Salty Dave Doeren and somber Mack Brown trade places on Triangle’s eternal college football carousel

A little more than two weeks ago in Durham, after one of N.C. State’s more deflating losses in recent seasons, Dave Doeren spoke in somber tones about his team’s performance in defeat at Duke. The Wolfpack managed to muster three points that night, on a field goal on a short field on its first possession, and then spent 59 minutes delivering the worst kind of offensive football.

There were penalties. Dropped passes galore. Sloppy moment after sloppy moment.

“It always starts with me,” Doeren said, looking a little stunned, and more than a little frustrated.

It was the sort of exasperated and bewildered expression Mack Brown wore late Saturday night, after his North Carolina team’s stunning – though is it stunning anymore, really? – defeat at Georgia Tech. Only, unlike Doeren, who was left to ponder why his team couldn’t score, Brown was left to explain why his team couldn’t stop Georgia Tech from scoring. Neither coach could really articulate the whys or the hows of the failure; all they could do was lament the bad.

Two weeks ago, Brown and Doeren occupied space on opposite ends of college football’s emotional spectrum. Brown, celebrating the high of highs after the Tar Heels’ victory against Miami, and UNC’s 6-0 start. Doeren, mourning the low of lows after the Wolfpack’s listless defeat against Duke, and the uncertainty of the road ahead and whether his team would (could?) respond. And then, 14 days later, both coaches traded spaces, 180 degrees from where they’d just been.

Here was Doeren on Saturday afternoon after N.C. State’s victory against Clemson, talking his talk and essentially challenging Steve Smith, the former NFL wide receiver turned television analyst, to step outside after Smith offered a lighthearted (and harmless, really) quip on ESPN’s College GameDay about the Wolfpack looking forward to basketball season. And here was Brown, looking like he’d aged about 15 years in three-and-a-half hours in Atlanta.

This sport will do that to coaches. UNC’s defense will do that to coaches.

Which makes Doeren’s outburst all the more understandable: You’ve got to talk your talk when you can. For who knows how long the moment will last, or when it’ll be your team leaving you with the kind of thousand-yard blank stare Doeren wore in Durham two weeks ago, or the one Brown wore Saturday night in Atlanta.

Isn’t this turnaround, for both teams, emblematic of what we’ve come to expect out of college football in the Triangle? N.C. State has been counted out often throughout Doeren’s tenure and yet the Wolfpack, despite its faults (and, the past two seasons, despite its inability to score or even consistently move the ball), often persevere and fight. UNC, meanwhile, has ascended the national rankings repeatedly throughout Brown’s second tenure, only to crash in the most painful of ways.

Just two weeks ago, the Tar Heels seemed destined for great things. The breakthrough was finally happening. The moment had arrived. Or, if not, it was the cruelest illusion yet for fans and supporters who’ve waited ... and waited. And so the illusion was cruel, indeed. All that hope, and promise, gone in two weeks, along with the top-10 national ranking and the fantasy of the College Football Playoff. Fun while it lasted. Wait until next year.

And for now, November has arrived as many Novembers have around here. Without a Triangle team in the top 25; without any North Carolina representative in it, in fact. With local fans savoring the failures of their rivals as much as their own team’s victories. With the carousel continuing round and round to the tune of that haunting carnival music. Sometimes the music stops and you’re on top. Sometimes it stops and you’re on the bottom.

Around here the only certainty is that coaches and teams rarely stay in the same place for all that long, even only two weeks apart.

ONE BIG THING

The competition for One Big Thing is fierce this week, as arguably as fierce as it has ever been. On the one hand, you have Dave Doeren practically cutting WWE promos after State’s win against Clemson, all but challenging Smith to meet him in the Octagon, just about punctuating his sentences with “Wooo!” and telling no one in particular that if you want to be the man, you’ve got to beat the man.

On the other, you have UNC in complete meltdown mode after a second consecutive defeat as a double-digit favorite. The Tar Heels didn’t give up Saturday night but, perhaps worse, they didn’t know what they were doing defensively. That doesn’t bode well for the home stretch. Ties are no longer a thing in college football, but this one is well-earned and appropriate.

For UNC, after another loss in Atlanta, cycle of inexplicably bad defense is real curse

REALIGNMENT RUMBLINGS

OK, hear me out: As we enter November, this season provides another (yet another!) example of the absurdity of where the sport is headed, with these large, national conferences. Let’s face it, there’s not a North Carolina school that has a chance, now, to compete nationally. There’s an outside hope, still, that Duke or UNC (or N.C. State!?) could make the ACC championship game, but let’s not hold our breath. But what these schools do have left? Games against each other.

UNC’s game against Duke matters. N.C. State’s game against Wake Forest matters. The N.C. State-UNC game at the end of the regular season matters. To a large degree, the results in these games will determine how fans of all four schools look back upon their seasons, or how they look ahead to the future. But, sure, let’s separate the Big Four based on “brand value” and “television following” — absurd metrics, both, especially as it relates to in-state football programs.

