UNC will try it again

CHARLOTTE

North Carolina will make a repeat appearance in the Meineke Car Care Bowl today but will play with a different attitude.

This time, the game's not for fun.

"The last time we were here, we played a really good game, but we also played a really good team, and we didn't pull it out," quarterback T.J. Yates of UNC said. "Our No. 1 goal is to win this ballgame.

"It's not to have a good time out in the city or go do the NASCAR thing. We're about business. We want to win this game."

UNC will play Pittsburgh at 4:30 p.m. (ESPN Ch. 33) at Bank of America Stadium, the home of the NFL's Carolina Panthers. UNC (8-4) will be trying for its first bowl victory since 2001. Pitt (9-3) will be trying for its first 10-win season in 28 years.

The Tar Heels have lost their last two bowl games, both in the Charlotte bowl dating to 2004. Yates is still stewing about last season's loss, 31-30 to West Virginia, despite a record-setting game from receiver Hakeem Nicks.

"It hurts to lose a close one like that, when we were leading in the fourth quarter," Yates said. "We let it slip away from us a little bit. We didn't finish the game.

"One of the things we want to do is play well. We want to play a full four quarters and not leave anything out there on the field."

Coach Butch Davis of UNC has no closer friend in the business than Coach Dave Wannstedt of Pitt. They worked on the same staffs as assistants, starting in 1979, for a total of 11 seasons at Oklahoma State and Miami and then with the Dallas Cowboys. Wannstedt and his wife, Jan, are godparents to Davis' son, Drew.

Wannstedt's team, ranked No. 17 in the AP poll, came within a whisker of playing in a BCS game. Pitt's losses were by a combined 11 points, with two coming in the final seconds by a total of four points.

A defense that has carried UNC all season will have to stop one of college football's top running backs -- Pitt's Dion Lewis, a 5-8 freshman who has rumbled for 1,640 yards and scored 17 touchdowns.

Lewis is averaging 136.6 yards, third-best among major-college running backs. He averaged 5.5 yards on 297 regular-season carries.

In Pitt's last game, Lewis proved he could be a workhorse, carrying 47 times for 194 yards and three touchdowns in a one-point loss to unbeaten Cincinnati.

Lewis needs 47 yards to break the Pitt record for rushing yards by a freshman, set in 1973 by Tony Dorsett, the greatest back in school history.

"As a head coach who has been through this a bunch, your natural reaction is to say, ‘OK, when is it all going to go to his head and when is he going to go out there and not show up,'" Wannstedt said.

"It's amazing, but that's not him. It's not happened. Now I'm totally convinced that it won't. He's going to show up every week. He truly is in the Tony Dorsett category and the great players that are out there."

Pitt, behind the running of Lewis and the decision-making of quarterback Bill Still, has only 13 turnovers this season, including eight interceptions. The Panthers average 33.2 points and 399.9 yards of offense.

UNC is at its best when forcing turnovers. The defense forced 27 in eight wins (including 19 interceptions) and only one (a recovered fumble) in four losses.

UNC has forced 22 turnovers in its last seven games. Davis considers Pitt one of the smartest teams that UNC will have played this season, a trait he expects to push his defense to the limit.

"They don't put themselves in perilous situations," Davis said. "You don't see them in a lot of third and longs where defenses get a chance to put a lot of pressure on the quarterback that can result in potential throwing errors.

"Because of the ability to run and play-action pass and move the chains, they're almost always either ahead of the count in down and distance or they're pretty close to it."

UNC was hoping to play in a bigger bowl game, but safety Deunta Williams said that any disappointment disappeared quickly when the veterans learned they would have a second chance to win in Charlotte.

Williams said that UNC wants to take care of "unfinished business" today.

"We've got to come in and focus more on the game itself," Williams said. "With so many guys last year, it was the first time coming to a bowl game. It was kind of a feeling of ‘brand new.'

"Now we've been there and done it before. I think that will help us a little bit. I love it here in Charlotte. If I wasn't going to a BCS game, I'd rather come back here."

bcole@wsjournal.com