Carolina Football
Coach Butch Davis of North Carolina claims to live in a bat cave during the season, but even that isolation won't keep him safe from one of college football's legendary programs.
Notre Dame will play UNC at Kenan Stadium on Saturday, making its first appearance in Chapel Hill in 33 years. Notre Dame is on the rebound from some trying seasons, but Davis is aware of what the game can mean to his team and its fan base.
A Challange: Fighting Irish coming to Kenan
The Winston-Salem Journal
Cameron Sexton knows this is a big game this week, in part because so many people are telling him it is. Shaun Draughn knows it must be bigger than normal because so much seemed to be going on around the stadium Monday morning.
North Carolina will play Notre Dame on Saturday, and it will be a big football game for a lot of reasons. For the players, it has nothing to do with Joe Montana or Knute Rockne or the long, trumpeted history of the Fighting Irish, who haven't been here in 33 years.
Big game, but not one for the ages
The Greensboro News and Record
Few, if any, North Carolina football players had ever heard of Joe Montana before Oct. 11, 1975.
But since that humid, heart-wrenching, historic day, he's been awfully hard to forget.
Joe Montana's reputation born at UNC
The News and Observer
Before Joe Montana broke a lot of North Carolina hearts Oct. 11, 1975, very few Carolina folks had ever heard of the Notre Dame quarterback.
A couple of exceptions were Dean Smith and Bill Guthridge.
Those patriarchs of Carolina basketball knew a good deal about Montana, who was an early 1970s basketball recruiting target as a prep standout in Pennsylvania.
UNC fans saw legend unfold
The News and Observer
It didn't take long for North Carolina's Brandon Tate to make an impact during his freshman year.
In just the fourth game of the 2005 season, he returned the opening kickoff of his team's contest against Utah 96 yards for a touchdown.
"I remember the crowd, the feeling," Tate told the Raleigh News & Observer, "and that I wanted to do it again."
Tate a special force for North Carolina
The South Bend Tribune
Shaun Draughn said it took him awhile to work up the nerve to go to North Carolina football coach Butch Davis and tell him he wanted to try a new position.
After spending two seasons, one a redshirt year, in the Tar Heels' crowded defensive backfield, the former Tarboro High School standout running back wanted a shot at his old position.
Tar Heels' Draughn finds comfortable position
The Burlington Times-News
The simple explanation as to why North Carolina leads the country in interceptions was offered by linebacker Mark Paschal shortly after the Tar Heels picked off three Connecticut passes in their 38-12 win over the Huskies on Saturday.
Feeling picked on? UNC leads country in INTs
The Durham Herald-Sun
Notre Dame coach Charlie Weis doesn't have to worry about motivating his team this week with a trip to North Carolina next on the schedule.
His players are on a seasonlong mission to win back respect lost last year during a 3-9 season. A road victory over the 22nd-ranked Tar Heels on Saturday (2:30 p.m., Ch. 7, 890-AM) would earn the Irish more than any of their previous four wins -- and likely would propel them into the national rankings.
Winning on road is job No. 1 for Irish
The Chicago Sun-Times
Carolina Basketball
When North Carolina assistant coach Jerod Haase looks at this year’s Tar Heels, he senses something familiar.
Maybe it’s the roster stocked with NBA talent. Maybe it’s the campus teeming with anticipation.
Maybe it’s the character and wit of the players or the sky-high expectations or that gregarious head coach by the name of Roy Allen Williams.
Maybe it’s all those things that cause Haase to reflect on his playing days and his final season at Kansas University in 1996-97.
UNC has a familiar feeling of high expectations as basketball season begins in five weeks
The Fayetteville Observer