Is the vibe at UNC different than it previously has been?

And here's where it gets really bad for UVA is that North Carolina is among the best.

I think they are. I think they lead the ACC in third down conversions at better than 50 percent. And Virginia is, if not last, second to last at 41.5 percent. So this weekend should not be a contest.

It does get me back to the fact that, man, 23 and a half seems a little light. It seemed like that number could be higher, but maybe the people who know these things are in the process of kind of or they understand that Carolina does silly things. But I don't think silly is happening this weekend against Virginia. I think silly would maybe happen next weekend against Georgia Tech. We're going to get to the nuts and the bolts of these of this game and maybe even the next one.

But I want to I am curious if we have gotten to this point and it feels different because it should. Adam Smith inside Carolina joins us on the Adam Gold Show. So I am putting the target on UNC. This is the year that football.

Goes after it, really goes after it. Does it feel different in Chapel Hill? Yes. Next question, Adam. Is that a good thing that it feels? Is it a good thing that it feels different? Yeah, I mean, I mean that you ask a very fine question.

Actually, I like the way you're thinking, because this is a question that some of us have been asking as well. Some of us nerds in the pack on the keyboard. That's right. You know, I mean, it was by UNC football definition. It was a special season last year.

The nine and one star. They won the coastal. They go to the ACC championship game.

These things don't happen. They were they were in the they were at least a player in the college football playoff discussion for a while until it fell off a cliff. Yeah. But, you know, six and oh, this season, 30 points or more in every game, 40 points or more in every ACC game.

It does feel different. And if you ask the guys who know, like Cedric Gray, the great linebacker they have, Drake May, you've heard of him. Yeah. The usual suspects. They say yes, because it's it's an older team.

All these guys pretty much went through this last year with the exception of like Josh Downs and Antoine Green, who have moved on to the NFL. There there is a confidence. You know, I think I asked Jean Chiswick, I've asked pretty much everyone how you go about, you know, you have all these stats. How do you measure confidence?

You have a stat to measure everything. But, you know, there is a feeling. And now with the place in the schedule where they've hit, as you were alluding to very nicely. You know, UVA, Georgia Tech, Campbell are the next three. Right.

It would be an upset and a pretty big one if this team didn't get into November at nine and oh, quite frankly, now that they're six and oh. Well, you know, it's interesting. And I want to give Victoria full credit for this because we have we kind of worked into Georgia Tech being the Lego piece on the floor.

That when you step at all, Mike, I can't believe I just stepped on that and it hurts for like two hours. I know the reference. Well, that's right.

Exactly. Anybody that has kids and has played with Legos. And by the way, I even ain't even shy. I have built my share of Lego structures. We built the Lego White House. Not that I shouldn't say not that long ago. It was considerably ago.

It was about seven years ago. But we have done that. Georgia Tech has been a problem, so especially over the last four years. Right. So it it's they are twelve over the last twelve games. They're two and ten in Atlanta, you and say so. You know, scribble that one down for your notes next week.

Big boy, I'm writing it down right now. Yes, it is. It's been a bad history down there for you. Right. And Georgia Tech, obviously, I think I saw him play a few weeks ago and I thought, oh, this team is going to be a little bit of a problem for the good teams because they play like they believe they're a good team. And confidence will take you a long way.

Adam Smith from Inside Carolina is joining us here on the Adam Gold Show. But I agree. These three games and we're not coaches, we're not players.

They're not thinking this way, but I can. These should be wins. And we will already be in the college football playoff stupid Tuesday evening shows that I don't watch.

But people watch and pay attention to. And North Carolina is going to be featured prominently in there. So my guess is when we get to the first one, their 10th now, three weeks from now, Ohio State or Penn State is losing Saturday. There are other matchups in there that teams are going to like eliminate themselves. North Carolina and nine and oh, they figure to be a have a great chance to be in that top six. That is going to be uncharted territory.

How do you think they handle that? Get ninety nine point nine the fan out on location November 4th. No, November 11th.

The Dukies will be in Chapel Hill. Make every joke about this isn't March. It's November. Yeah. Every this isn't basketball. I mean, that thing could be fairly large. I mean, Duke's schedule is is right, obviously, obviously.

But that thing could be fairly large. And it's and I'm going to mention this quickly because you and I could talk about this for the next five hours. And I know you do not have that time allotted for me because you obviously should not. But I mean, we knock the next show next show off the air, but whatever. Matt Brown, you're going to you may have heard this already, but what you did hear this at some point in your illustrious sports reporting career in the past. So Matt Brown, ever the great communicator. I mean, it has been a head coach for thirty five years now. You know, it is you find yourself sometimes agee stepping back a little bit when you're listening to these interviews that you do, these press conferences. And I actually thought this the other day. I was like, you know, I am pretty lucky kid from Mevon, North Carolina, to be able to cover Roy Williams, to be able to cover Matt Brown, because just the the content is the word now that they give you.

I mean, so Mac is going through his normal like Monday morning, like nuts and bolts of everything that we go through. All of a sudden he is telling a story about when he was the head coach at Texas and he gets a phone call and he picks it up and it's Bill Parcells on the other end of the phone. And Parcells, who Mack Brown played for at Florida State, apparently did not say hello or anything. He goes right into the fact that what's happening with this Texas team that Vince Young was on.

Right. It's akin to the big fat rat eating the poison cheese. Now, my brain, the first thing I thought was, what is Parcells's infatuation with rats and cheese? Like, I feel like he has always talked about that. But so that Mac masterfully on Monday had steered this to, you know, the metaphor of where we are.

