Tarred & Feathered is live!

Established October 2024, our mission is to inform and entertain fans of college football and college basketball, with a focus on the North Carolina Tar Heels.

It’s both an exciting and nerve-wracking time to root for Carolina. The football program is in what is almost certainly the final year of the Mack Brown reunion tour. Danger and opportunity abound in the coaching search which lies ahead. Who can fill the shoes of the winningest coach in the history of Carolina football? Will they build upon the strengths of Carolina under Coach Brown while addressing the areas of failure? Namely, can they summon a consistently good defense worthy to trod upon the hallowed ground where Lawrence Taylor, Julius Peppers, and Dré Bly used to bring opposing offenses to heel?

Carolina basketball is finding its footing again after the retirement of Roy Williams (class of 1972), the legendary Hall of Famer who brought three NCAA Championship trophies to Chapel Hill – the most of any Tar Heel basketball coach to date. Head Coach Hubert Davis (class of 1992), an understudy of Williams and player for the late Hall of Famer and two-time national champion Dean Smith, is steeped in Carolina blue and instinctively felt like the very man for the job from the moment Williams retired on April Fool’s Day 2021. Since then, Coach Davis has led the Heels through three seasons of ups and downs and amassed a respectable 78-31 record. His Heels earned a defining rivalry win over Duke in the 2022 Final Four, missed the NCAA Tournament entirely the following season (having been pre-season no. 1), and then restored the Carolina standard with an ACC regular season title and Sweet 16 birth in year three. How will the rest of the Davis era unfold? Will the Dean Dome be renovated, or replaced altogether?

Looking to the macroenvironment of college athletics, conference realignment weighs heavily on everyone’s mind: Carolina must wait and see whether the ACC Grant of Rights is as impregnable as the suits in Greensboro would have everyone believe before making its likely move to the SEC or Big Ten. Remuneration for athletes’ Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) and the transfer portal are both rapidly changing how athletes are recruited and retained, in ways which have not yet been fully realized. NIL, in particular, seems likely to draw legislative action which may result in a new equilibrium or simply more lawsuits, depending on who you ask. What conference will UNC compete in in five years’ time? Will it successfully navigate the big changes of this era in college athletics to sign and keep the best talent?

Here at T&F, we will explore the aforementioned subjects and others alongside content about games, schedules, recruiting, and more. While we’ll have our sights set on the court and gridiron for the foreseeable future, we’re open to expanding our commentary to other sports as time goes on. We’ll do our best to present you with the big picture, rather than simply indulge the emotions of the moment after a great win or devastating loss. We’ll be objective about strengths, weaknesses, opponents, and the broader world of college athletics, while remaining Tar Heels born, bred, and dead. We hope you enjoy the journey as much as we will. God bless & go Heels!