Welcome to another podcast by Inside Carolina.com, the independent voice of UNC Sports,

your home for Tar Heel football, basketball, and recruiting.

John Siegley here with E.J. Wilson and Mike Ingersoll for the alumni wrap-up show.

Tommy and those guys already had their big one, so we're going to give our thoughts, too.

And to start this one off, though, I wanted to talk about the state game just super briefly.

E.J., we'll start with you on this one.

Carolina hung tight with state for a while.

Ultimately, I guess if you're

going to take a moral victory, they covered the spread. So there was that. But ultimately, it was a

loss. So when you were watching that game, just what were your thoughts and what did you feel

like after it was over with? Watching that game, initially when they came out, the way they were playing, it was just good to see them come out and play that hard and see that this game really did mean that much to them. And I think what you kind of saw is the game go on has really been the story of our whole season, the fact that we do have a lot of injuries and we don't have a lot of depth. Yes, we showed that we can play. We can play with them. We still do have talent on the field. But when those guys are playing so many plays and they don't really have guys to come in and give them breathers, I mean, that kind of takes a toll. And you saw that during that game. I think that we played a really good game against them. I think we played them tough. I think that we came in and I think we initiated the physicality. And I think that's shown

throughout the game. I mean, so I'm really proud of what they did. I'm proud of how they wrapped up the season. It would have been better to get a W against the rivals, of course. But I still like what I saw in the game against NC State. I think they, yeah, like you said, they just got war out at the end. And then Mike, what were your thoughts on the game?

Yeah, they just ran out of gas at the end. But, I mean, they showed a lot of fight. I mean, that game was a microcosm of the season. They played pretty well on the front end and then just ran out of juice. And that's what's going to happen when you got, you know, you're fielding a roster full of guys that would normally be backups.

Now, I don't say that to roster full of guys that would normally be backups now i i don't say

that to disparage the guys that were playing at all we saw marked improvement in our depth chart this

year and it's something i've been harping on you know just trying to find a silver lining and all this

and i don't think it's something you got to try that hard to see moving forward next year in the

year after and all that those guys all now have game reps and like i've said every single week we've been doing this podcast this season the only thing that gets you better is game reps and and i understand the frustration of the fan base i mean we've got it too i mean how many how many years are we going to sit here and say well you know it didn't go our way this year. But, you know, next year we got some pieces coming back.

We're going to be pretty good next year. You know, like it's kind of like, you know, how long do Tar Hill football fans and alumni have to wait, you know, until we finally break through that ceiling? I think it's going to happen much sooner than it will later. I think it's going to happen, you know, next year. and we already saw a glimpse of it.

We already got to the AC championship game,

and who knows if we would have won that

if that on-side kick goes our way. So, you know, all that built up to being able to have a season where there's a lot more success embedded in our failures than people at a 30,000 foot glimpse can see. You know, if you look more closely at what we did this year, again, we

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