As college football abandons what made it special, games like UNC-App State should be savored

By now it has become evident that the powers that be in college athletics will sell out every single thing that’s good about the endeavor in pursuit of a dollar. Especially if that dollar is tied to a television network.

This isn’t anything new. Television has controlled college sports pretty much since the first moment someone realized that putting games on TV could be monetized.

And yet the trend has accelerated in recent years, so much that one major conference has been completely destroyed while monetary forces have twisted most of the others into grotesque geographic versions of what they used to be, bloated full of schools with little in common — except, of course, the shared lust for money-chasing and complaining about not having enough of it.

That’s how we’ve arrived at a moment in which the ACC is attempting (and not well, it must be said) to put a positive spin on expanding to Dallas and California. Or how we’re soon to have a Big Ten that stretches from near Washington, D.C., to Oregon. Or how we have whatever the Big 12 is turning into — though, you know, at least that league is somewhat geographically contained.

Conferences grow larger. League names become sillier, and more outdated. The collections of schools in these different affiliations become more nonsensical. And little by little — or, OK, almost all at once, given the speed of a lot of these changes — the soul of college athletics becomes more eroded.

Which brings us to Saturday in Kenan Stadium. No, a North Carolina-Appalachian State football game was never going to cure the greater ills of college football, or the even larger failings of College Sports Inc. For an evening, though, it was a game — settled in double-overtime, with UNC prevailing with a 40-34 victory — that offered a brief reminder of what this weird, unfair sport can be, at its best.

Mack Brown’s reaction afterward was understandable. The UNC head coach shared his relief at his team’s escape. Given this was the last of a three-game series against the Mountaineers, one that began in 2019 in Chapel Hill and included a game last season in Boone, Brown expressed his gratitude that it was over; that no more games against App awaited UNC. All three of them came down to the end.

Yes, Brown acknowledged, the series with App State was “a great thing for North Carolina.”

“And I encourage N.C. State and East Carolina” to play the Mountaineers, he said, somewhat in jest. (The Wolfpack has a home-and-home scheduled with App starting in 2025, though there have been rumblings that it might not happen; ECU is playing App this weekend.)

After another close victory against App State — a victory that in some ways mirrored UNC’s narrow escape in Boone a year ago — Brown made the case that a lot of Tar Heels fans have made: that there’s little to gain from playing a game like this, against a “lesser” in-state opponent, and a lot to lose. And, sure. It’s certainly fair to look at it that way.

In another, though, North Carolina’s ACC schools, and particularly UNC and N.C. State, have a lot to gain from playing the likes of App State and ECU. Fan interest is one. These games unquestionably sell. They create memorable environments, and provide a local economic impact. Brown was right that UNC on Saturday endured more pressure, and right, too, that winning isn’t nearly as big a deal as losing this kind of game.

But, well, so what? Any team with grand aspirations has to learn to handle pressure. Is it possible that his team is now more equipped to deal with such pressure after winning Saturday amid the most pressurized of circumstances? Probably.

The best argument, though, for these kinds of games continuing, and increasing in number, is this: people in this state care about them. It was an event when UNC came to Boone a year ago, and the atmospheres in Kenan Stadium in 2019 and on Saturday reflected it was an event, too, when App visited Chapel Hill. There’s always similar anticipation surrounding N.C. State-ECU games, too.

Yet college football is becoming a sport that’s forgetting about fans, and putting them last. And it’s fair to wonder as the sport becomes more brand-focused and consolidated whether there will be room for a school like Appalachian State to play a football game against the flagship in-state program. In some ways, then, Saturday was befitting of what’s happening across an entire sport: There was a great game, in a great atmosphere; a scene representative of the best of regional college football.

And so of course it won’t happen again, or at least not any time soon.

ONE BIG THING

The game of the day Saturday turned out to be in Chapel Hill but everyone thought it was going to be in Raleigh. And, well, it was not the best of days for the Wolfpack, or at the very least not the best of fourth quarters. It’s early yet for State — and for everybody — but the revamped offense doesn’t appear all that revamped. The Wolfpack should be able to hang with anybody, defensively, and yet its offense moves with ease and efficiency of an overloaded dump truck down a gravel road, with a flat tire or two. That nothing ever looks easy is the problem.

REALIGNMENT RUMBLINGS

OK, hear me out. So there’s the ACC, right, and it’s based here in North Carolina? So instead of doing whatever it’s planning, with this westward expansion business, how about it gives the ol’ heave-ho to a bunch of schools and then closes down the borders within the Carolinas.

Can keep the acronym, even, and just become the All Carolinas Conference, with the 10 FBS schools in North and South Carolina. Yeah, there’d be some paperwork to fill out. South Carolina would have to take a pay cut. Charlotte might take a while to get up to speed.

