UNC (2-0, 0-0) left its heelprint all over Charlotte (0-2, 0-0) as it rushed for 269 yards in its 38-20 home opening win Saturday.
With junior running back Omarion Hampton leaving the game in the second quarter and backup Darwin Barlow out with a lower body injury, true freshman Davion Gause came in and led the rushing attack with 105 yards and a touchdown on 16 carries.
Gause scored his first career touchdown on a 1-yard run in the fourth quarter, which put UNC up 38-13 with just over 6 minutes left in the game. In that drive alone, Gause rushed for 58 yards, gaining more than 10 yards on three separate runs.
“When you put him in a situation, he looks like an older player,” UNC coach Mack Brown said. “He’s got really good vision.”
Before being sidelined, Hampton was getting whatever he wanted on the ground, too, rushing for 77 yards on just 11 carries. UNC coach Mack Brown said Hampton was “banged up” in the first half and could’ve played after halftime, but the team decided not to put him back in.
“We wanted to make sure he’s safe moving forward, and we wanted to see the younger backs,” Brown said.
On the flip side, the Tar Heels defense put on another clinic with stopping the run and disrupting plays in the backfield despite graduate edge rusher Kaimon Rucker not suiting up.
Brown said the defensive standout “felt something in the weight room” Thursday, and before the game, the team announced that Rucker will be out for “a couple of weeks” due to a procedure on his lower body.
That was no problem for UNC, though, as graduate defensive lineman Jahvaree Ritzie helped carry the load and recorded two sacks, putting his season sack total at five. Redshirt freshman Tyler Thompson helped fill in for Rucker.
With a solid overall performance from the defensive line, including sophomore Amare Campbell contributing seven tackles and a sack himself, the Tar Heels limited Charlotte to just 49 yards rushing.
“We get the call from Coach Collins, and we go out there and do it,” Ritzie said. “It’s not more so one person did this, one person did that. We all did it. It was our play.”
UNC also came up with two big red zone stops that kept the Tar Heels in the lead early on.
After a long fourth down conversion to redshirt junior receiver Jairus Mack put Charlotte at the UNC 8 yard line in the first quarter, Campbell’s sack and two other defensive stands forced the 49ers into a field goal which kept UNC in the lead, 7-3.
On the following Charlotte drive, the 49ers worked their way down to the UNC 2 yard line, but another all-around solid defensive stand, highlighted by Marcus Allen’s open field tackle on third down, ended another touchdown threat.
“I told them when we got down there, ‘We can’t let them in our house,’” Campbell said. “We just kept rallying play after play after play. Same intensity, flying downhill.”
As the run game worked for UNC and not so much for Charlotte, the teams saw more equal success in the passing game.
Outside of a third quarter interception, sophomore quarterback Conner Harrell, who was making his first home start, played well, completing 16 passes out of 25 attempts for 219 yards and two touchdowns.
His longest completion of the night came on a reverse flea flicker ending with Harrell finding freshman receiver Christian Hamilton wide open for a 58-yard touchdown to put UNC up, 28-13.
“I think we had a good game,” Harrell said. “I think there were some drives I want back and some plays I want back, but I’ve got a lot to build off of, which is good.”
Harrell also ran in a score, and his other passing touchdown went to senior tight end Bryson Nesbit, who also left the game early due to injury.
Senior receiver Nate McCollum also found the endzone in the first quarter on a reverse that went for 37 yards.
Charlotte got the chunk of its offense through the air as quarterbacks Max Brown and Deshawn Purdie combined for 309 yards and two touchdowns. A cause of concern for the otherwise stout UNC defense was Mack torching its secondary for 118 yards on five receptions.
Despite key injuries on both sides of the ball, the Tar Heels are rolling so far in non-conference play. With the win, UNC is now 2-0, giving up the least points in its opening two games (37) since 2021 when it gave up a combined 34 points to Virginia Tech and Georgia State.
The Tar Heels will look for three wins in a row when they host NC Central Saturday at 6 p.m
