CHAPEL HILL—The minutes and hours crept by like molasses. Friday grudgingly turned to Saturday, Saturday after a bitter fight gave way to Sunday, and so on through the tedious and tortured week. This watched-pot never boiled. Oh, to rinse away the bitter backwash of that four-point loss to South Carolina and have a do-over, one pass launched a little higher, one block sustained a little longer, one pursuit angle taken with more precision.
“The week was so long, so long,” tight end Kendrick Singleton said. “Every day it was, ‘Get me to Saturday.