30-10 LSU over UNC at halftime

What was briefly a close game has now turned into another embarrassment for the UNC football team, which trails LSU 30-10 at halftime in the Chick-Fil-A Kickoff Classic in Atlanta.

LSU had a 23-point second quarter -- all of it coming after UNC took a 10-7 lead. The Tigers had three plays that covered at least half the field -- a 50-yard TD run, a 51-yard TD pass and an 87-yard TD punt return. Throw in a safety when a UNC center snap went through the end zone, and there's your 23 points.

The Tar Heels really have no chance of coming all the way back -- their offense is too erratic to score regularly, and their defense (minus six starters who are ineligible for various reasons) isn't about to stop LSU for the entire second half, either.

I will say this for the game, though -- it's entertaining. That second quarter -- which also featured a 75-yard UNC pass from T.J. Yates to Jheranie Boyd -- had more big plays than the entire Panthers preseason.

23-10 LSU over UNC midway through 2nd quarter

In a first half that is honestly more entertaining than I expected, LSU just took a 14-10 lead over UNC on a 50-yard run on a reverse from Russell Shepard (it was Shepard's second TD of the game).

UNC had taken a brief lead, 10-7, following a shocking 75-yard pass play from T.J. Yates to Jheranie Boyd that took UNC to a first-and-goal at the LSU 5. It would have been 14-7 but UNC fullback Devon Ramsay -- who made a great play to score UNC's only TD -- dropped a sure TD pass.

Then LSU quickly came back. The crowd is in full throat and the game, for now, is very competitive.

UPDATE: UNC, which has had problems much of the night getting the ball snapped correctly, just had center Jonathan Cooper snap it right past T.J. Yates and through the end zone. That gave LSU a safety and a 16-10 lead.

UPDATE 2: LSU's Patrick Patterson, who has given Tar Heels trouble all night on returns, just ran a punt all the way back for a TD. That made it 23-10 LSU with 4:01 left in 2nd quarter.

7-7 as UNC ties it with 82-yard drive

The Tar Heels just had an impressive 82-yard drive keyed by quarterback T.J. Yates. The touchdown: a 9-yard screen pass to fullback Devon Ramsay, who broke two tackles on his way to the end zone.

That might have been the single happiest moment for the Tar Heel faithful in the past three months, who have suffered through one bad headline after another during the NCAA investigation.

LSU's cornerbacks were playing way off UNC's wide receivers during the drive, allowing Yates to complete a number of quick passes for 8-10 yards at a pop. LSU also hurt itself badly with penalties -- roughing the kicker to keep the drive alive once and hitting Yates late and out of bounds another time.

Early in the second quarter: LSU 7, UNC 7.

Shaky start for UNC against LSU

I'm in Atlanta tonight, watching the Tar Heels (minus seven defensive starters embroiled in the school's NCAA scandal) play LSU.

My column on what the widening NCAA probe means to UNC can be seen here. It has been interesting the reaction that column has gotten -- about evenly split between UNC alums who are disgusted by the whole thing and are glad I was critical of the Tar Heels and other e-mails from "true blue" Tar Heels who say I'm tarring and feathering people without due process.

Interesting. In the meantime, UNC fumbled the ball away 20 seconds into this game, but escaped when the patchwork defense held.

Then it took only two plays for UNC to fumble again, and once again LSU recovered, this time at the UNC 30. While the Tar Heel defense took the brunt of the suspensions, it's the offense that has looked very shaky early.

That second fumble led to a 6-yard LSU TD pass -- it's 7-0, LSU, with 8:57 still left in the first quarter.

A sad day to be a Tar Heel

This was the season that was supposed to change North Carolina football.

And that it has certainly done.

Instead of head coach Butch Davis and his team making all Tar Heels proud with a season worthy of an ACC championship and a BCS bowl berth, however, we’re seeing the polar opposite.

Without playing a game yet, the 2010 version of the Tar Heel football program has become an embarrassment to the University of North Carolina and what it stands for.

This NCAA investigation and all the accompanying collateral damage is the sort of thing that gets coaches fired. Davis may well not survive this mess.

The university is furiously trying to repair the damage as the probe into agent-related and academic issues continues. It announced Friday that it will withhold as many as 15 players from the Saturday-night season opener against LSU for violating school and/or NCAA rules.

Most of those players are on defense – including defensive end Robert Quinn, who may be the best player in the ACC -- but the list also includes the Tar Heels’ top three rushers from 2009.

What’s left? A hodgepodge of first- and second-teamers who should be as angry at their ineligible teammates as all Tar Heel fans must be. The UNC players who did nothing wrong are now being painted with the same scandalous brush. And they are the ones who will have to shoulder the criticism when things go wrong on the field, too, as they inevitably will.

