Brett Davis-USA TODAY Sports Evaluating what milestones UNC needs for fans to approve of the year. Welcome to The Debate. Each week, this article presents a topic for debate. Whether in the comments section, on the golf course, or around the weekend game table (with proper social distancing of course), the goal is to provide enough background that either side could be a winner. In order to facilitate the discourse, a suggested beverage pairing is also included. So speak up, mix it up, and drink up. A few weeks ago, this article debated whether or not the uncertainty of the pandemic would be good or bad for Carolina football versus the rest of the country. The topic got me thinking about an article we wrote last summer debating what 2019 football success would look like. There was a lot of optimism and hope at the time, but Mack Brown was still working with a team that had only 3 wins the previous two years. Chad Floyd weighed in that bowl eligibility was the key to the year. I argued that the team needed to beat State and Duke and at least keep other games close. I think we were both right, and it doesn’t matter because both happened anyways. Fast forward a year. There is even more optimism and a wave of momentum around the program. Sam Howell is a quiet candidate for the Heisman. The vast majority of the offense is back. Chazz Surratt is a proven star at linebacker. So, at the end of the season, what will it take for Carolina fans to say this year was a success? Now, on with the show. The Debate for the week of July 10: What defines success for the 2020 UNC football season? Point: Nothing less than a Coastal Division Championship will do. The ACC Coastal is the most volatile and unpredictable division in all of college football. A different winner just about every year means that parity reigns supreme. The difference between winning the division and finishing in a three way tie for third could be as little as an overtime loss at Pitt, a six overtime loss in Blacksburg, and a two point conversion at home against Clemson. The Heels were just learning how to win last year, but no one will bet against them in close games in 2020. Don’t forget that last year was the first for almost all of the coaching staff in Chapel Hill. Mack Brown had not been a head coach in six years. Honestly, it showed. There were mistakes on the sideline in late game situations and a general sense of a bit too much chaos. Sam Howell was certainly a fourth quarter gunslinger, but a stagnant offense often led to those late game deficits. Perhaps a bit more experience, preparation, and productivity in the first half could breed smoother victories. Even a slightly above average defense should be enough to allow a loaded offense to stretch out leads. In a division with no dominant team, a dominant offense should be enough to win. Boston College is the draw on this year’s schedule from the Atlantic in addition to State. Both are very winnable contests. Pittsburgh and Virginia Tech are at home. Virginia won the division outright with a 6-2 record last year and the Heels should at least match that. Counterpoint: Let’s not get greedy. This is still a young team that just needs to get to another bowl. All of those freshmen and first year starters from last year are just sophomores and second year starters this year. Its not as though this magically turned into a totally veteran squad. The program is likely one more year away from these great recruiting classes turning into a deep bench with talent all over the field. It is easy to get swept up in all of the momentum from a surprisingly fun 2019 campaign. Before anyone has dreams of a major bowl game, however, perhaps a peek at the schedule would be in order. An opening date in Orlando against UCF is a very difficult start (assuming that the ACC plays non-conference games). The Knights are a perennial power that will immediately test the Tar Heel defense and put pressure on Sam Howell to perform immediately. Follow that up with a home game against Auburn and the predictions say the Heels are 0-2 right from the jump (this all warrants a deeper look at whether a shortened season that only has conference games would benefit the Heels). Even with a favorable schedule the rest of the way in, starting in a hole can be very difficult to dig out of. Expectations could be almost immediately reset and fans will need patience to survive another up and down season. Staying competitive in the division and finishing with a winning record will keep the upward trend progressing ahead of another huge recruiting class. Counter Counter Point: Let’s just have a season. At some point, just getting to see the Heels play football is going to be a huge relief. College football will represent a return to some form of normalcy. There may be fans or it may just be an apocalyptic empty stadium bizarro world, but it will still be college football. The truth is that this fall could be the most unbelievably awesome sports season of all time. If nothing else gets pushed off schedule, we’d have college football, the NFL, NBA playoffs, NHL playoffs, the Kentucky Derby, the Masters. That is an amazing lineup and would be a true silver lining to what has been a life-altering horrible experience. Let’s just be satisfied with the game on the field. Time for you to decide! What constitutes a successful 2020 gridiron campaign for the Heels? Do they have to win the division, just make a bowl, or just get on the field? Drink Pairing In need of encouragement to debate – My wife enjoys the low calorie combination of Tito’s vodka, club soda, and plenty of lemon juice. For an even lower calorie option just use the Soda Stream and pump out plain carbonated water. Very tasty and refreshing for a hot summer weekend.

