplied his 22nd touchdown of the season, breaking the school record Don McCauley had held since 1970.
“Our offensive line was doing a great job pre-snap of identifying who they needed to get,” Carter said. “I feel like we had a lot of one-on-ones with the safety and we won more than we lost. That’s what it came down to.”
Miami quarterback D’Eriq King threw for 239 yards and two touchdowns. Miami entered riding a five-game winning streak in the ACC and coming off its largest margin of victory across 137 all-time games as a league member, a 48-0 blasting of Duke.
But North Carolina’s 62 points marked the third-highest scoring output given up by the Hurricanes, and the most since Syracuse dumped 66 points on them in 1998.
“I’m not sure anybody picked it that way,” Brown said, assessing the scale of the beatdown. “I’m not sure anybody saw it that way. I sure wouldn’t have thought that we could’ve accomplished the things that we did. Offensively, we were able to run the ball at will against a great defensive coach and great defensive players.”
This article originally appeared on Times-News: Prophetic and prolific: Michael Carter, Javonte Williams run wild as UNC mauls Miami to close regular season