It feels so sordid for a university that has long prided itself on NCAA cleanliness. The stain on North Carolina’s football program won’t be scrubbed clean all season (the only good news any Tar Heel fan really can take from any of this is that apparently the scandal won’t bleed into the men’s basketball program).

As for the fact that the Tar Heels have one of their highest-profile openers ever with this nationally-televised game Saturday at 8 against LSU?

The timing couldn’t be worse. The Tar Heels set this game up long ago. But it turns out they really needed to play Presbyterian for their opener this season, as Wake Forest did Thursday, and beat them by 40 at home without many people watching.

Instead, the ABC telecast will necessarily focus a good bit of time on the Tar Heels’ suspensions and their aftermath. North Carolina will likely take it on the chin both on the PR front and the scoreboard front.

Today is a sad day to be a Tar Heel. Tomorrow probably will be, too.

And that’s not the way the eve of a big-time opening day should feel.

Fans want to count down the hours before kickoff, not count up the number of players suspended hours before the game.

But the actions of the Tar Heel players – helped along by who knows how many adults who should have known better – have robbed fans of that privilege.

3 things I didn't like, 2 I did

A few thoughts on the humdrum 19-3 beating Pittsburgh just laid upon the Carolina Panthers in both teams' final preseason game. I watched this one on TV -- Tom Sorensen and I split the road games as The Observer's two sports columnists, and thankfully this one was all his.

The bad:

1. So the Panthers' offense goes 0-for-the-preseason on offensive drives that led to touchdowns. I gave up counting after the number reached 50, but it was bad. I know, I know -- no No.28 and no No.89 in all the fake games, and in this one the Panthers played with their third- and fourth-string quarterbacks only. But still. The Panthers' offense this preseason was absolutely pathetic, which is why the team finished 1-3 in exhibition games despite generally great play from the defense.

2. Could the Panthers maybe -- just maybe -- complete a pass deep downfield to a wide receiver more than about once every 10 days? Is that asking too much?

3. The third bad thing is that there is such a thing as a fourth NFL exhibition at all. It's ridiculous. As I've been writing for years, I'm all for the 18-2 split instead of the current 16-4, where a team plays 18 regular-season games and only two preseason ones (the NFL commish wants to make the 18-2 split happen by 2012 season). Because this last game -- it's painful to sit through, especially for people who have actually paid to do so. Pay the players a little more and have them play 18 games; it's the right thing to do.

The good:

1. Although it wasn't particularly effective, it was nice to see Armanti Edwards in the Panthers' version of the "Wildcat" formation (the "Mountaineer"). He made a couple of sweet, albeit short, throws out of it, and he also had a pretty good punt return and a nice pickup on a fourth-down reception. Armanti has to have restored a little confidence with that one.

2. John Fox deciding to basically have his starters take the night off. I'm totally with him there. Fox doesn't care about preseason game No.4 except as a way to maybe determine roster spots 50-53 and doesn't want anybody to get hurt. I don't agree with a number of things Fox does, but he's completely right about that one.

And now let us all say hallelujah, for the preseason is over and we do not have to watch any more fake games for a very long time.

Moore, Jake last on ESPN.com list of starting QBs

ESPN.com's John Clayton -- one of the most knowledgeable writers about the NFL that I've ever known -- has just published a list ranking the NFL starting quarterbacks 1-33 for 2010.

It's 33 QBs instead of 32 because Clayton ranks both Ben Roethlisberger and Byron Leftwich for Pittsburgh, given that Big Ben will be sitting out at least the first month of the season due to his suspension.

Who's No.33, dead last?? Jake Delhomme.

Who's No.32, next-to-dead-last?? Matt Moore.

That doesn't say much for the decision the Panthers had to make in the offseason, does it? Delhomme, now in Cleveland, has had a far better preseason than Moore, for what it's worth, although Moore wrote in this blog entry published today that the preseason doesn't matter and that Carolina will be far better during the season.

It would be fairly easy to dismiss this sort of criticism if it came from a no-name writer on a no-name website, but Clayton and ESPN make a very strong combination. What do you think about this list? (Of the other division QBs besides Brees, Clayton ranks Atlanta's Matt Ryan No.13 and Tampa Bay's Josh Freeman 29th).

Clayton's top 10, incidentally, for those who don't want to click over and read the entire story:

1. Peyton Manning, Indy
2. Tom Brady, New England
3. Drew Brees, New Orleans
4. Ben Roethlisberger, Pittsburgh
5. Brett Favre, Minnesota
6. Aaron Rodgers, Green Bay
7. Philip Rivers, San Diego
8. Tony Romo, Dallas
9. Donovan McNabb, Washington
10. Carson Palmer, Cincinnati