RALEIGH, N.C. — Elijah Hood and T.J. Logan ran for touchdowns in a dominating first quarter as No. 11 North Carolina beat North Carolina State 45-34 on Saturday.
Logan scored on runs of 42 and 40 yards, while Hood had a 39-yard run of his own before scoring from a yard out in that 35-point avalanche for the Tar Heels (11-1, 8-0 Atlantic Coast Conference, No. 14 CFP).
UNC also got TD catches from Quinshad Davis and Mack Hollins, tying the program’s single-quarter scoring record by rolling to a 35-7 lead. That was too big of a hole for the Wolfpack (7-5, 3-5), who managed to slow the Tar Heels’ early onslaught but never recovered.
Hood finished with a career-high 220 yards rushing and two touchdowns to lead UNC, which had already wrapped up the Coastal Division title and a trip to next week’s ACC championship game to play No. 1 Clemson.
Still, UNC certainly came out with an edge, driven by the memories of last year’s 35-7 loss in which the Wolfpack physically beat up the Tar Heels and ran for 388 yards.
They wasted no time reversing that score, running for 214 yards and rolling to 308 total yards in the opening period on the way to 553 for the game.
The only problem? The Tar Heels didn’t finish strong. They had three turnovers for the second straight week after going three games without one, and Hollins dropped a sure TD catch in the third quarter that helped keep the Wolfpack hanging around.
Jacoby Brissett threw for two touchdowns and ran for two more for N.C. State, which put together a couple of long drives in the second quarter to finally slow the Tar Heels’ pedal-to-the-floor start. But the Wolfpack, playing on Senior Day, got no closer than 12 points after the opening quarter until a meaningless TD in the final 2 minutes.
Winner of 11 straight, North Carolina earned the program’s first 8-0 run through ACC play. The Tar Heels also became only the fourth team to match the program single-season record of 11 wins, last set in 1997 in Mack Brown’s final season before taking over at Texas.
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