North Carolina 20, Virginia Tech 17. In the big picture, the Tar Heels' season-saving upset is on the ACC-leading defense: Carolina shut out Virginia Tech for a half, held the Hokies to 256 yards, sacked Tyrod Taylor three times and forced two turnovers, one setting up the game-winning field goal. Twice with its back against the goal line, the Heel defense was inches away from turning Tech away on its only two touchdowns. The Hokies had to work for everything they got, and they didn't get much.

But that was more or less expected from the UNC defense -- if you gave Virginia Tech 17 points coming into this game, Frank Beamer and a large percentage of the betting public on Tech would probably have taken it, because North Carolina's struggling, lo-fi offense was too hopeless to make anything happen against a Bud Foster defense on the road, where this fading season was set to go to black. And it should have, right after T.J. Yates' disastrous dump-off into the arms of Tech's Rashad Carmichael set up a five-yard touchdown "drive" to put the Hokies up 17-14 early in the fourth quarter, a classic coffin moment if ever there was one, especially for a team that collapsed in the second half last week against Florida State.

Instead of taking solace in a strong underdog effort and crawling into the fetal position for the last 10 minutes, though, UNC responded with an epic 16-play, nearly nine-minute march, converting three third downs and a fourth down on the way to the tying field goal, then took the Hokies' own disastrous turnover, drained the last three minutes off the clock and chipped in the winner. Just like that, catastrophe averted; shot at a respectable season salvaged, in probably the least likely setting for pulling off such a turnaround.

Now, the bigger reassessment is of Virginia Tech, whose longstanding alpha dog role in the ACC hierarchy is almost certainly finished for the season with a second conference loss, barring an utter collapse by new Coastal Division frontrunner Georgia Tech -- and given the typically unpredictable, cutthroat nature of this conference as it unfolds again, there's no good reason not to expect the Yellow Jackets to take a similar dive at some point, too. Virginia Tech is as close as this league has had to a sure thing from the moment it entered in 2004 -- four division titles in five years, three conference titles and the highest final poll finish in the conference five years in a row. Right now, though, the Hokies are just one of the rabble, a half-game ahead of Miami for fourth place in the Coastal Division, sitting behind Virginia and Duke going into the weekend (and since Virginia and Duke play Saturday, coming out of the weekend, too).

That can change -- Va. Tech was in the same wobbly position after losing three out of four at Boston College, Florida State and Miami in late October and early November last year, and wound up back in the conference penthouse by December. But with the same old issues with the passing game continuing to bog them down and a clearly less-than-killer defense by Hokie standards, there's nothing right now that clearly separates Tech from the pack. If this is still their conference, the Hokies will have to prove it down the stretch again, and get plenty of help along the way.