The North Carolina Tar Heels have raced out to a 2-0 record thus far in the young 2022 college football season. The Tar Heels will try to make it 3-0 when they travel south to take on the Georgia State Panthers. The Panthers, who play in the Sun Belt Conference, are 0-1 on the season. These two teams met last season, when UNC rolled to a 59-17 win at Chapel Hill as a 26 point favorite. This year, the Heels are only a 7.5 point favorite. Can the Panthers pull off the upset at home?
The UNC Tar Heels are off to a 2-0 start. They beat Florida A&M in week one by the score of 56-24, but they did not cover as a whopping 45 point favorite. Last Saturday, they had a much tougher battle, holding on to defeat Appalachian State 63-61 on the road. They covered as 3 point underdogs. This was an insane game, as the Mountaineers scored a ridiculous 40 points in the fourth quarter. It was about as wild a fourth quarter as humanly possible. North Carolina led 41-21 at the end of the third and had to score 22 points of their own in the final stanza to hold on to the win.
Is Drake Maye a top-5 QB in @ACCFootball? ?? pic.twitter.com/WKxRyv0cur
— ACC Network (@accnetwork) September 6, 2022
Ultimately, the game came down to missed two-point conversions. The Mountaineers missed two, two-point conversions on back to back scores in the final minute. If they had just kicked the extra points, it would have gone to overtime. The Tar Heels churned out 567 total yards, including 354 in the air as quarterback Drake Maye was 24-34 for 354 yards and four touchdowns with 0 interceptions. Maye also rushed for 76 yards and a touchdown. Kobe Paysour had 8 catches for 92 yards and a touchdown while Caleb Hood rushed for 87 yards. The problem was the defense. The Tar Heels gave up 24 points to Florida A&M in week one, and in this game, Appalachian State generated a whopping 664 yards, including 376 in the air and 288 on the ground.