UNC Football: The Appetizer of UNC Athletics
Before anybody gets offended by the word appetizer, hear me out. North Carolina fans should absolutely be dialed in for football season. We should care about Kenan Stadium, Saturday afternoons, rivalries and everything that comes with college football. But if you've spent enough Saturdays sitting in Kenan Stadium, you also understand the reality: UNC football has failed to consistently live up to the hype and expectations surrounding the program.
Maybe that's the wrong way to look at it. Maybe UNC football isn't supposed to be the main course.
At North Carolina, basketball is the main course. It has been for generations and probably always will be. When basketball season arrives, everything changes. The attention changes. The expectations change. Carolina basketball is king. But how many great restaurants do you visit where the appetizers are good enough to make you forget about the main course for a few minutes? Give me some wings from Four Corners right now and I might be perfectly happy waiting.
That's what UNC football should be.
Look at the Diamond Heels. Baseball doesn't have to be basketball to matter. It can create excitement, capture the attention of the fan base and keep serving up something special all the way to the College World Series. The other Olympic sports are producing at an incredibly high level too. There are plenty of five-star chefs working in the UNC athletic department. So why can't football simply be a great appetizer?
And being the appetizer doesn't mean lowering expectations. Tar Heel fans should expect a football program that is competitive in the ACC, consistently reaches bowl season, beats the teams it should beat and competes with the programs it recruits against. Every so often, there should also be a legitimate opportunity to compete for the top of the conference. That's not asking football to be the main course. That's asking it to be good.
Nobody is asking UNC football to be the best pulled pork in North Carolina every Saturday. But we are asking for something that's been smoked low and slow, has real flavor and makes you want to come back for another plate. We want quality. We want consistency. We want a program that makes September, October and November matter. We want to walk into Kenan Stadium believing UNC has a legitimate chance to win.
Football doesn't have to carry the athletic department. Basketball can remain the main course. The Diamond Heels can provide the dessert. The Olympic sports can continue cooking at a championship level. But the appetizer still matters.
UNC football doesn't have to be the main course. It just needs to be good enough that we're excited to order it again next Saturday.
