After a few years of swapping sidelines, Victory Bell has found a home (again) at UNC

The days when the Victory Bell changed hands in a cloud of aerosol fumes are long gone anyway. The traveling trophy is now safely and quietly repainted long after the heat of battle has passed, when required.

It just hasn’t been required lately.

By the time North Carolina’s Emery Simmons went for a ride on the bell to midfield to be surrounded by his teammates, it had long ago been determined that the Victory Bell would remain with the Tar Heels, and that’s officially a trend.

North Carolina’s dominance of Duke in Mack Brown’s return to Chapel Hill is starting to look a lot like his first tenure. Brown won eight straight over the 15-501 rivals before his exit, and has won three straight now after Saturday’s 38-7 win.

And after a period when the bell swapped sidelines four times in eight years, it certainly seems to have settled in with the Tar Heels. Again.

This has been a North Carolina season defined by its unpredictability, so there should be as much comfort for the Tar Heels in continuing their success within the state’s borders under Brown — he’s 21-7 against the other three teams in the Big Four at UNC, 6-1 in his return — as there is in shaking off last week’s confounding loss at Georgia Tech with what Brown called their best defensive performance of the season.

“I hear people say, ‘Ah, I’m not going to go anymore,’ “ Brown said. “People better hang on. We’re going to keep getting better. The program is getting better. We saw signs of it today.”

Even if the result had been different Saturday, the days when the Victory Bell would be redecorated immediately after changing hands ended with North Carolina’s spray-paint celebration at Wallace Wade in 2014, an embarrassment with long-term consequences.

The peaceful transfer of the trophy only really became an issue when North Carolina’s long-term tenure with the bell ended — the Tar Heels lost it only once in 22 years, in 2003 — but it hasn’t been an issue lately. Duke had won three straight before Brown’s return to Chapel Hill, and the Tar Heels have won three straight since.

The first was a narrow three-point win — Duke’s ill-advised jump pass at the goal line in 2019 — but the past two have been by 30 points or more, suggesting the gap between the programs is as wide as it has been in a decade.

It certainly felt that way Saturday.

“It’s a huge thing,” UNC receiver Josh Downs said. “We got to keep the Victory Bell at home. We don’t like Duke, and they don’t like us. That was a very big win to keep it going three years in a row.”

Duke could muster very little offensively against even this maligned North Carolina defense, and while the Blue Devils were able to get to Sam Howell and knock him down, they left themselves open to the big plays from Downs and Ty Chandler that ended up winning the game for UNC while making only one of their own.

Still, there was some degree of uncertainty Saturday entering the fourth quarter, when the Tar Heels had been unable to turn their dominance into more than a 17-point lead. A pair of touchdowns were more than enough against a Duke team that never even got into the red zone. The Blue Devils’ only points came on an 80-yard touchdown, the first play of the second half.

Some of that was Duke’s choice. The high-scoring shootout everyone expected had yet to materialize when Duke’s second drive stalled on the North Carolina 37. On fourth-and-9, Duke coach David Cutcliffe elected to punt rather than go for it or try a long field goal.

The questionable decision was compounded by worse execution, a shanked punt resulting in a net field-position change of 15 yards. Chandler broke a 75-yard run-and-catch touchdown three plays later and the rout was on. North Carolina proceeded to average more than 8 yards per play the rest of the half and threw in a defensive touchdown to boot as Duke collapsed on both sides of the ball.

It was 24-0 at the half, the second quarter ending with Duke trying the 56-yard field goal it had earlier declined. Charlie Ham’s kick fell far short into the arms of Trey Morrison, who made it 22 yards before being tackled, then ran off the field straight into the UNC locker room with Duke’s football still in his hands.

The Tar Heels kept the ball, and then the bell.

This story was originally published October 2, 2021 at 4:11 PM with the headline "After a few years of swapping sidelines, Victory Bell has found a home (again) at UNC."

Luke DeCock

The News & Observer

Luke DeCock is a former journalist for the News & Observer.