After a six-win season in 2014 for Larry Fedora and the North Carolina Tar Heels, expectations weren't exactly high for the program going into 2015 in a Coastal Division that featured a favored Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets' team that had just won the Orange Bowl.
Now riding an eight-game winning streak -- including five straight conference wins -- the Tar Heels are in the driver's seat to represent their division in the ACC Championship Game against the currently No. 1 ranked Clemson Tigers.
Leading the way for UNC has been the improvement of senior quarterback Marquise Williams. The third-year starter behind center is easily having his most efficient -- and most winning -- season yet. No game has been more telling of his high confidence and current level of play than his performance last week against one of the presumed best defenses in the nation: the Duke Blue Devils.
Williams torched a Duke team that was top-10 in the nation in scoring defense and total defense for over 500 total yards and five touchdowns. The impressive part: It was done in fewer than three quarters of play. Just in the first half, Williams accounted for over 400 yards and four touchdowns to jump out to a 38-10-halftime lead. Williams set school records for most passing yards in a game, most total yards in a game, and most career touchdowns in his dominating effort.
"When your quarterback is on fire like that, we can be really explosive," Fedora said. "Every deep ball that we threw down the field, he hit right on the money. And that doesn't typically happen ... I don't care if you're Peyton Manning, that's tough to do. If you look back at those, he hit those guys in stride every single time. It was a pretty phenomenal performance on his part on throwing the deep ball. "
North Carolina now sits at 12th in the nation in scoring offense and 17th in total offense, both of which are first in the ACC. The success of the Tar Heels' offense is something that the spread offense guru, Fedora, has come to expect.
"I know that this offense has the potential to score points, there's no doubt about it," said Fedora, whose 21 wins in his first three seasons ranks second in UNC history. "And I think that's something that we've done pretty consistently since we've been here. It's more about how it was gonna happen."
Perhaps lost in the offensive firepower has been the immense improvement by the North Carolina defense. In 2014, the Tar Heel defense was one of the worst in the nation:
Total Defense
497.8 YPG, 117th in nation, last in ACC
Scoring Defense
39 PPG, 116th in nation, last in ACC
Those numbers look completely different through nine games in 2015:
Total Defense
377.4 YPG, 55th in nation, 11th in ACC
Scoring Defense
18.6 PPG, 21st in nation, 4th in ACC
The 26.8-point change in points per game allowed from 2014 to 2015 is the second biggest improvement in the nation behind only Southern Miss. With the defense being able to limit opposing offenses, the UNC offense has gotten more opportunities to be explosive in better situations, and Fedora has been emphatic about what that has meant for his team.
"I can't say enough about what (the defensive) guys have done, because if you think about it, they're really responsible for putting us in this position," said Fedora. "They've done a tremendous job in the turnaround. They have such great confidence. We've got great leadership on that side of the ball, and I really like the way the guys practice on a day-to-day basis."
As expected when a team goes on an eight-game winning streak in a Power-5 conference, North Carolina has finally started to get some recognition nationally. After being left out of the season's first edition, The Tar Heels were ranked 23rd this week's College Football Playoff rankings, which marks the first time UNC has been included in the poll that was introduced last season.
Still, North Carolina, who beat the 23rd-ranked Pittsburgh Panthers two weeks ago, is ranked behind four different two-loss teams, only one of which has a Top-25 win. Part of that can be attributed to an ugly season-opening loss to South Carolina that looks worse and worse as each week passes by, but Fedora and his team knows that as long as they keep winning, the platform to make their case to the nation will come.
"Really, it's not something that I lose any sleep over or think about because I don't control any of that," Fedora said about the rankings. "It is what it is. I haven't really thought about it, and I don't think our team has thought about it. We just need to find a way to outscore Miami this week. If we keep our nose down and keep doing what we're supposed to do, when we look up at the end of the road, we're probably all gonna be pretty happy. We just need to take care of our business, and we'll see what happens."
North Carolina will face the Miami Hurricanes -- who are 2-0 since Larry Scott took over as the interim coach -- on Saturday with the opportunity to, with a Pittburgh loss to Duke, clinch the Coastal Division with a win. It would be the Tar Heels first ever appearance in the ACC Championship Game, which began taking place in 2005, and an opportunity to win a conference title for the first time since 1980.
