College Football: North Carolina Forces Late Turnover to Beat Miami

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Miami Gardens, FL– Trailing 20-13 with under two minutes to go in the fourth quarter, the University of Miami quarterback Brad Kaaya dropped back to pass and was sacked by North Carolina defensive lineman Malik Carney.  As a result of the hit, the ball popped out and was recovered by DL Jeremiah Clarke ending Miami’s chances at a comeback and sealing the Tarheel’s eighth straight Atlantic Coast Conference road win.

The win is North Carolina’s second in conference and puts them back in the ACC Coastal Division driver’s seat.  Especially after Virginia Tech, who beat the Tar Heels last week, lost to Syracuse today.  With wins over Florida  State and now Miami, UNC’s faithful were calling each other ‘Florida State’ champs after the game.

Here’s a recap from head coach Larry Fedora:

Notes & Quotes:

Ryan Switzer, Sr., WR O

On the importance of this win … “Guys knew that if we didn’t come out of here with a win, we’d be hard pressed to get to Orlando. It gave us a little motivation to come down here and play well against another ranked team on the road and bounce back from that tough loss last week. We came out focused and thought we jumped on them well. We did a lot things in the second half to try and lose the game, but our defense played really well today and we’re fortunate enough to come out of here with a win.”

Ryan Switzer

On Justin Vogel’s punting …

“He was getting a lot of hang time on it. Not much you can do when the punter is doing his job. There were a couple of times when I tried to make something happen, but the guy did his job.”

Jeremiah Clarke, Soph., DT

On if it was time for the defense to get the win …

“I definitely think so. We’ve been waiting for a whole team game where every aspect of the game is on their A game. As far as this one, we always felt like the defense was going to have a two-minute situation. You never know which game it’s going to come down to, we wished it could’ve been Florida State, but we needed that to learn for this game, so that way we didn’t make the same mistakes we did against FSU.”

On if they could sustain the momentum with all the injuries …

“Yeah we are all banged up at multiple positions. A lot of people were nursing injuries, but I just believe that we have a nextman-up mentality, so it doesn’t matter. You saw Marlon Dunlap go out there today as a true freshman, burning his redshirt. It’s just next man up and do the best you can when you go out in the field.

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[tab_title]GAME NOTES[/tab_title][/tabs_head]

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• Miami’s match up with North Carolina Saturday afternoon marks the 20th meeting between the two schools. The Tar Heels lead the all-time series, 10-9.
• Tar Heel QB Mitch Trubisky was 33-46 passing for 299 yards and 2 TDs and rushed for 62 yards on 13 attempts.
• Tight end David Njoku caught four passes for 82 yards. His 82 yards receiving are a single game career high.[/tab][/tabs]