Photo by Streeter Lecka/Getty Images Let’s look back at some notable examples of times when teammates at UNC had to do battle against each other on the court or field at the professional level. Rivalry Week has been going on all over SB Nation sites, as well as here at Tar Heel Blog. However, we cover college sports and college sports are unique in that they are not the final destination for many athletes. Hundreds of Tar Heels in many sports have gone on to professional careers. In most of those cases, they don’t end up on the same team with the other UNC players they had just spent years playing with. In honor of that, let’s take a look at some notable instances where Tar Heel teammates ended up doing battle in notable games at the professional level. Michael Jordan, James Worthy, and Sam Perkins were all teammates on the 1982 Tar Heel national championship winning basketball squad. Nine years later, they would be on opposing sides while playing for a title at the pro level. Worthy had already won three titles as a member of the Lakers, while Perkins was looking for his first, having signed with LA before the season. As for Jordan, he and the Bulls had finally managed to vanquish their enemy, the Pistons, to advance to their first NBA Finals. The team with two Heels drew first blood as Worthy and Perkins were LA’s joint leading scorers with 22, and Perkins hit a three with 14 seconds left that gave the Lakers the win. That’s as good as the series would get for them. Over the next four games, Jordan averaged 30 points, 11 assists, and six rebounds as Chicago won the series in five games. Other than a 1-15 performance in game four, Perkins was good for the Lakers in a losing effort. Worthy was as well, but he ended up missing the decisive game with an injury. Ken Willard and Chris Hanburger were Tar Heel teammates taken at opposite ends of the 1965 NFL Draft. Willard is one of several players tied for the highest selection in UNC football at #2 overall (others with that honor include Mitch Trubisky, Julius Peppers, and Lawrence Taylor). Meanwhile, Hanburger went towards the end, getting picked in a round that doesn’t even exist anymore, the 18th. Both had good NFL careers, but the lower picked ended up having a legendary one. Hanburger was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in the Class of 2011. The two and their pro teams met several times over the course of the 10 years they were both in the league, but the highest profile of them came on a fairly big stage. On December 26, 1971, Willard’s San Francisco team hosted Hanburger and Washington in the Divisional Round of the NFL Playoffs. Just based on their positions (Willard a running back, Hanburger a linebacker), the two likely would’ve had some interaction on the field at some point. (There are no tackling stats, at least that I could find) Hanburger and his defensive teammates held Willard mostly in check as he had 19 carries for just 46 yards. However, the 49ers emerged victorious 24-20 thanks mainly to their passing game and a special teams touchdown that proved the vital score. Among the most high profile non-playoff games in an MLB regular season is the Subway Series games between the Yankees and Mets. Back in 2015, a pair of UNC teammates went directly head to head. Matt Harvey and Dustin Ackley were both on the 2009 Diamond Heels squad that went to the College World Series. Six years later, they would directly face off in a game between the pro cross-city rivals. Ackley hadn’t had the best of times since going #2 in the 2009 MLB Draft. He was on his second team, the Yankees, on September 20, 2015. Harvey then went seventh overall a year after Ackley was drafted, to the Mets, a team he was a star for by 2015. Harvey got the best of Ackley while he was in the game, getting him to line out in the second inning and groundout in the fifth. However, the Yankee got the last laugh on that day. In the inning after Harvey had been removed, Ackley hit a three-run home run off a Mets’ reliever, extending the Yankees lead, as they eventually won 11-2. As for what their current baseball careers look like...it’s not great, and let’s just leave it there. Ivory Latta and Erlana Larks were teammates in Chapel Hill from 2004-07, helping the UNC’s women’s basketball team to Final Fours in 2006 and ‘07. Seven years after that second Final Four run, they were on opposite sides doing battle in the WNBA playoffs. Latta and Larkins were both key pieces respectively for the Washington Mystics and Indiana Fever in 2014. Their teams finished with the exact same record, with the Fever getting the higher seed via tiebreaker. That tiebreaker ended up being somewhat big as it gave them home court advantage when the two teams faced off in the first round of the playoffs. The best of three series started in Indiana, and both Tar Heels had big performances in game one. The Mystics led game one through three quarters, but the Fever eventually took game one with Larkins putting up a game-high 11 rebounds. In a losing effort, Latta led her team in points and assists with 22 and five. Washington had no room for error in such a short series, and their loss came back to haunt them. The Fever took game two as well, this one in overtime. Larkins again had a big day on the boards, again grabbing a game high 11 rebounds. Latta was held to just 2-13 shooting and failed to make a three-pointer for the first time that season.

This post is in collaboration with MacKenzie-Childs I find the kitchen to be one of the most difficult rooms in a house to decorate. It’s probably one of the busiest spaces in a home that people continually congregate to and it needs to be full of necessities vs. non-necessities. Besides some extra counter space and...{Read more} The post How to Accessorize a Kitchen 101 appeared first on Coffee Beans and Bobby Pins.

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