The Mac Attack Podcast
The Hornets 2021-22 season has been a season of winning and losing streaks and the Hornets are currently marred in one of those losing streaks at the moment. Despite 36 points from LaMelo Ball on Wednesday night, the Hornets dropped their third straight game in a thriller 127-125 to the Milwaukee Bucks on the road.
The Carolina Panthers start to the bye week has produced more disappointment following the two-game losing streak that has pushed to the outside looking in at the NFC playoffs. On Monday, running back Christian McCaffrey was deemed out for the season with an unspecified leg injury which has left many confused and wondering about the future of the star running back. Tuesday shifted the focus to the other side of the football when Donte Jackson was placed on the IR with a groin injury.
The North Carolina Tar Heels closed out their 2021 regular season with a collapse against the NC State Wolfpack on Friday night that closed out an extremely disappointing season overall. Tar Heel kicker Grayson Atkins nailed a 50-yard field goal with 2:12 remaining to take a 30-21 and seemingly put the game away, but the Tar Heels would allow the Wolfpack to score twice within the final two minutes to complete one of the worst collapses in college football history.
Coming into last Sunday reunion game in Bank of America Stadium with the Washington Football Team, the Carolina Panthers had some high hopes about the remainder of the 2021-22 season and who could blame them. The team had just brought back arguably the most iconic figure in the history of the franchise and then proceed to go on the road to Arizona and take down one of the NFL best teams in dominant fashion.
The Panthers currently have the eighth toughest remaining schedule based on winning percentage down the stretch of the season, headlined by the brutal four game stretch to finish the season. That stretch makes Sunday's game in Miami for the Panthers as important as just about any game this season for the Panthers as they look to make a playoff push at the direction of the Cam Newton. Earlier today Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk joined the Mac Attack and described just how important this game is for the Panthers.
Amazingly, this weekend is the final weekend of the college football regular season and among the matchups that will headline rivalry weekend will be a matchup between the Clemson Tigers and South Carolina Gamecocks that feels much more competitive than in years past. The Tigers have rebounded from a tough 2-2 start to the season and are now in position to still find their way into a NY6 bowl game, while the Gamecocks will enter the game off a huge upset win over Auburn that makes them bowl eligible in Shane Beamer's first season in Columbia. Not only does Matt Hayes of Saturday Down South, who stopped by with the Mac Attack earlier this morning, believe that the Gamecocks can keep it close, he thinks they have a legitimate chance to pull the upset thanks to Beamer.
Sunday afternoon was supposed to be another perfect chapter to the story of Cam Newton's return to Carolina. The first drive of the game provided a lot of promise for those thoughts, as the Panther offense drove straight down the field to take the early 7-0 lead on a Cam Newton 10-yard touchdown pass to D.J. Moore. However, after that, the Panthers were in a battle with a Washington Football Team that many expected would roll over in the crazy environment that was Bank of America Stadium on Sunday. Instead, Washington was able to move the football up and down the field against the Panthers, finishing with 369 yards of total offense, including 190 on the ground.
In a press conference earlier this week, North Carolina Tar Heels head football coach Mack Brown said that this was going to be quarterback Sam Howell's final game in Kenan Stadium on Saturday afternoon when they face the Wofford Terriers for Senior Day. While Howell said later in the week that he has not made an official decision on that yet, it seems likely that with him looking like he is going to go in the first round of this year's NFL Draft that the Tar Heels will be searching for a new signal-caller ahead of next year's crucial fourth year under Brown second tenure in Chapel Hill.
The Hornets continued their hot streak on Wednesday night, taking down the Washington Wizards, 97-87, giving them their fourth straight win overall and their second consecutive win over a conference leader. While the Hornets scoring has dropped to an average of 106.3 points per game during the win streak, the Hornets defense has cranked it up on the defensive end of the floor, allowing just 98.3 points per game to opponents during that span.
The Clemson Tigers have rallied in the past few weeks to a 7-3 record following a slow start to the season and still have the opportunity to end up in the ACC Championship Game. Even with the rally, which can be topped off with a win over No. 10 Wake Forest this weekend, there are questions abound for a program that has been one of the most dominant in all college football for the better part of the last decade. One of the biggest ones that have been tossed back and forth the most recently has been if this is a one-year trip up or if this is a long term issue that could cause them to be a different team than the one that we have become accustomed to them being.