Notre Dame wasn't going to beat itself. The Irish proved that long ago, against Clemson and everyone else in this semester abroad in the ACC. North Carolina's best chance Saturday was to do likewise and hope, in the end, that Sam Howell could outduel Ian Book.
The Tar Heels flinched when the moment came Friday. The Irish did not.
Not that the game came down to one play, but while the score was still tied in the third quarter, one play did change its direction, one play that epitomized how the Tar Heels couldn't get out of their own way.
North Carolina had pushed the Irish to a fourth-and-1 deep in their own territory. Book, Notre Dame's spectacularly creative quarterback, stayed on the field. He made a big show out of pretending to prepare a play, leaving the shotgun to run up to the line, maybe the oldest and tiredest trick in the game, the football equivalent of the old fake-to-third-throw-to-first move that works once a generation, all in hopes North Carolina would make a mental mistake and jump offside.
North Carolina made a mental mistake and jumped offside. While there was absolutely no chance whatsoever the Irish would actually go for it on its own 24, Jeremiah Gemmel and Raymond Vohasek both still flinched on the North Carolina defensive line. Flags flew. First down. The drive ended with a tight-end sweep for the go-ahead score in a 31-17 Notre Dame win.
"I felt like me and Ray were onside," Gemmel said, "but what I heard from the ref was, we made a movement to try to go, and if you flinch they consider that a penalty."
Mack Brown, afterward, questioned whether a Notre Dame lineman had reached out, or Book had been moving under center, but knew it didn't, in the end, matter: It never should have come to that anyway.
"Everybody in the stadium, everyone watching the game, knew what they were doing," the UNC coach said. "We can't have somebody offside. It's ridiculous. It shouldn't have been close. They shouldn't have moved. We knew they weren't going to go for it."
By such small margins, games at this level are not only influenced, but decided.
And so UNC remained winless in its history against top-two teams, saw whatever slim hopes it had of making it to Charlotte evaporate and demonstrated the gap that still exists between a perennial sleeping giant like North Carolina and a fully awakened giant like Notre Dame.
There was certainly more to it, whether it was Book creating everything from nothing with his legs or backhanded discus throws, or the Notre Dame defense being one of the very few to have every answer for Howell and North Carolina's offense after the opening few minutes. The offside penalty wasn't the reason the Tar Heels didn't score again after that.
"You can't rush for 87 yards and have six sacks and beat anybody, let alone a really good Notre Dame team," Brown said.
But that moment, with the game hanging in the balance, North Carolina flinched. Notre Dame, on Friday and throughout this season, has not, as the Irish have cruised through their short-term conference accommodations, catching Clemson without Trevor Lawrence and squeaking past Louisville, but beating the rest of their temporary brethren by two touchdowns or more.
While it's still jarring to see the ACC logo next to the Notre Dame logo, the undefeated Irish are all but certain at this point to complete their first and likely only ACC season playing in a title game North Carolina once had visions of playing in itself.
The Irish suffered only one similar self-inflicted wound Friday, when star safety Kyle Hamilton lowered his head and delivered a fierce helmet-to-helmet hit on defenseless receiver Josh Downs. It was a no-question, no-doubt targeting hit, and Hamilton was ejected.
Hamilton pounded his fists on the ground in anger — with himself. He didn't argue or complain, but knew it was unquestionably targeting. That's what tying an ejection to targeting was supposed to do: Change the attitude among players toward hits like that. Hamilton's reaction showed progress has been made toward getting these hits out of the game. Even if not that particular one.
It could have been a critical error of equal significance, but Notre Dame's defense regrouped without a hitch, dominating the line of scrimmage to take the pressure off its weakened secondary, and made no others of its ilk.
The offside, on the other hand, was one of many miscues for North Carolina, and wasn't even the only critical penalty on that 97-yard Notre Dame drive, the game-winning drive as it turned out.
But it wasn't just that one penalty alone, or any of the penalties alone. It was all of it together, the assemblage of things North Carolina did to itself and Notre Dame didn't.