But wouldn’t it actually be pretty fun? Well, too bad. That’s not what college sports are about.

THREE TO LIKE

1. Seems the two most consistent Triangle football programs both reside in Durham. No letdown for Duke on Saturday during an easy victory against Lafayette. And N.C. Central turned a close game at halftime into a runaway victory against N.C. A&T in Greensboro. The Aggies might’ve thought they were leaving their rivals behind when they abandoned the MEAC but, in reality, Central has become the stronger, more enviable program in the years since.

2. Sam Hartman’s triumphant return to North Carolina. Hartman received his due, locally, and a good amount of attention during his years at Wake Forest but, if anything, he probably remains a little under-appreciated for his work with the Demon Deacons. On the positive side, Hartman, who led Notre Dame to victory at State on Saturday, is finally getting the national recognition he deserves. Less positively, though, some are forgetting that, you know, he was also pretty good at Wake.

3. What’s that? Signs of football life in Charlotte? Yes, yes, it’s a four quarter game and all but, for a while, Charlotte was in the midst of one of those great underdog stories Saturday, and led Maryland 14-9 at halftime (and 14-0 at the end of the first quarter). The second half was all Terps but it’d been a while, nonetheless, for the 49ers to have anything to build upon. A halftime lead on the road against a Big Ten school is something, at least.

THREE TO ... NOT LIKE AS MUCH

1. Is it going to be this kind of season for the UNC defense? The Tar Heels took an enormous step forward defensively in Week 1 during a dominant performance in Charlotte against South Carolina. Or so everyone thought. On Saturday came another thought: Just how bad is the Gamecocks’ offensive line? Credit App State for keeping UNC out of rhythm but ... yeah. A lot of flashbacks to last season. So which is the real version of the UNC defense?

2. For those who refuse to believe in ghosts, curses, aliens and the existence of N.C. State ... Stuff, we present the latest evidence: the scoreboard malfunction amid the lightning delay Saturday. It was, indeed, the sort of thing that would make anyone a believer in N.C. State ... Stuff. Because here State was, all proud to unveil this absolute monster of a scoreboard, this digital wonderland standing mighty and tall and then ... it shorts out during a storm. Only at N.C. State.

3. Is everything OK in Greenville? Look, expectations were low for ECU during the season-opener at Michigan, and the Pirates even managed to keep it somewhat, kind-of sort-of respectable. The competitive portion of the season was supposed to start Saturday, and all was fine enough through three quarters. Then Marshall ended the game with 21 unanswered points and that was that. Mike Houston, who’s done a fine job overall at ECU, is now 1-4 in home openers.

THIS WEEK’S BEST PROGRAM IN THE STATE

App State was nearly a three-touchdown underdog Saturday but (again) pushed UNC to the limit in a game that (again) came down to the final play. Fans of the in-state ACC schools don’t want to hear it, but there’s a reason App has a legitimate claim to being known as the best program in the state, and performances like Saturday are why. The Mountaineers arrived in Chapel Hill without any players UNC wanted, or would have recruited and yet App was a play away. It continues to do more with less.

CAROLINAS RANKING

1. Duke (and by a wide margin!); 2. North Carolina (maybe?); 3. Clemson; 4. Wake Forest; 5. Appalachian State; 6. South Carolina; 7. N.C. State (Wolfpack would be formidable with an offense — sound familiar?); 8. Coastal Carolina; 9. ECU; 10. Charlotte.

FINAL THOUGHTS, IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER

--I think it’s good to see App State and ECU playing again this weekend, as they did in 2021 (a 33-19 Mountaineers victory in Boone). These schools played each other a lot decades ago, between the 1950s and 70s, but they’ve only played three times since 1979. That makes no sense. Again, folks, this isn’t hard: People in this state care about games between in-state opponents. It’s good for North Carolina. It’s good for the growth of college football in this state.

--I think the obsession with TV ratings has become one of the lamest byproducts of this money-obsessed era of college football. You may have seen the ACC put out a social media graphic bragging on its Week 1 TV ratings, as if the league expects a TV Ratings Cookie to show up in the mail, or maybe a TV Ratings Ribbon or a TV Ratings Gold Star. What were the ratings of the UNC-App game the other night? A better question: Who cares? Does it make the game any more or less meaningful, because this many or that many people happened to watch it?

--On that note, I think I’d love to see the natural end to this TV ratings business, which of course would be the cancellation of a game mid-quarter, the plug pulled like that of a struggling sitcom. “Oh, it looks like only 800,000 people are watching this ballgame between State U. and Tech. We needed at least 1.2 million. Sorry, but the game is canceled. Time for everyone to go home.” We kid, but who knows what sort of dystopian measures await in this television-obsessed sport.