The biggest value all of these programs have is in playing each other, and delivering games that matter to people in North Carolina — or with attachments to these schools, regardless of where they live. Split them up and you’ll be left with something like Maryland in the Big Ten. A school making more money, yes, but one that never wins and never plays any games that anyone really cares all that much about. But hey, enjoy that money.

THREE TO LIKE

1. N.C. State plants its hand in the dirt. Doeren’s bravado and blue-collar ethos is an easy target, for rival fans and media alike, but there’s something to be said about a team that can manage to beat Clemson despite having one of the worst major-conference offenses in the country. The metrics and computers are still figuring out how the Wolfpack managed to win Saturday but, here’s how: With that characteristic grit and hustle.

After weeks of scrutiny, Dave Doeren defends program after 24-17 win over Clemson

2. Doeren’s postgame ranting. You’ve seen the clips by now, or read the quotes. (Or, if you haven’t, you can easily find them on social media.) Doeren not only directed Smith to “kiss my (butt)” but he also told him to do his research before criticizing his team (that was the gist, anyway, in less colorful terms). This immediately entered the pantheon of memorable Salty Dave moments, right up there with the fabric belt commentary of 2014 (if you know, you know).

3. The open air press box. The general public might not care much about the working conditions for the press but, dang it, the truth is the truth: college football needs more open-air press boxes. The one at Georgia Tech is arguably the ACCs best (though Virginia has a case), with a view of the Atlanta skyline and an enviable perch to listen to the Tech pep band — and to watch and cover the latest cruel fate to befall the football Tar Heels.

THREE TO ... NOT LIKE AS MUCH

1. UNC’s defense, which again strained the limits of the English language. There are only so many words to describe the Tar Heels’ defensive performance Saturday night, the kind of which we’ve seen so many times in recent years. Confounding. Inexplicable. Abysmal. There’s simply no explanation a unit that talented (by all accounts, unless the recruiting rankings were completely off) can play so poorly.

2. Mack Brown as a double-digit favorite against middling ACC teams. What is it about this scenario that causes UNC so much trouble? The Tar Heels lost as a double-digit favorite at Georgia Tech. Same as last week against Virginia. And last year against Georgia Tech. And the year before that, against Georgia Tech. And the year before that, at Florida State. And ... and the list goes on. There’s an established and growing pattern of incomprehensible losses here.

3. Another rough Saturday for most of the state. Duke’s 23-0 loss at Louisville knocked a lot of the air out of the Blue Devils’ feel-good story of the season. Wake Forest didn’t put up any kind of fight against Florida State. ECU, with a defeat at UTSA, appears ready to call it a season. Appalachian State wasn’t all that impressive in a victory against a bad Southern Miss team. Charlotte lost. You saw what happened in Atlanta. We’d say it’s time to get ready for basketball season, but we don’t want Dave Doeren showing up on his Harley with his band of henchmen. “This is not a basketball state!” he’d say. “This is a great state. With mountains, and the beach.”

THIS WEEK’S BEST PROGRAM IN THE STATE

Well, it’s not in Chapel Hill. Or Durham. Or Greenville or Charlotte or Boone. But even in better weeks among other in-state programs, N.C. State would have a strong claim this week. This is a program whose future suddenly looked uncertain just two weeks ago, after that dismal showing at Duke. And then the Wolfpack comes back and beats Clemson. A pretty Textile Bowl, this was not. The threads from this Textile Bowl would not go into a designer suit, but instead would make up one of those cheap ugly holiday sweaters you start seeing in stores this time of year.

Nonetheless: hand in the dirt, blue collar, gritty. State earns the distinction this week.

CAROLINAS RANKING

1. N.C. State (hey, at least the Wolfpack won Saturday); 2. Duke (losing 23-0 at Louisville is better than losing at home to Virginia and then at Georgia Tech); 3. Clemson; 4. North Carolina (Tar Heels could finish 10-2 or 7-5); 5. South Carolina (not good, but neither is anyone else); 6. Appalachian State; 7. Wake Forest; 8. Coastal Carolina; 9. Charlotte; 10. ECU.

FINAL THOUGHTS, IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER

-I think every time I looked up at the N.C. State-Clemson game Saturday, it felt like State was facing a 3rd-and-12. And yet there the Wolfpack was, winning.

-I think if people were quick to criticize UNC fans for the attendance at the Virginia game, just wait until the scene for Campbell this weekend. Over/under at 30,000?

-I think Florida State’s opponent in the ACC Championship game will have two league losses, at least. Cue the scene from Dumb and Dumber, in regards to the Wolfpack: “So you’re saying there’s a chance!?”

-I think there’s a good number of UNC fans who need a reality check. The angst is warranted after the last two weeks. But it’s also a bit much. This is a program that hasn’t won the ACC in more than 40 years. Who or what do these angry fans think UNC football is, and has been?

-I think time is a flat circle when it comes to college football around here. All the hype and hope and wishing and anticipation. And, no matter what, it always seems to even out into a haze of mediocrity.