Yeah, we don't need to get too fat and happy. Parcells told this whole story. They were apparently that Texas team was getting ready to play Texas A&M and they were on a collision course with USC and Matt Leinart and Reggie Bush.

And they were playing a rivalry game against Texas A&M and Parcells from afar had noted they weren't taking their rival seriously enough. So predictably, we were told that on Tuesday when UNC players showed up in the locker room, you guessed it, cheese hanging in every locker room. I mean, I've heard this story like eight thousand times, but I guess I'm going to have to write about it again, because some players have been like, no, I had never heard the cheese story. The first time I ever showed up and got cheese in my locker with so take two for moderate to severe plaque psoriasis. You could show off your skin again.

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It's unknown if so tick to has the same risks as Jack inhibitors. Call one eight eight eight SOTYK TU to learn more. So that's where we are in Chapel Hill. What sounds to me, Adam Smith from Inside Carolina is joining us. Sounds to me like Mac Brown knows what's coming because he's been there.

He's done that. He I mean, he won a national championship at Texas. He's also been at the helm of some teams that probably didn't accomplish as much as he thought they should have.

I don't know that that's been the case at UNC. He knew the year and with year two of Sam Howell, he knew that they weren't quite as good as everybody else thought they were. He warned everybody about that. He was not surprised now to a certain extent anyway.

I think he was surprised that it went so sideways so early, but he was not surprised overall. Interestingly enough, that was the last time UNC was number 10 in the polls, was going into the twenty twenty one season. There were 10 in the AP poll going up to Virginia Tech to open that season. Some people will tell you that Mac told Bubba Cunningham on the way up there that he had a bad feeling. Some people will tell you that. Right.

And then, yeah, that that season did not in any way match the height that that was rolling going into the year. I also think, though, that he knows that this team does legitimately have a chance. And just to fast forward for Adam Smith and notice, we have not mentioned the University of Virginia, who is the opponent on Saturday, because it honestly. There's no reason to I gave some numbers out.

There's no reason to know this. If North Carolina doesn't win this game handily, it's because they were snoozing. I mean, Virginia is just no good. And I think we all agree that North Carolina is including what Taz Walker has meant to their offense, which has taken it.

Keep using the space ball as reference. They have gone to plaid offensively. And that's the way it should be when you've got Drake May, a good running game, a good offensive line. And now you have dynamic playmakers on the outside to add to an already good offense beforehand. But let me fast forward to Duke, because regardless of what happens with Duke over the next three weeks, I don't think they'll lose both Florida State and Louisville. I think that I mean, they certainly could. And Wake Forest, I think, is is also involved in this three game stretch as well.

And Wake is good enough to bother anybody. If Duke goes two and one over their next three and they are whatever and two when they roll into Chapel Hill. And it might be anyway, it'll be the biggest game these two teams have ever played against each other.

I can't I mean, not in modern football history. Modern college football history have Duke and North Carolina Duke will be ranked if they go two and one over this next stretch. Right. They'll still be ranked. Absolutely. I mean, this will be the biggest matchup in the history of this rivalry.

I mean, can we dust off Charlie Choo Choo justice? I don't know if there's you know, there's got to be some old timer that could tell. Interestingly enough, when you know, when you're covering a team that hasn't lost, they're off to the six and no start. You start digging through the record book and it's that 97 Matt Brown 1.0 team that they are chasing right now. That team got off to an eight and no start before they lost to Florida State in the Judgment Day game that we all remember or some of us remember.

But what I was going to say was when you started talking about the biggest Duke Carolina game ever, you know, this Carolina has a chance. And at least offensively, their numbers have already hit this. They're putting up the most points they've put up to start a season since 1914, which is over 100 years ago. And that team started 10 and 0, by the way, A.G. So who do they play? Honestly, Adam, they didn't play anybody. They played 11 game schedule. You know who interrupted the undefeated season? UVA. I mean, the things you can learn about that game was in Richmond for some reason. I have no idea why, but in the UNC record book, it says at Richmond and so funny, they knocked them off. So but yeah, I mean, you know, hey, we got treated to Duke Carolina Armageddon in the Final Four a couple of years ago, which was I mean, it's wild to say unprecedented as much as these teams, these programs, these schools play in these sports. It could be unprecedented. And, you know, UNC, not that Duke doesn't, but UNC could get to Duke, Clemson, NC State to end the year with a whole heck of a lot to play for. I'm thrilled, absolutely thrilled that we are here. Duke's going to have something to say about it. State's going to have something to say about it, too. It should be a blast.

Adam Smith inside Carolina. I thank you so much for the time, man. I'll talk to you soon. Always fun. Thanks, bud. You got it. That was great.

I didn't really. 1914? How do you score as many points?

1914? What are they doing? Who are they playing against? Nobody playing. They didn't play nobody, Paul.

It's very funny. Somebody's screaming about that. But look, North Carolina, pretty challenging nonconference schedule. It wasn't awesome. South Carolina is not awesome.

App State, we already talked about. Not awesome. Minnesota, not awesome. By the way, Minnesota is part of something that terrifies me. The University of Minnesota football team is part of something that terrifies me. And I can't wait to tell you about it. They don't put mayonnaise in their coffee, do they? Well, this is the equivalent of mayonnaise in the coffee. I kid you not. The University of Minnesota football team is part of something that is the equivalent of that.