Reality check

Sporting News, The, Sept 15, 1997 by Tim Peeler

On the first day of classes this school year, North Carolina quarterback Chris Keldorf was given a pop quiz by a professor: What are the Tar Heels' prospects for winning the national championship in 1997?

No, the prof -- decked out in a UNC football T-shirt -- wasn't talking hoops in the Land That Dean Smith Made Famous. He was talking football, which in Chapel Hill is akin to talking hockey in Cooperstown. Regardless, football seemingly is on the lips of everyone at North Carolina, from the shops that line tranquil Franklin Street to the classrooms, where sitting next to a football player is almost as cool as sitting next to a hoopster.

"It's an unbelievable atmosphere to be around right now," says Keldorf, a senior and former junior college transfer who never had sampled big-time college football before last year.

But you have to wonder how big-time Keldorf and the Tar Heels' experience will be this year. Excitement over football in these parts hasn't reached these heights since Lawrence Taylor wore baby blue from 1977 to '80 and UNC went an aggregate 32-13-2, played in three bowls and won the school's last ACC title (1980).

The anticipation for big things began last year, when UNC finished 10th in The Associated Press poll, marking the Heels' first appearance in AP's final Top 10 since finishing ninth in 1981. That prompted an early run on the 34,000 available season tickets, all of which were snapped up by June 11. Every single-game ticket has been sold since July, and none is more precious than one to the Florida State game November 8.

Indeed, it appears North Carolina fans have every reason to be excited. Aside from fat coffers stuffed with ticket-sales revenue, the program seems to have the necessary resources, support and on-field components to make a run to the Orange Bowl, where it's hoped the Nos. 1 and 2 ranked teams will meet January 2 for the national title.

"We just have to go out and play in a consistent manner like we are Florida State or Penn State or Florida," Keldorf says. "We are here now and we want to stay here. We want to stay for years."

Despite the sunny forecasts (in media balloting at the ACC preseason meetings, Florida State was picked to win the league, but UNC received 20 first-place votes, marking the first time since FSU joined the league in 1992 that another team had gotten more than five votes) and fuzzy feelings in Chapel Hill, there is strong reason to believe this season will end in a whimper like so many other anticipated UNC campaigns.

Mack Brown is coach who's been dogged by the fact he can't win the big one. Ironically, that was the criticism the hoops coach at North Carolina heard for years. In fact, Dean Smith needed seven trips to the Final Four before Georgetown's Fred Brown threw the ball into James Worthy's hands to seal the Tar Heels' 1982 NCAA basketball title.

Mack Brown enters his 10th season with the Tar Heels with nine returning starters from a defense that ranked first in the nation in points allowed (10.0 per game) and second in total defense (225.6 yards per game). He also has a legitimate Heisman Trophy candidate in Keldorf. But it all could be undermined by Brown's reputation for making dubious decisions on game day.

A late-season 1996 game in Charlottesville, Va., was a classic example of Brown and the Tar Heels' inability to handle the pressure of a big game.

North Carolina led, 17-3, when Tar Heels linebacker Brian Simmons intercepted a pass and returned it 57 yards to Virginia's 10-yard line with about 11 minutes to play. With some type of score, the game likely would have been out of reach and assured the Tar Heels of their first major bowl bid since the 1949 season.

But on third-and-goal from the 9, Keldorf forced a slant pass to Octavus Barnes. The pass was intercepted and returned 95 yards for a touchdown.

Before the Tar Heels knew what had hit them, Virginia scored again, this time on a 7-yard run. The Cavaliers capped things by booting the winning field goal with 39 seconds remaining. to claim a 20-17 victory.

Other coaches couldn't believe the UNC coaching staff was still throwing at that point of the game. "They had Virginia beat," Florida State coach Bobby Bowden said this summer. "They kept throwing the darn ball and they lost the game."

Brown knows that before his team can be mentioned among the nation's elite, it has to stop worshiping its high rankings and freezing in critical games. That awestruck attitude has gotten the Tar Heels in trouble in many big games. There are ample opportunities for it to happen this year. A dangerous Stanford team visits Chapel Hill this Saturday and Virginia comes to town September 27; the game at North Carolina State on October 18 does not look so easy after the Wolfpack won at Syracuse; then there is the FSU encounter and a journey to Clemson on November 15 that might be toughest of all.

"Anybody who is winning as much as we have won (57 victories this decade; 8.1 per season) and hasn't won a national championship will always be accused of not being able to win the big one," Brown says. "I heard that for years about Bobby Bowden. Lord, I thought he won a bunch of big ones for about 15 years before he won that one really big one (over Nebraska in the Orange Bowl for the 1993 national championship)."