Carolina's confidence game pays off

The Tar Heels have traveled more than 2,100 miles and 12 months since a humiliating loss last year at Utah.

The North Carolina football team is better than it has been in years, far superior to what most of us thought it could be before the season began.

The No. 1 question at this point is: "Why?" One underlying reason for the improvement is trust.

N.C. State coach Chuck Amato talked about trust as a buzzword for the Wolfpack this season. He worked to develop trust among his offensive and defensive units after some infighting between those guys.

UNC coach John Bunting hasn't made any public proclamations about trust, but he and his staff have nurtured the trait and watched it grow within the program. This is obvious from the way the players talk about the program and the manner in which they go about their business.

Trust took a beating in the transition that occurred in the early years of Bunting's tenure.

Players often doubted whether the man next to them would do his job. The offense doubted the defense, and the coaches and players, whether they admitted to it, doubted one another.

Overcoming this deficiency and building honest-to-goodness trust has required a Herculean effort on the part of everyone involved. The players had to believe the coaches knew what they were doing. Then the players had to learn what they were supposed to do and perform.

The coaching staff had to learn to trust the upperclassmen would lead the team and that the underclassmen would follow. They also had to trust that the players would do the right thing off the field.

"More players are buying into what we do, yeah," Bunting said. "I think that is a big part of it. We have really good leadership on our team. I think that has a lot to do with it.

"These kids have worked harder this spring and summer than any other team we've had here. They know that and feel good about that."

Confidence is another intangible that has made this team so competitive in its first four games. Saturday the Tar Heels (2-2) defeated 3-2 Utah 31-17 in spite of playing poorly on offense throughout the first half and for parts of the second half.

It's been years since UNC could win a game after playing poorly in any aspect.

Just a year ago, Carolina went to Utah and got hammered 46-16. The Tar Heels were beaten down physically and mentally after that one. They came home humiliated (a self-description) and sporting a string of injuries.

There were so many injuries then that Bunting said it would have been hard to put a team on the field had they been required to do so in one week's time.

Instead the Tar Heels had an open date the Saturday after losing at Utah, and they spent much of that first week simply trying to get enough players well in order to practice again. When they did practice, it was in preparation for then-undefeated and fourth-ranked Miami.

If someone told me today they believed Carolina had any chance to win that game against Miami, I'd guess they would be lying. Few, if anyone, outside the football program thought it would be humanly possible for the Tar Heels to even compete with the Hurricanes, given the strength of Miami, the ugly loss to Utah and the string of injuries that haunted the team at the time.

As we know today, UNC beat Miami in a stunning turnaround. It was during that incredible victory that Carolina overcame its self-doubts. The players began to sincerely believe in one another and their coaches. The kids realized that if they could defeat Miami straight up, as they had, there was no reason to fear any opponent.

"These other players are no different from us," junior receiver Jesse Holley said after catching a touchdown pass to put Utah away on Saturday. "They put their helmets and uniforms on the same way as we do. ... We play the best week in and week out. That is only going to make us better. We don't have time to relax. We know every week we have to bring our A-plus-plus game. That is only going to help us in the long run."

By the end of the 2004 season, the question was whether Carolina could carry its newfound confidence and trust into a new season.

It has.

This team has not let up once in four games, regardless of score or circumstances. The Tar Heels have played with confidence even when they did not play well, and that is no small achievement.

When you talk to the players and watch them perform, it's apparent this team is following Bunting's lead. Instead of the grumbling we sometimes heard a couple of years ago, now the players mimic their coach's words and teachings, and we see them emulating his toughness for 60 minutes each Saturday.

"We're changing the culture here," Holley said. "That's what coach Bunting has been preaching to us. When I came here in '03, I was a part of the change-of-culture group. People say Carolina is a cup-cake school. Carolina is all about basketball. I'm a part of the basketball team, but we feel we've worked hard enough (in football) to get some respect around here.

"Sometimes you have to go get it," Holley said. "We prepared so hard in the spring. We prepared extra hard in the summer. We prepared hard in the training camp. Now you're starting to see the toughness in this team. We're just being tough. We're changing the culture -- bottom line."

This doesn't mean UNC is going to win the ACC title or even have a winning season. The schedule remains just as difficult today as it was two weeks ago. The offense is further behind today than it was after the victory against N.C. State.

What it does mean is that for the first time in years Carolina football has a strong foundation on which to build a program. How long it will take to return to the top 25 and winning eight games or more each year is hard to predict, but it's fair to say that the Tar Heels are once again headed in right direction.

Source-Chapel Hill News