Faded: UNC, FSU were once powerful

Credit: AP File Photo

Coach Bobby Bowden’s Florida State Seminoles have lost 17 of their past 29 ACC games. They are 2-4 this season and haven’t won a conference game in three tries.

By: Lenox Rawlings | Winston-Salem Journal
Published: October 22, 2009

Judging from the TV commercials, Florida State's trip to North Carolina's first Thursday night home game qualifies as a big deal.

This is a big game, no question. The winner will snatch its first ACC victory before October wanes, and the loser will remain winless in the league.

Things weren't always quite this way. Twelve years ago, while Tar Heels still gasped for oxygen in the wake of Dean Smith's retirement, the third-ranked Seminoles ventured into Kenan Stadium for a showdown against No. 5 Carolina. On a crackling Saturday night, FSU's blanket defense wrapped up a 20-3 win.

The Seminoles surged toward another perfect ACC season. They did so seven times in their first nine years, with a running conference record of 70-2.

Carolina was a national climber, 11-1 in 1997 and fourth in the final coaches' poll. Mack Brown recognized Carolina's primacy as a basketball giant and signed on with a hibernating football beast, Texas. Jilted boosters told Brown to dodge the swinging saloon door on his way out, good riddance, stuff like that.

They showed him.

While Brown built an eventual national champion, the Tar Heels ran through Carl Torbush (who was unfired in the midst of his misery) and John Bunting. Then, Carolina financiers whipped out the loot and hired a fellow who once put Miami on the doorstep of a national title, Butch Davis.

Stuck in the middle

Davis drove Carolina to the Charlotte bowl last season. His record: 16-15 overall, 7-11 in the ACC. The current team spent the first month in the AP poll -- a tribute to the brand name and a squeaker over Connecticut -- but Carolina now wallows among the middling class. This season's 4-2 record includes blowouts over Georgia Southern and The Citadel, plus a 31-17 win against East Carolina. The losses: a no-show, 24-7 fiasco at Georgia Tech and a 16-3 home flop against Virginia. The Tar Heels rushed for 17 yards against Tech and 39 against Virginia, underscoring their blocking problems.

A couple of quirks -- a half-season sample, two overmatched outside opponents -- have produced an odd statistical triumph. Carolina ranks third in the nation in total defense. (It also ranks 117th out of 120 top-division teams in total offense, with New Mexico State last.) If you shrink the stats to ACC games alone, Carolina ranks last in scoring (5 points a game) and fourth in points allowed (20).

These early stats don't mean much. After N.C. State routed Murray State and Gardner-Webb, the Wolfpack led America in total defense. Bogus? The Wolfpack merely gave up 49 points to Duke and 52 to Boston College.

Opportunity at hand

Wins matter. Carolina, favored by less than a field goal, and FSU might need this win to qualify for a bowl. The Seminoles (2-4, 0-3 ACC) look like Carolina's opposite, with Christian Ponder averaging 331 passing yards in ACC games compared to 136 for the Tar Heels' T.J. Yates.

Coach Bobby Bowden, once dominant, has lost 17 of his past 29 ACC games, inciting some supporters and the FSU board chairman to scream for his retirement.

Bowden resists the pressure, and the standoff has become an unseemly sideshow near the end of a magnificent career. President T.K. Wetherell gave Bowden cover by announcing that no retirement would occur before season's end.

Although Bowden could script a graceful winter exit, he evidently would prefer a one-year extension replete with alumni acrimony. He's tilting that way, saying at his Sunday news conference: "I just hope I can present a case out there that would warrant that."

This is the platform for making the case: ESPN on a Thursday night, with all the superficial trappings of big-time football and relatively few of the basics. Blocking, tackling, running, stuff like that.

lrawlings@wsjournal.com.