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Heels haven't had it easy on the football field By NOLAN HAYES : The Herald-Sun nhayes@heraldsun.com Aug 23, 2006 : 12:31 am ET CHAPEL HILL -- Less than two months after being named the head football coach at North Carolina, John Bunting faced a big decision. UNC had an opportunity to play reigning NCAA champion Oklahoma in the Hispanic College Fund Football Classic to open the 2001 season. Were the Tar Heels interested? Bunting knew how he felt about it, but he checked with his players to see if they felt the same way. To his delight, they did. Heading to Norman, Okla., to take on a program that had gone 13-0 the year before gave Bunting little chance to start his UNC coaching career with a victory, but he wanted to set a tone for his tenure. Boy, did he ever. The Tar Heels enter the 2006 season having played tougher schedules than any team in the nation over the past five years, according to a compilation of Sagarin ratings (see chart). UNC is the only team in the country to play a top-five schedule each of the past two years, and it's one of only three schools -- Notre Dame and Stanford are the others -- to play a top-20 schedule in each of the last five years. The University of North Carolina? More like the School of Hard Knocks. "Our players know what it's like to play a No. 1 schedule, that's for sure," said Bunting, who is 24-36 at UNC, including 11-12 in the last two seasons. "We haven't had an easy team on our schedule one time, really. Even William & Mary [in 2004] was a good team -- they played in the semifinals of the [NCAA Division] I-AA championship. They were very good. "I think those things pay off." The Tar Heels believe they're ready to reap the rewards in 2006. "We're a team that loves to battle," senior defensive end Brian Rackley said. "And with the schedules we've played in the past, we've learned to fight." UNC fought its way into a bowl game in 2004 with six wins against the nation's toughest schedule, but the team came up one win short of bowl eligibility last season against the nation's fifth-toughest slate. While the Tar Heels never set out to create schedules that tough -- football schedules are made out several years in advance, and no one can accurately predict which programs will rise and which will fall -- that's what they ended up with in recent years. UNC's slate ranked No. 11 in 2003, No. 5 in 2002 and No. 16 in 2001. The 2006 schedule -- which features nonconference games against Rutgers, Furman, South Florida and Notre Dame, in addition to ACC competition -- hardly looks like a picnic, either. Rutgers is coming off its first bowl appearance since 1978, Furman was a Division I-AA semifinalist last season and beat UNC 28-3 in 1999, South Florida is fresh off the first bowl game in school history, and Notre Dame is ranked No. 2 in the country. But UNC's veteran players, who watched an N.C. State team they beat last season go to a bowl game (a win over South Florida) with help from the nation's No. 43 schedule, have the advantage of knowing that this season's schedule can't be any tougher than what they already have seen. "Our out-of-conference schedule may be not as strong as it was in the past, but if you look at other teams in the ACC, other North Carolina teams -- I won't mention any names -- those guys played Citadel and school of the blind," UNC senior wide receiver Jesse Holley said. "They get three or four wins, and the next thing you know they're in a bowl game somewhere because they played two handicapped schools. "We've got Notre Dame. Furman, what were they, in the NCAA I-AA championship? And they've won here before. And South Florida is not a slouch, either. They beat the brakes off of Louisville, and Louisville beat us by 50. So there's still some good teams that we're playing." UNC's hope this season is that the costs of playing a tough nonconference schedule don't exceed the rewards. Tough nonconference games benefit teams because they offer good preparation for the conference season, entertain fans and attract increased media attention and TV exposure that help recruiting. On the flip side, those tough games can contribute to slow starts to the season -- UNC never has had a winning record after five games under Bunting -- and make it more difficult to qualify for a bowl game. The Tar Heels have enjoyed the gift of playing in loads of high-profile games -- "I get excited week in and week out because I get another opportunity to show my level of confidence and talent against the top echelon teams," Holley said -- but they've endured the curse of constant struggle. Given how difficult the ACC has become after expansion, the Tar Heels haven't had a chance to catch their breath in the last couple of seasons. "It got frustrating sometimes because you knew that you couldn't ever take a little break," senior tailback Ronnie McGill said. "You couldn't have a week off to try to just get your things down. When you got in a hole, it just seemed like things kept getting worse because the team you were playing next week was just as tough as the team you played the week before." Playing all those tough teams has helped make the Tar Heels tougher, a goal that was at the top of Bunting's list when he set out to "change the culture" of the program he inherited. After being blown out by halftime on four occasions in 2004, UNC proved it belonged on the field with tough opponents in 2005. With the exception of their 69-14 loss at Louisville, the Tar Heels entered the third quarter of every game either ahead or within four points of the lead. Some of the games got away late -- Bunting likes to call those missed opportunities "M.O.'s" -- but UNC's players made a point to their opponents and to themselves. "The most important thing is that we've seen that we can compete with those guys," Holley said. "We've gotten a lot of respect from a lot of different teams inside this conference and outside this conference, and we've got to continue to go out there and play hard and finish those games." The Tar Heels appear to be in better position to do that now than they were in years past. UNC's seniors were around for the team's 2-10 season in 2003, and the fifth-year players witnessed the team's 3-9 performance in 2002. Those teams had virtually no chance to succeed against their tough schedules. This team, with an improved defense and more speed throughout its depth chart than in recent years, does. "I think one thing that our players know, particularly the older players, is they know what it's like to be a very bad team and what it's like to be a very competitive team," Bunting said. "Now, we want to eliminate those M.O.'s, minimize the mistakes and maximize the opportunities that we will have. And we will have them because we will create them. We'll be able to create opportunities." |
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