UNC Football: This Wasn't Pretty. It Was Better Than Pretty. It Was a Win.

DUBLIN, Ireland — It wasn't pretty. And honestly, that may be the best thing about it.

North Carolina didn't walk into Aviva Stadium and put on an offensive fireworks show. Billy Edwards Jr. didn't need to throw for 400 yards. The Tar Heels didn't need to score 30 points or overwhelm TCU. They needed to play football, and for four quarters, they did. North Carolina walked out of Dublin with a 15-10 victory over TCU, and while the score may not jump off the page, the way the Tar Heels won should get the attention of anyone wondering whether this team really is different from the one that lost 48-14 to these same Horned Frogs a year ago.

It is.

The biggest difference wasn't one player. It was the way UNC handled the game. After TCU scored 10 points in the first quarter, the Horned Frogs never scored again. Not in the second quarter. Not in the third. Not in the fourth. Zero points. That is how you win a football game when your offense isn't clicking on all cylinders.

The defense became the story. Derek McDonald was everywhere, finishing with nine tackles, while the Tar Heel defensive front consistently made life difficult for TCU. Carolina didn't need a series of spectacular defensive plays. It simply kept making TCU work for everything. Eventually, the pressure became too much.

That's where this game became particularly interesting. Last year, TCU controlled this matchup. This time, Carolina controlled the game when it mattered most.

Billy Edwards Jr. looked like a seasoned quarterback, and that might be one of the most encouraging things to come out of Dublin. He didn't play like a quarterback trying to prove he belonged. He played like a quarterback who understood that his job wasn't necessarily to win the game by himself. Sometimes the quarterback's job is to keep the game in front of him, make the right decisions and give his defense a chance. Edwards did that.

The offense certainly has plenty to clean up, but Carolina found enough offense to keep the pressure on TCU. The Tar Heels moved the chains, avoided the parade of penalties that can derail a close game and, most importantly, didn't give the game away. Christo Kelly deserves to be part of that conversation, too. There was plenty of attention coming into this game on UNC's rebuilt offensive line, and after what happened against TCU last season, that group had something to prove. Kelly answered, and so did the rest of the line.

This wasn't a perfect offensive performance. It wasn't supposed to be. It was a performance that gave UNC a chance to win.

Perhaps the most interesting name from the game is the one we didn't hear nearly as much as expected: Tre Miller. That may actually be a compliment. A defensive back doesn't have to make six tackles or come up with an interception to have a good game. Sometimes the best sign that a corner is doing his job is that the quarterback stops looking his way.

Miller didn't become a headline today. Maybe that's because TCU couldn't make him one. We'll need to dig deeper into the film and target numbers before making that argument definitively, but there is something worth watching there.

And then came the final drive. This might have been the most important drive of the game, not because UNC scored a touchdown, it didn’t, and not because the Tar Heels suddenly turned into an offensive juggernaut. Instead, Carolina did something that has been missing far too often: it managed the moment.

The Tar Heels kept the clock moving, stayed composed and made TCU spend its opportunities. And when the Horned Frogs needed to be perfect, they weren't. TCU jumped offsides and the game was essentially over.

Think about that for a moment. A year ago, TCU was the team imposing its will on North Carolina. Today, the Frogs were the team pressing at the end. That's progress.

Maybe more importantly, that's the kind of progress that doesn't show up in a box score. There were only three penalties. There were 20 first downs. There were mistakes to clean up, certainly, but there wasn't the sense that Carolina was constantly fighting itself. This was a team that looked prepared to play a close football game, and then it won one.

Nobody should leave Dublin believing North Carolina has suddenly solved every problem. There are plenty of questions left to answer. The offense has to become more consistent. The running game needs to find more room. The Tar Heels will face better teams and tougher environments.

But that's for next week.

Today, the Tar Heels were asked a simple question: Could they play a close game against a quality opponent and find a way to win?

The answer was yes.

It wasn't pretty.

It was better than pretty.

It was a win.