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WAITING: Tar Heels will take time off
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Published: December 1, 2008
With eight wins secured in the regular-season for the first time since 1997, North Carolina will now take a break from football and wait to see if it is selected for bowl play.
Coach Butch Davis was to have met yesterday with his team before the players begin preparation for first-semester final exams. Davis has no preference for a bowl game for his team, which defeated Duke 28-20 in Durham Saturday in the regular-season finale.
The Chick-fil-A Bowl in Atlanta remains a possible game for UNC. The bowl sent a scout to Wallace Wade Stadium to look at UNC, which finished the regular season 8-4 and 4-4 in ACC play.
"I haven't been told anything officially about when (a bowl game) will even announce to us," Davis said. "We're going to let this team heal up. We've got an awful lot of guys that are beat up from a 12-game schedule."
One matter is certain. T.J. Yates is back in control of the offense at quarterback after firing three touchdown passes and completing 15 of 19 passes for 190 yards against Duke.
Yates' performance was vastly improved from his return in the previous game, a 41-10 loss to N.C. State. He said that his left ankle has fully recovered from the fracture suffered on Sept. 20 and that he doesn't think about the injury now when playing.
"I was kind of sloppy coming back because I hadn't been out there practicing," Yates said. "Last week I was real rusty. It was important for me to calm down."
Davis considered Yates' performance vital for any bowl game that UNC might play.
"He played extraordinarily well early in the season," Davis said. "I think coming back last week he recognized how he was rushing some throws, but he settled down this week. He had a very, very good week of practice. He looked like himself (before the injury)."
Duke closed its first season under Coach David Cutcliffe with a five-game losing streak.
Duke finished 4-8 and 1-7, but progress in the long-struggling program was apparent all season.
Duke will lose 25 seniors, among them linebacker Michael Tauiliili, but Cutcliffe has a foundation for next season's team. He has promised his returning players the most intense offseason of work that he has guided as a coach.
"If they don't like that they need to be someplace else because this is Division I-A football and it's not OK to be average at Duke," Cutcliffe said.
Davis and Cutcliffe both have outstanding recruiting years under way. UNC lost three ACC games by a combined eight points, but Davis was pleased that his second team doubled last season's victory total.
"For a program to grow and make improvement it takes an awful lot," Davis said. "It takes a ton of heart and it takes a ton of hard work by the players and the coaches.
"If we're going to be the football program that we all want to be, it's going to take everybody. This was a great step forward, but we're a long ways from being where we want to be. We've still got a lot of work to do but it was a positive step in the right direction."
■ Bill Cole can be reached at bcole@wsjournal.com.
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