University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: New Attitude Tar Heels Overcome Pack.
September 29, 2001 | Football
Sept. 29, 2001
By Adam Lucas
TarHeelBlue.com
No one is looking down on John Bunting anymore. Literally.
The first-year North Carolina head coach met the media while standing on a chair Saturday afternoon after his team's 17-9 victory over NC State. The overflow media horde that wanted to hear his comments pushed him out of the planned speaking area and onto the folding chair.
Maybe it was a metaphor or maybe it was just poor facilities. But the Tar Heels have to be the happiest 2-3 team in college football history.
The truth is that Carolina hasn't stopped making the mistakes that plagued them earlier this season. Instead, they've just learned how to recover from them.
Their running game was middling on Saturday, and the passing game wasn't much better. Jacque Lewis had a key fumble that looked like it could have been a game-changer, and Ronald Curry took a sack instead of throwing the ball away on a crucial play with seven minutes remaining in the fourth quarter that took the Heels out of field goal range.
Those type of mistakes buried Carolina in early-season games at Oklahoma and Texas. They still make them, but they've learned how to counterpunch instead of being sucker punched.
A series of plays early in the game was indicative of the rope-a-dope style of football this Tar Heel team plays. First, Ronald Curry converted a key third-and-four to Kory Bailey. On the next play, he unwisely chose to throw into the middle of the field and the ball was picked off.
But the Carolina defense forced a three-and-out and Bosley Allen returned the punt 26 yards to virtually erase the mistake, until Darian Durant threw an interception. But then David Thornton's seismic hit on the Bobby Hurley-like Philip Rivers forced a fumble, leading to a UNC scoring opportunity...until Jeff Reed's field goal attempt hit the uprights.
Despite all the missed chances and turnovers, Carolina exited that series with a 7-6 lead.
"The main difference from the first game is that right now when we make mistakes we're not hanging our heads," receiver Chesley Borders said.
Watching the UNC sideline, you can visibly see the change in attitude that the team has undergone since late August. It was perhaps exemplified best by the beleaguered Curry, who rolled out in the first quarter, evaded Levar Fisher, and then lowered his head and trucked J.J. Washington.
It wasn't the typical Ronald Curry play. But this 2001 football team, which was given up for dead three weeks ago, has ceased being typical.
Playing at NC State is one of the most challenging places in the Atlantic Coast Conference for any Carolina team to play, and not just because Carter-Finley Stadium is the only place in the league with both an inflatable wolf and an inflatable cow.
Wolfpack fans loathe Carolina with a white-hot passion. They even booed the Carolina band when it performed at halftime. But the partisan crowd was simply no match for the thousands of Oklahoma fans who gathered to boo the UNC team bus, or the 70,000 Texas fans singing "The Eyes of Texas."
"We've been on the road in environments like this," Bunting said. "I told the team at halftime that we had been here before."
In fact, they had played a very similar foe last week, when Florida State committed a rash of silly penalties and their "hit until the echo of the whistle" style eventually caught up with them.
NC State coach Chuck Amato, who spent 14 years in Tallahassee as an assistant, evidently imported some of that attitude to Raleigh. He has his own line of "Chuck 'em" clothing that purports to promote his attitude and style. Unfortunately, that attitude resulted in 101 penalty yards, including three personal foul calls.
"They're probably the most undisciplined team we have played as far as personal fouls," Borders said. "They try to build on that type of thing and we knew we just had to overcome it."
While Borders chatted with reporters, the Carter-Finley scoreboard blared the group Fuel's new song, "Bad Day," a song with a chorus of, "I had a bad day again."
The Pack has now had bad days eight of the last nine years against UNC and 10 of the last 12 times in Raleigh. And suddenly, John Bunting is seeing things from a new altitude.
ALSO BY ADAM LUCAS
Adam Lucas is the co-publisher of Basketball America. He is a lifelong observer of UNC sports and can be reached at JAdamLucas@aol.com.
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