bgorman@heraldsun.com; 419-6668
CHAPEL HILL -- The North Carolina football team started the 2009 season with high expectations. The Tar Heels' eight wins in 2008 were their most since 2001, they were coming off their first bowl game since 2004, and they found themselves ranked No. 21 in the Associated Press preseason poll.
The Tar Heels were even mentioned as contenders for the ACC Championship -- and many players said they expected to get there.
But UNC's up and down season ended Saturday as No. 17 Pittsburgh won the Meineke Car Care Bowl 19-17. It's the second consecutive year the Tar Heels saw their season end with a loss in Charlotte for an 8-5 overall record, but the players insisted after the game it was still a succesful season -- even if it didn't live up to expectations.
"I can't look at this season and say it was a failure or anything like that," safety Deunta Williams said. "We won eight games and that's something that should be celebrated. We could've done so much more at the same time."
The Tar Heels did achieve the program's first back-to-back bowl games for the first time since 1996-97, but it also missed opportunities for more victories throughout the year.
When UNC started the season 3-0 it looked like third-year coach Butch Davis had finally turned the program around, but then the Tar Heels went on to lose their first three ACC games. UNC scored just seven points in a loss at Georgia Tech, lost to a previously winless Virginia squad at Kenan Stadium and then blew an 18-point second-half lead to Florida State in the first-ever Thursday night game in Chapel Hill.
But just when it looked like the Tar Heels' season was over, they reeled off four straight ACC victories -- including wins over No. 14 Virginia Tech and No. 12 Miami -- to salvage their season.
"It was a learning process for us, I definitely know that," cornerback Kendric Burney said. "The thing about this season was just that we could've folded at the beginning. Everybody pretty much stepped up and took their game to a new level. We had a chance to win this game [Saturday], and we had a lot of chances to win a lot of games we lost. I'm just real happy with our season."
But the area that the Tar Heels struggled the most in this season was offense. UNC knew it had issues on the offensive side of the ball before the season began -- depth at offensive line and replacing graduated veterans at wide receiver -- but all the injuries were unexpected. UNC lost 13 players for at least one game this season because of injuries, and three players were lost for the season. Of the 13 players injured, six were starters who accounted for 27 missed starts.
UNC's defense, on the other hand, had no starters miss a game because of an injury, and it was ranked in the top 10 in the nation for most of the year.
"A lot of the young guys got a lot better," quarterback T.J. Yates said. "Our defense got a lot better. The offense struggled a little bit during the season, but I think we fought through a lot of adversity on the offensive side of the ball, so hopefully that will pay off for us next year."
Even though UNC ended its season with two losses -- including a loss to rival N.C. State -- Davis said Saturday he was proud of his team and the progress the program has made.
"The mileage we have made in these three seasons to put ourselves in back to back winning seasons, back to back bowl games these last two years, we've covered an awful lot of ground," Davis said. "We haven't scratched the surface of where we want to go. There's going to be bigger and better things in the future."
