UNC football picked off by Clemson. Observations from the Tar Heels’ road loss

Bill Belichick said he thought the University of North Carolina football team had a shot at it: his quarterback, Billy Edwards Jr., and the offense needed 1 yard.

But it wanted more.

“I thought it was a good play,” the UNC football coach said.

Here’s what the play was: On fourth-and-1 on its own side of the field, trailing by one, UNC faked a run and had tight end Jelani Thurman open down the field. Belichick rationalized it that way after the game — the Tar Heels’ “best receiver,” as Belichick called Thurman after the game, had a one-on-one matchup down the field at a time UNC urgently needed to move that ball. But that logic wasn’t enough on Saturday. Because nothing was working for the offense, so when Edwards lofted the ball deep, it wasn’t even close. The ball fell incomplete, a fitting end to an abysmal second half for the Tar Heels offense.

It seemingly tried to go for the win, and instead sealed a crushing loss.

“I won’t be second guessing (that play),” Belichick said. “ … we just didn’t hit it.”

And an alternative call might have fallen flat like the Tar Heels, too. Because what looked like a potential historic win in the first half instead became a monumental collapse, as the Tar Heels blew an 11-point halftime lead, scored just three points in the second half and fell 28-20 at Memorial Stadium. And of course, one poorly-executed play isn’t the reason why the Tar Heels lost. UNC’s offense couldn’t move after halftime, turning it over twice and punting four times after its last touchdown drive.

But while no player nor Belichick could pinpoint a time that the game turned its momentum completely, everything after that just didn’t seem to work.

“Just got to find a way to come back out here and just finish the game,” North Carolina running back Benjamin Hall said. “We played a good game, but we need to be our best. We were not our best.”

The game featured the Tar Heels’ first halftime lead over an ACC opponent in Belichick’s tenure as UNC’s coach, a third two-sack day in three games this season from interior defensive lineman Xavier Lewis, and the first 100-yard rushing game of Tar Heels running back Benjamin Hall’s career — he finished with 130 yards on the ground and a 15-yard receiving touchdown.

But UNC also scored six points on its final 10 drives of the game. Its defense allowed Clemson to score on 4-of-7 drives in the second half. Plus, there was a 2-hour, 28-minute weather delay to add to the strangeness that could be a season-shifting finish. It felt inexplicable, and according to ESPN, it’s a finish that Belichick hasn’t endured in 67-straight games like it: He had won 67 in a row when leading by 14-plus points, per ESPN, in college and the NFL. Saturday, UNC led 17-3 in the first half and lost.

In the end, the wait to beat Clemson continues even longer than that as UNC still couldn’t capture its first win in Death Valley since 2001, a win history shows it should have had.

“It’s not their fault,” McDonald said about the offense. “We have to do our job. We have to get them back on the field quicker, too.”

Because UNC looked like it had set the tone for a would-be convincing victory in the first 4 minutes, 10 seconds of the game. Clemson didn’t go anywhere after losing the toss and taking the ball first. North Carolina took over with 13:30 left in the first quarter and scored a touchdown in just 2:40, as running back Demon June punched one in from 3 yards out. It looked easy. And for another drive, it stayed easy.

After the Tigers responded with a field goal, UNC went 75 yards in 10 plays over 4:50 to make it 14-3 with a few minutes to spare in the first quarter.

It wasn’t quite as explosive for the Tar Heels thereafter. They managed just three more points for the rest of the half, but continued keeping Clemson out of the end zone. A promising Tigers drive finished in a field goal before the half, and a crowd that had delivered a smattering of boos throughout the first 30 minutes reached its highest volume of dissatisfaction, Clemson settling for a 17-6 halftime deficit.

The Tar Heels looked dominant in Death Valley for a half. And the last time the Tar Heels won at Memorial Stadium, what then-UNC defensive end Julius Peppers and then-first-year North Carolina coach John Bunting did to Clemson that day followed a similar script. Yet when UNC won 38-3 on Oct. 20, 2001 in front of 84,000 fans who showered the home team in boos, too, it didn’t allow Clemson an inch.

This Tar Heels team let up.

“I mean, I wasn’t on their sideline, but you know,” linebacker Derek McDonald said, “I don’t think we had enough energy.”

After the first two touchdown drives, UNC scored just three points in its next six drives. That included a missed field goal, a made field goal, two punts, a fumble from running back Demon June at the UNC 11-yard line and another punt. Clemson responded with a score to get within two points, 17-15. It failed the two-point conversion to tie the game, but with 4:21 left in the third quarter, Clemson had all the momentum. UNC punted again, for the fourth time in five drives, just 2:09 later.

The Tar Heels were penalized five times for 35 yards, but outside of June’s fumble (which led to just three points), the errors weren’t what consistently set them back. UNC simply was outplayed. Dominated. Even the things that were working well in the running game didn’t necessarily stop working well, Hall mentioned.

