Welp, Larry Fedora has ANOTHER loss to ECU to try and forget

East Carolina took down North Carolina 38-19 on Saturday afternoon, marking the third straight victory in five seasons for the Pirates over UNC. At halftime, ECU led the Tar Heels 21-19, but in the second half the Pirates scored 20 unanswered points to win in front of the home crowd in Greenville.

The last time UNC played here in 2014, the Tar Heels suffered a blowout to the Pirates in a similar fashion — ECU beat UNC, 70-41, in front of a record Pirate crowd.

Ahead of this game, UNC head coach Larry Fedora was asked about that blowout four years ago, and he claimed he had no memory of it:

He was later asked to expand on his comments about not remembering. Let’s just say he stuck to his story:

Jonathan Alexander: “Some was made about what you said on the David Glenn Show that you don’t remember the last loss against ECU. Do you really not remember what happened that game?”

Larry Fedora: “That’s what I said, yeah. That’s what I said.”

JA: “Is that like a selective memory? Like you just want to forget the bad and just move on, what is that?”

LF “Selective memory, that’s probably a pretty good way to put it. I remember what I wanna remember, you know, and block out the things that I want to block out.”

It’s also possible that Fedora could have been joking here — I mean, wouldn’t you just claim you don’t remember a blowout so you don’t have to talk about it? Pretty smart strategy! And there’s a good chance Fedora doesn’t remember every single thing that went wrong against ECU four years ago — coaches take everything game by game.

Immediately after that 2014 loss, Fedora didn’t exactly sound like he was going to forget it right away. From the Charlotte Observer:

He had just walked off the field, his head high, taking in the scene around him. His eyes seemed locked on the scoreboard, as if he wanted to remember this.

“I don’t know,” he said when asked what had disappointed him most about this, one of the most humbling defeats in school history. “I don’t know what the most disappointing aspect (was). There were a lot of disappointments.”

“It makes you re-evaluate everything,” Fedora said via the newspaper. “It makes you re-evaluate who you are, who I am, and who we are as a football team. And we’ll find out a lot about who we are. We really will.”

So yeah, I definitely assumed Fedora was messing around here. Even if he wasn’t, I just find it hilarious that a college football head coach — a job which requires you to remember a lot — would just outright claim pure memory blockage.

More coaches (and even fans!) should do this. Georgia’s 42-7 win over Florida last year? What? Oh, I’m sorry, I don’t remember that game whatsoever.

Congrats to ECU and the AAC who’s had three victories over Power 5 teams so far this season! I wonder if Fedora will remember this loss better than the 2014 one.