University of North Carolina Athletics
Tar Heels Ready To Move On
September 5, 2007 | Football
Sept. 5, 2007
By Turner Walston
Saturday, September 1 was a great night for Carolina football. The sellout crowd at beautiful Kenan Stadium cheered the Tar Heels to a 37-14 victory over James Madison. It was a happy debut for Butch Davis. There were touchdowns and fireworks, interceptions and skydivers. The players joined students, alumni and fans in singing the alma mater following the game. Football was back in Chapel Hill.
"It was awesome," said right tackle Garrett Reynolds. "It was just a great atmosphere running out of that tunnel, and [the fans] didn't quiet down. It was awesome playing in front of them, and I'm glad we could produce and give them a win."
Defensive end Hilee Taylor agreed. "It was wild. The students were in it the whole night. The fans were in it. We all used the crowd to our advantage."
But now it's over. This weekend, the Tar Heels will travel down Highway 264 to Greenville to face the Pirates of East Carolina University. The James Madison win, as sweet as it was, is a memory now. "It's 12 one-week seasons. It's not 12 games," Davis said Monday. "Right now, this game's the most important game on our schedule, and no other game matters." Davis has instituted the "24-hour rule" in his locker room following any one game. "Win or lose, that game's history," he said. "It's in the books."
"You leave it in the past," linebacker Durell Mapp said. "You win, that's good, that's great. Twenty-four hours, celebrate, and then just go to our next opponent. You really have no time to waste," he said.
Following that 24 hours, attention shifts to the next opponent. "We're completely, totally done with JMU," quarterback T.J. Yates said. "We're completely focused on East Carolina."
Most of the crowd that was behind the Tar Heels on Saturday won't make it to Greenville. Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium will be full of Pirate fans that would love nothing better than to hand the Heels a loss.
"East Carolina is a very difficult place to go and play," Davis said. "It is loud, it is enthusiastic. Their fans do a great job of getting behind their football team, and that obviously will add an additional challenge to a young team, being able to handle the crowd noise and going on the road."
If the Pirates have their way, there will be no using the crowd to the visitors' advantage. Still, the Tar Heels said they could find ways to get motivated.
"I kind of like being the bad guys," Mapp said. "We're just going to feed off that excitement. We're going to take everything they dish out, and we're going to try to use it against them."
"When you run out and are getting booed, it kind of gets you pumped up," Reynolds said. "It's definitely different, but it's also a fun atmosphere to play in."
Perhaps a road game will inspire the young Tar Heels to look to each other for motivation. "I think it really makes the team have to work harder to support each other and pump each other up, because you don't have the fans there doing it for you," Yates said.
The Tar Heels aren't looking past the Pirates, who were 7-6 in 2006 and made an appearance in the Papajohns.com Bowl. East Carolina dropped a 17-7 decision in their opener at Virginia Tech on Saturday. "They're a great team, and I think (they) opened everybody's eyes," Yates said. "They played Virginia Tech really hard, so we've got our hands full."
The Tar Heels are done with the James Madison game. They've studied the tape and learned from it. They're through talking about the game and have moved on to preparing for East Carolina. Still, on a team with plenty of youth, it's important to have an early taste of the emotions that came with winning. "It's going to make them want more," safety Trimane Goddard said. "Make them want to study more, make them want to watch film more, so you can get more results like this."
