default-cbs-image

Life as a quarterback is not easy. There's a lot of responsibility that falls on your shoulders. Not only are you considered the leader of the team, but you have to know more about everything than your teammates do.

If you're the quarterback, you have to know the entire offense, and everybody's assignment. You also have to know about defenses, too, even if you don't play it, because you're looking across the line of scrimmage at it and assessing the situation on every single play.

So what I'm saying is, you've got an awful lot to worry about on every play when you're the quarterback, so it isn't really fair that you need to start worrying about umpires stripping you of the ball, but you can add that to North Carolina quarterback Mitch Trubisky's to-do list.

This was just part of a rough day for Trubisky. Aside from that fumble, he also threw two interceptions -- including a pick six -- in North Carolina's 25-23 loss to Stanford in the Sun Bowl. The good news for Trubisky is that, while he made his mistakes, he also put his team in a position to win the game at the end.

Trubisky led a drive in the final minutes with the Tar Heels down eight points. He threw roughly four touchdown passes on the drive, but his receivers dropped a few of them, and one was just broken up at the last moment. He finally connected with Bug Howard for the score with less than a minute left to cut Stanford's lead to two, but then Solomon Thomas happened on the two-point conversion.

That was just one of many stellar plays Thomas made on the afternoon, as he proved to be an even bigger problem for Trubisky than the umpire. Thomas finished the game with seven tackles and two sacks.