North Carolina football absolutely robbed of final play vs. Wake Forest

After falling behind 21-0, North Carolina football engineered a big second-half comeback and it came just short against Wake Forest in controversial fashion.

North Carolina found itself down 21-0 in the second half and the Mack Brown trail seemed to be running out of fuel. After a surprising 2-0 start to the season, the Tar Heels looked like they were coming back down to earth in a road game at Wake Forest.

Although this was scheduled as a non-conference game between conference rivals and therefore won’t count against ACC records, it still provided plenty of bragging rights for the winner and that looked to be the Demon Deacons for about 50 minutes of the game.

But then Sam Howell, who was benched earlier in the game, re-entered the starting lineup and looked like a different quarterback.

Howell led the Tar Heels to 18 consecutive points in the second half before Wake Forest kicked a field goal to put the Demon Deacons up by six with about a minute left. That’s when things got really crazy.

The Tar Heels were driving down the field and then needed to get a play off on a 4th-and-1 and a halfback draw turned into an easy first down and a decent pickup before stepping his left foot out of bounds with one second left — or so everyone thought. The clock ticked off the last second and the refs sprinted off the field without looking at the replace.

Just take a look at the robbery that the Tar Heels were victim of:

The clock has to be stopped at one second there, but the fault can also be put on the running back for not getting out of bounds about 1-2 seconds earlier when he had a chance.

Still, this loss has to haunt Brown and Howell who could have had one final Hail Mary shot to the end zone which could have resulted in a classic. Howell can launch the ball that far and with the momentum the Tar Heels had, a completion to win it wouldn’t have been all that shocking. My condolences, Tar Heel fans.