BLACKSBURG -- They all tried.

Teammates, coaches, the team chaplain.

They all tried to console Virginia Tech tailback Ryan Williams, who blamed himself for the 14th-ranked Hokies' 20-17 loss to North Carolina on Thursday night.

The devastated Williams sat on the Hokies' bench with a towel on his head after the fumble, which enabled Casey Barth to kick the winning 21-yard field goal seven plays later.

"When the game was on the line, ... the ball was in my hands. So regardless of what happened previously, with us not scoring when we were capable of scoring, ... I fumbled when I shouldn't have," the redshirt freshman said Thursday at Lane Stadium after the loss. "Regardless of what everybody else is saying, I took it as a personal thing and I kind of felt like it was my fault."

The Hokies tried to comfort Williams -- on the bench, as he walked off the field, and in the small meeting room in which the team gathered after the game.

"There probably isn't really anything you can do to lift me up because, regardless of what anybody's saying, personally I feel like I kind of took the game away from us," said Williams, whose team visits East Carolina Thursday.

"But I've got to move on. I've got to bounce back. ... A day or two, or whatever it can take to get over what happened, that's what it'll be. But next Thursday, I'll be the same old guy out there on the field."

Oddly enough, Williams was asked to run the ball on that play even though it was third-and-6 from the VT 28, with a little more than two minutes left in a tie game.

After UNC's Tydreke Powell forced the fumble. Deunta Williams recovered the ball at the VT 30 and returned it 6 yards.

Receiver Dyrell Roberts, who dropped what would have been a touchdown pass in last year's loss to Miami, spoke to Williams after the game.

"There's nothing we can really do but just keep lifting his spirits," Roberts said. "I've been in that situation before -- last year -- so I know exactly what he's feeling like. ... It does hurt."

Thursday was the first time Tech lost to an unranked ACC team since a 2004 loss to N.C. State. Brandon Pace missed what would have been the winning field goal in that defeat.

"Pace ... came back and won a lot of football games for us," Tech coach Frank Beamer said. "Ryan Williams is going to do the same thing.

"Everybody's behind Ryan, and he knows that."

The defeat was the first time the Hokies (5-3, 3-2 ACC) lost on a game-ending play since California won on a game-ending field goal in the Insight Bowl in December 2003.

"When you come out on the losing end sometimes, you feel this feeling and you're crushed," Roberts said.

Although Williams felt it was his fault, there was plenty of blame to go around.

"All of us did something that wasn't right," Beamer said. "We're not consistently good."

"We kind of beat ourselves," quarterback Tyrod Taylor said.

The Hokies came away empty on five first-half series in which they drove inside the UNC 40 or began the possession inside the UNC 40. In the fourth quarter, the Hokies had to settle for a field goal after driving to the UNC 19.

"There [were] too many drives that we had that we [were] moving the ball and we just couldn't finish," Roberts said.

Rashad Carmichael set up a Hokie touchdown with a big interception, but the Tech defense was disappointed in itself for failing to get off the field on some long UNC drives.

The Tar Heels scored touchdowns on a 13-play, 84-yard drive and on a nine-play, 84-yard drive, and kicked the tying field goal after a 16-play, 78-yard drive. UNC, which entered the game ranked No. 114 out of 120 Division I-A teams in total offense, finished 10-of-19 on third-down conversions and also succeeded on a key fourth-down play.

"It's tough to take in right now," safety Kam Chancellor said. "They made a few calls that caught us in a bad defense sometimes. But I think it was just us also -- just poor execution. ... It's a bad game by the defense because we gave up too many big plays."

The Hokies will try to right themselves after two straight losses that crippled their ACC and BCS title dreams.

"The motivation is to come out here [and win] so you don't feel like this again," linebacker Cody Grimm said.