My college sports consciousness begins when I moved to Chapel Hill in ‘95 (age and watched UNC lose 28-12 to Florida State in the pouring rain. The weather was bad enough to keep people at home (and make UNC miss an extra point), and I was in the visitor’s section. It seemed to me that there were more FSU fans than Carolina fans that day. I was probably right.

In short, this is mostly new information to me. Thank you for the history lesson.

Ironically, Clemson was the first ACC basketball game I ever saw at the Dean Dome. You can probably guess how that went.

In Hatfield’s defense, McCleon was an All-American QB in high school.

You beat USC handily in Anaheim, as I recall. Never understood why Carolina kept alternating Jason Stanicek and Mike Thomas, as Stanicek was the far better QB. They should have just let Thomas punt, which he was great at.

Mack Brown had these 2 year spurts at Carolina that got him to Texas.

First, in ‘92 and ‘93, you guys were pretty good. You were far better than us, but we beat you 40-7 in ‘92 at home, Natrone Means was injured in the game and we saw Curtis Johnson break a 80+ yard run for your only TD.

Then in ‘93 you beat us 24-0 in Chapel Hill. You wore all blue, looked like the Smurfs, and scored all 24 in the 1st Half.

We had Dexter McCleon, a converted safety, playing QB. He played for the Rams for many seasons.

Screw you, Ken Hatfield. What a putz.

Due to adding FSU to the family, we had to play you in Chapel Hill in both ‘93 and ‘94. We upset you in ‘94.

I was at both games, but I remember it more for the Blue-White games I got to see before and after, depending on the year, the football game.

I was sitting in the lowers at the Dean Dome in ‘94 when I heard two Rams Clubbers talking. This was after you had won the national title and had Stackhouse, Wallace, and McInnis in as freshmen.

One of them said, “who do you think will win tonight,” the other responded…

“I don’t know but I would bet you $10K that I could take either squad and finish in the top 10.”

Bill Curley disagreed with the above, even though you finished the regular season at #1.

But the most impressive factoid to take from this is that you’re the first college football fanatic from Duke whom I’ve ever met.

You missed Leon Johnson in ‘97, big time. He was the epitome of an all-purpose RB.

You embarrassed Clemson, who gamely lost to LSU in a Peach Bowl contest we had no business being at. LSU was something like 9-2 that year and Clemson was something like 6-5, including a loss to South Carolina, which is inexcusable.

You went up to Syracuse when they were a top 10 team and embarrassed them. I remember listening to Woody Durham and Mick Mixon call it. Glad that Mick is calling the Panthers games, now, FYI.

You killed everybody that year, and outplayed FSU. You also really outplayed UVa. That was ridiculous.

Anyway, what you are also forgetting is how Tennessee wet the bed in ‘96 versus Memphis to guarantee they would go to another Citrus Bowl under Peyton and Fulmer. Hence the classic Spurrier joke, “you can’t spell Citrus…” Losing to Memphis cost an at large Orange Bowl berth for the Vols.

Carolina, at 10-1 would have gone to the Orange, I know I know Carolina does not draw enough fans, blah blah blah…

but every Orange Bowl rep was at the Carolina/UVa game to go to the Carolina locker room and offer you guys the Orange Bowl slot.

And, you still had to play Duke, as I recall.

Anyway, Mack Brown and Greg Davis and Carl Torbush, in my opinion, don’t get enough credit for the job they did at Carolina.

That defense, with Bly, Brian Simmons, K Mays, the CB from Shelby who fooled around with an underaged girl, the white LB from Burlington who ended up being drafted by the Bills, etc etc etc…

they were impressive.

Speaking as someone who has a degree from that school 12 miles down 15-150…

Carolina was darn good those two years, but more so in ‘96.

But, yeah, dear Lord did NasCarl suck as head coach.

Evan: I’m a Carolina alum. What kind of a fan would I be if I let that incident pass unmentioned?

FSU was the best team in the nation in ‘97, and their defense was ferocious, but said defense only showed up in certain games. How else can you explain Nealon Greene throwing for a mile in a 35-28 victory over Clemson? He was terrible.

And, that was not one of Spurrier’s best teams that season, rotating QBs play after play anyone, but they still beat FSU.

Carolina outplayed FSU all day in ‘96, might have outgained them, and the bulk of FSU’s points came from some freaky Dre Bly interception that he fumbled around Carolina’s goal line.

You guys would have gone 10-1 in ‘96 if not for that stupid Keldorf interception in the UVa end zone that was returned for a TD.

I don’t know what happened to Keldorf between ‘96 and ‘97, because he was phenomenal in ‘96, guess it was the injury that kept him out of the Gator Bowl, but he was a shell of himself.

I still remember sitting in Kenan to open the ‘96 season, Clemson was a 1 or 2 point favorite.

Yeah, we lost, 45-0.

At that point, I thought Greg Davis was some sort of offensive genius.

Turned out, Clemson’s defense just sucked.

Losing to Busby is not terrible. My junior year of high school our football team was good for the first time ever, going undefeated and all that. Then in the regionals Thad Busby and Pace rolled them 47-8.

Don’t drink the Butch Davis kool-aid…it’s actually just hot sperm out of a zip-loc bag.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_aMQ2R7dYQ

yoyofutbawl: That defensive strategy can only be trumped by playing Joe Dailey at quarterback.

They managed to keep some Eastern NC kid named Parker from gaining 1,000 yards for his entire career. I think he plays somewhere in Western Pennsylvania now.