Oct. 13, 2002

In addition to his many other contacts with the media, John Bunting has a weekly teleconference every Sunday afternoon. He recognizes the good questions, and he handles the others without being sarcastic. Even when asked, after Saturday's loss to N.C. State, if he had thought about where the Tar Heels or his rebuilding efforts go from here.

He had only thought about it every waking minute for the past 27 hours.

Sitting in his chair, looking out at Kenan Stadium where his team has gone 0-4 this fall, Bunting spoke up to be heard clearly via the speaker phone, "Well, we're not going to get a whole lot stronger, we're not going to get a whole lot bigger and we're not going to get a whole lot faster. So what we're going to have to try and do is to scheme a little more and see if we can get people lined up in various defenses, different schemes and see if we can out scheme somebody.

"You'd love to go out there and play alignment and assignment football. Against Texas we tried to go some different things, and we didn't get lined up right. It hurt us a great deal. When we get into a physical match with somebody we're going to struggle, so we're going to have to try and do some different things schematically to try and get the kids back in position to make some plays. We were not in position to make plays against N.C. State."

Just how good is the Wolfpack after Saturday's 34-17 victory over the Tar Heels? "State compares favorably to Arizona State," Bunting answered, "with the exception of the offensive line where State did a real nice job on us. They were a little bigger and little more physical. They're not as big and physical as Texas. I'm not saying they couldn't beat Texas because I don't think Texas is that good on defense."

Bunting did think the Wolfpack's superiority in the second half had a lot more to do with what they were doing. "In the first half they were being kind of fancy with a lot of different formations and things like that. They weren't running as much as they did in the second half when they decided to just come out and pound us. And they did."

In getting ready this week for Saturday's trip to Virginia, where Carolina hasn't won since 1981, Bunting confessed his coaches have got to get Darian Durant to stop running so much. "He gets zeroed in on something and then he takes the ball down and runs. He broke down protection a couple of times by seeing the primary may have been covered, but he's got a back wide open. So we're got to have him see the field better.

However, his head coach thinks the 20-year-old sophomore will do better when he sees it on tape. "He had great success at Arizona State and sometimes it becomes a little contagious, so he may give up on the play too soon. Again I think that has a lot more to do with experience than anything else, and I think he learned an awful lot from the game against State."

Bunting recognized that Carolina had open receivers at times, but at other times they were covered. He was disappointed when Durant did scramble the receivers didn't try to uncover and get back to the quarterback and the ball.

The former Carolina linebacker hasn't been to Virginia since 1971, and he didn't know until today that the Tar Heels have lost 10 straight games in Scott Stadium. "That's a long, long time," Bunting pointed out. "Heck, I was still playing pro ball."

Since then Dick Crum, Mack Brown and Carl Torbush have tried without success to break the streak. John Bunting will get his first try against a surprising Virginia team which has won five straight and is just a game off of the ACC lead.

At the moment, the three-hour road trip to Charlottesville is where the Tar Heels go from here.