“I don’t think it got any harder to run the ball,” Hall said. “I think we ran the ball in the first quarter. We ran the ball in the fourth quarter.”

UNC needed some sort of extra spark beyond that to lift it, though. After Lewis’ second sack forced Clemson to punt with 12:52 left in the fourth quarter, Hall opened the ensuing opportunity with a 16-yard left outside run. UNC kept the ball on the ground, driving forward to a second-and-goal situation from the seven-yard line when a spark of lightning (somewhere within 8 miles) in the sky paused the game for 148 minutes.

The results after that break were uninspiring: Two runs, stuffed. UNC was held to a field goal. And Clemson marched down the field in just four plays and scored a touchdown in 1:25, taking a 21-20 lead after the failed 2-point conversion attempt. UNC’s offense had done so little, some desperate production from it at the end of the game was the only card the Tar Heels had left.

That proved difficult to rely on Saturday.

“I think sitting in the locker room for two hours kind of adds to that a little bit, but that’s on us to just mentally lock in and prepare,” McDonald said. “It’s a lot more mental than it is physical, to be honest with you. So we just have to go out and get ready to play and know where we’re at in the game.”

Here’s what stood out from the game.

The ultimate sign that Clemson had momentum came in the final moments of the third quarter.

After a third-down catch-and-run by Tigers receiver Bryant Wesco Jr. fell short of the sticks, Clemson lined up to go for it. On its own 25-yard line, trailing 17-15. But it was the right choice.

Clemson picked up the first down and let the seconds tick off the clock into the fourth quarter. It was a tough situation for UNC to stuff with the Tigers needing just 1 yard.

But the odds were certainly in the favor of Clemson at that point, too. The Tar Heels offense wasn’t gaining any momentum on their side. It was only a matter of time before the defense felt the impact, and the 14-point lead at one point of the first half went away for UNC. McDonald said he started to sense a shift when the Tigers started playing at a higher tempo. Needing points, Clemson played its best offense. And without any help from the other side of the ball, UNC’s defense couldn’t make enough plays to salvage a game that it was in control of.

“They tried to go fast, get us out of our element … but we just missed tackles, to be honest with you,” McDonald said. “We just got to keep the ball in front of us. Get the ball on the ground and play with better fundamentals.”

Billy Edwards Jr. entered Saturday having rushed nine times all season, and he went backwards.

The Tar Heels signal caller is not known for his running ability, and his minus-7 yards on the season heading into the game was proof of that. But there were times in the first half on Saturday where the field was just so wide open. He stepped into a gaping running lane for 11 yards with 12:44 to go in the first quarter and for 17 yards with 13:15 to go before halftime.

Edwards looked as good as he had all season navigating the pocket in the first half on Saturday. He stepped up for numerous throws, including a 17-yard toss to Mason Humphrey over the middle and a looping pass over the top of the defense to Jordan Shipp for 23 yards on the Tar Heels’ second touchdown drive. But his limited mobility is still an issue, and Clemson was able to cause chaos in the second half.

After a 5-of-8 passing start, Edwards was 8-of-22 passing for 67 yards. Edwards finished 13-of-30 passing for 135 yards, a touchdown and an interception in the game. With the way the rushing attack was going, that was a much-better option for UNC in the second half, if anything offensively was. UNC and its passing game didn’t do nearly enough to salvage whatever the running game could produce anyways.

“I thought Billy did a lot of good things,” Belichick said. “We had a couple breakdowns here and there … we missed some blocks and fumbled the ball, and you know, it wasn’t perfect by anybody. So we missed some opportunities, and we need to capitalize on those against good football team.”

It had become a formality which running back that the Tar Heels will trot into the game whenever they’re in a short-yardage situation. And when UNC found itself in a pivotal one on the 3-yard line after a Clemson three-and-out on their first drive, of course, in came running back Demon June.

June had three touchdowns a week ago in a 35-3 win over FCS East Tennessee State University. But his fourth touchdown run of the season, a 3-yarder to open the scoring for the Tar Heels with 10:50 left in the first quarter, was proof that his role is something of large value to UNC. If the Tar Heels need a few yards, June has been capable of providing that in all areas of the field.

But even with all that positive momentum, one bad play set the sophomore back.

The running back had a limited role in week zero after an illegal block negated a big play early in the game against TCU, and after the error against Clemson, he was limited again. June has proven he can be a touchdown threat and weapon for UNC, though, and it might have to live with the sophomore’s mistakes.

He trotted back on the field in the fourth quarter, and immediately took a carry for 12 yards. And a few plays later on fourth-and-1 from the Clemson 10, June’s 2-yard rush saved the drive right before the weather delay began with 8:11 left in the final frame. UNC seemingly needs him to play, but June also needs to be reliable in close games.

This story was originally published September 19, 2026 at 6:06 PM with the headline “UNC football picked off by Clemson. Observations from the Tar Heels’ road loss.”