Are New Coaches, Big Dreams Enough to Bring Pack, Heels to Glory?

Are the Carolina and State football programs really sleeping giants just waiting to be roused out of a lethargic slumber? Some believe that the Heels and the Pack only need to have the right people in place to shake up college football from Boston to Miami and beyond.

So as the summer turns into the frantic fun that is football in the fall, we’re about to find out if there are indeed giants to be awakened or if it’s just another tantalizing mirage on the horizon.

But even if it’s more than a mirage, miracles won’t happen this season, but foundations will be laid.

Both schools do have new coaches, each with impeccable credentials, and both have fan bases so hungry for something better than the stumbling, bumbling football they’ve seen in recent years.

Carolina’s hiring Butch Davis certainly has Tar Heel fans thinking the big time is not far off. John Bunting tried as hard as he could, but he just didn’t have it.

Everything about Davis says that he does. His reputation, his demeanor have UNC fans believing good things will be happening – and sooner rather than later. Already there’s talk of another big bucks expansion of Kenan Stadium (where does all this money come from?), and Davis has Carolina fans putting their heads on their pillows with smiling visions of soon-to-come championships dancing in their heads.

After all, the players that Davis recruited at Miami won a national championship. He was on a staff that won Super Bowls in Dallas. His hiring was said by many to be as good as it gets.

Tom O’Brien was left with more talent than Davis inherited, and I think State’s hiring O’Brien was every bit as stellar as Carolina’s bringing in Davis. O’Brien won with regularity at Boston College and has many more resources with which to work at State.

He’s everything that Chuck Amato wasn’t. He’s a disciplinarian, and his B.C. teams were known as well coached, fundamentally sound teams that didn’t beat themselves. He won’t put up with much foolishness. He does not suffer fools gladly.

And oh do Pack fans yearn for a no-nonsense team that doesn’t shoot itself in the foot game after game. Mistake-filled football left many State fans leaving Carter-Finley with their faces as red as their sweaters. Wolfpack fans, I think care about football more than Carolina fans. Right now they have more of a passion for the game. While there were empty seats aplenty at Kenan Stadium last season, Carter-Finley was filled for every game despite some stomach-turning football. And even more galling for the red and white, they’ve dropped three straight to UNC teams that really couldn’t beat anybody else.

State’s and Carolina’s histories tell us that neither is a football power. There have been many fleeting signs in the past, but those moments have haphazardly come and gone. Now, however, the potential is there for both teams – maybe more than ever before. But potential that goes unfulfilled can turn into the cruelest of words. Nobody knows this more than the football fans of State and Carolina.

The last time that either won an ACC title, I could get out of bed without my legs and back hurting. State’s last league title was in 1979, Carolina’s in 1980. Even Duke has shared an ACC championship since the last time State or Carolina won one. And of course, the reigning ACC champion is the smallest school in the ACC, those Deacons of Wake Forest. Tiny Wake Forest is ACC champion while the big state schools with the huge fan bases are bringing up the rear. That’s what good coaching means.

Butch Davis’ and Tom O’Brien’s resumes say they will win. What the Heels and Pack have done in the past says it won’t be as easy as maybe the fan bases think.

Pre-season predictions mean nothing, but they have State finishing last in the Atlantic Division and Carolina next to last in the Coastal. So expectations are low, which is good for the new coaches. Anything better makes them look good.

Who will be better – State or Carolina? I would say State in the short term. Beyond that, I don’t know.