CHAPEL HILL
North Carolina will be confronted by at least two major demands this week when preparing for its second game of the college football season.
UNC will play its first road game Saturday at noon at Connecticut. It will also play its first major-college opponent of the season.
Coach Butch Davis is expecting that his team will have a much tougher game than its opener last Saturday, when it took a 40-6 win over The Citadel, an NCAA Football Championship Subdivision team.
"The challenge is dramatically different than a week ago," Davis said. "We've got to dramatically get better. We're going to have to get better real quick."
Both teams are 1-0. They played at Kenan Stadium last season and UNC won 38-12.
Last season's UNC team had early success on the road. A win at Rutgers in the season's second game was UNC's first outside the state since the 2002 season. A win at Miami two weeks later helped the Tar Heels forge a 5-1 record.
Davis is concerned about the trip to East Hartford because many of his young players have not played on the road or flown in an airplane.
Alan Pelc, an offensive guard, said that distractions can add up on any road trip and must be dealt with firmly.
"For these young guys it's going to be a lot different than anything they've ever experienced before," Pelc said. "You've got to get your mind right and be ready to face adversity and face the crowd and play your best under some of the worst conditions."
Davis was generally pleased with UNC's performance in its opener against a team from a lower division. One shortcoming did catch his attention -- six dropped passes.
The receivers are all new, with the exception of Greg Little, a junior who in his first two seasons played receiver and tailback. Joshua Adams, a freshman who started at one receiver position, told Davis after the game that he was nervous because he had never before played in front of so many people and heard so much crowd noise.
Five receivers combined to drop passes. Twice receivers dropped two passes in three plays, on one possession in the first quarter and the other in the third quarter. Johnny White, a converted tailback and defensive back, had a pass bounce off his hands but came back to snare a 18-yard pass in the end zone for his first career touchdown to help UNC take a 10-0 lead.
Quarterback T.J. Yates completed nine of 20 passes for 114 yards, but said that he has lost no faith in his receivers' ability to make tough catches.
"It'll come with experience and stuff," Yates said. "Some of those things you can't really work out until you get into game situations. I've got total confidence in the young guys that we're playing out there. We're just going to try this week during practice to work as hard as possible and work those things out."
Yates said that he was partly to blame for some of the dropped passes.
"There were some things that I could have done better," he said. "I missed some guys downfield, I thought. I got off on some of the routes a little too quick. I thought I played pretty well, but I definitely could have hit some guys that I didn't and made some better decisions."
Davis said that he expects the receivers to play better this week after additional work in practice and adjustment from first-game jitters.
"You've just got to be positive and focus on the little things," Davis said. "It's like somebody that's missing three-foot putts. You don't want to stand there and say, ‘Well, make it.' You can start screaming at a guy, and you talk about guys getting the yips.
"Catching footballs is one of those skills and talents that you can't work enough at. You should come out early and catch more balls. Do some after practice and during practice and on the sidelines. The more you do it, hopefully the better you get at it."
■ Bill Cole can be reached at bcole@wsjournal.com
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