UNC Football: This year's ACC sleeper?

Greetings from Greensboro.

 "Oh, Greensboro, North Carolina?" you ask.

 No...Greensboro, GEORGIA!

 And if you knew as recently as six months ago that a Greensboro, Ga., existed, then ... well, you're way ahead of me.

 This quaint and well-funded golfing get-away town (a la Pinehurst) is home to this year's ACC Football Kickoff.  I've been asked to describe what the ACC Kickoff is  many times.  Webster's defines it as the following...

 ACC Kickoff (noun): an annual schmooze-fest where the Atlantic Coast Conference lures media members to a posh resort, a free round of golf and two days of interviews with its football coaches and selected players in order to provide said media with stories during a slow sports period and, in turn, give the league some much-needed hype.

 See?  One hand washes the other.

 But don't dare ask me how the golf is here.  I don't golf.  I blog.

 In year's past, interviews consist of coaches and players building up ACC football with undeserved hyperbole and putting the conference up there with the elite leagues across the country. 

 And in years past, the media has let the league slide on this rhetoric despite an overwhelming national opinion that ACC football falls well short when compared to leagues like the SEC, Pac 10 and Big XII.

 This year, it's a little different.  ACC coaches point to the league's high NFL draft picks.  The media is ready to fire back, and that bullet in the chamber reads, "ACC's all-time BCS bowl game record: 1-9" (with eight straight losses, mind you).  And what year did the league have an at-large team make a BCS bowl?  Oh wait, it never happened.

 So in the media's eyes down here, the league's honeymoon period has ended.  The expansion era brought big dreams of dollar signs and football national titles to the minds of the ACC brass.  Well, the money has come (as evidenced by this hotel).  The wins on the gridiron?  Not so much.

 That's the league-wide scuttlebutt here.  Locally, it's the UNC bandwagon.  Get a ticket fast.  It's filling up quickly.  "Experts" are picking the Tar Heels to finish as high as second or even (gulp) FIRST in the Coastal Division! 

 N.C. State fans, I can hear your battle-cry...

 What?!?  Carolina won only four games last year!  Gotdang Carolina journalism grads in the media! 

 Well, at least we don't have Herb Sendek anymore.

 But, hey, don't worry.  This is the same media group that picked Wake Forest to finish last in its division two years ago.  All the Deacs did was go out and win the ACC championship that season.  So basically, we don't really know what we're talking about.  We think we do, in order to sleep easy knowing we can pay the bills doing a job that doesn't require heavy lifting.  But we really don't.  

So I offer you the reasons behind this year's love for UNC football.

Who else? I admit, not my original theory (thank you, Dave Nathan of The Fan).  But look at the Coastal Division.  Other than Virginia Tech (and do they really look that strong this year?), who jumps out as a scary squad?  Not Miami.  Not Duke.  Virginia?  Well, they did win all those close games last year.  Still, the loss of QB Jameel Sewell and DE Chris Long makes you think they’ll finish on the other end of most of those tight games this year.  Georgia Tech?  Eh, maybe. It’s a team undergoing a total offensive system change this season under new coach Paul Johnson, so the Jackets are an interesting case study.  But it’s a lot to ask.   That leaves Carolina.  But hey, many people used this logic when they picked State to finish third in the league in basketball and see how that turned out.

They meet the “sexy pick” criteria.  See, we all like to make that smart pick, to show we know better.  It's why most people's NCAA brackets have that sleeper No. 4 seed in the Final Four.  Picking the obvious answer is perceived as boring.  Safer, often smarter, but boring.  It's why people pick Clemson to finish at the top of the conference before every season (zero ACC title game appearances for the Tigers, by the way).  It’s why ESPN talking heads build up the Arizona Cardinals each preseason.  We want to call our shot and say, "See, no one else had (fill team in the blank) to go that far, but *I* had them before everyone else did.”  The problem is so many people think that way that we all land on the preseason pick and look stupid when it never pans out.

Folks, Carolina is that team we’ve all agreed upon this year.

Virginia Tech is not sexy.  In quarterback-driven college football, a mediocre Sean Glennon leading the Hokies to a league title just doesn’t sit well.  It happened once, but twice?  So this isn’t the year to pick safe.  This isn’t putting Carolina and Duke at the top of the basketball poll every year.  It’s the year to pick sexy.  That’s Carolina because of its…

Skill players.  The good news for the ACC this year is that many competent quarterbacks return.  That’s a start.  T.J. Yates is one of them.  If he stays healthy (and he’s coming off shoulder sugary), he can really turn a corner.  UNC players admit Yates was not the same quarterback in the second half of the year because he hurt the shoulder in mid-season.  If we see Yates from the first half of the season return next year, that’s a great starting point for improvement.  He has the weapons at wide receiver.  Hakeem Nicks may be the best in the league.  Speedster Brandon Tate can catch the deep ball Yates threw so well early in the year and Brooks Foster is can always capably — if not consistently--deliver a 100-yard game any night.                                                                                    

Then there’s the wild card:  running back Greg Little.  For the first 10 games last year, his title was “wide receiver Greg Little”.  Butch Davis admits now that might have been a mistake.  Little came to Carolina as one of those highly recruited yet non-descript “athletes”, a man who could play any skill position if he found the right fit.  It turns out, this playmaker may fit in best at running back.  That’s what the Carolina camp will tell you.  After a year of playing running back by committee, the Heels landed on Little for the team’s final two games.  Little came up big with 89 rushing yards at Georgia Tech and 154 yards and 2 touchdowns against Duke. 

But that begs the question:  Do two good games versus Georgia Tech and Duke make this kid the next Barry Sanders?  Answer:  Uhhh, no.  But Little is a bona fide playmaker.  He’s strong.  He’s fast.  He’s exciting.  He’s the gear that key cog that could complete an offensive machine.

Butch Davis.  Hey, with that $291,000 raise after one season, you can expect Carolina fans to expect more than four wins this season.  It comes with the territory.  He can recruit.  He proved that at both Miami and so far at UNC.  But with increased salary comes an increased expectation for wins.  Right, Chuck Amato?

So that’s the method behind the media’s madness. 

Still, this team is young.  Carolina was the only team not to bring a senior player for interviews at the ACC Kickoff for interviews. 

Also, we all love offense, but football has two other phases:  special teams and defense.

The special teams will have to recover from the departure of kicker Connor Barth and his ability to boot any field goal from inside (and often outside) 50 yards.  That won’t exactly help the offense either.

As for defense? 

Carolina was an excellent pass rushing team a year ago.  But that was with Kentwan Balmer, Hillee Taylor and Durell Mapp.  They are gone.

Also, the Heels _ ninth in the ACC in rushing defense a year ago _ haven’t stopped the run since Mack Brown took that train to Austin.  A lot will fall on sophomore Marvin Austin.  He could be a star in this league one day, but it takes time to do that at defensive tackle.   

Carolina is probably one year away from the successful expectations bestowed upon them.  But with that schedule, eight wins is easily within grasp.

If the Heels fall short, well, basketball practice is less than three months away.