
{"id":12878,"date":"2010-09-30T07:24:53","date_gmt":"2010-09-30T15:24:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/?p=12878"},"modified":"2010-09-30T07:24:53","modified_gmt":"2010-09-30T15:24:53","slug":"a-win-and-some-smiles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2010\/09\/30\/a-win-and-some-smiles\/","title":{"rendered":"A win and some smiles"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Eddy Landreth<br \/>\n<\/strong><em>Staff Writer<br \/>\n<\/em><br \/>\nCHAPEL HILL  \u00e2\u20ac\u201c A season that was supposed to be about championships and making a leap forward as a program has become another 12-game struggle for survival.<\/p>\n<p>In Butch Davis\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 first three seasons, the coaching staff and players turned a program beaten and battered into a winner again. Throughout this time, they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve won a lot of close games and lost some others. It has been a trying, uphill climb.<br \/>\nAs this season has shown, in an unfortunate manner, Davis and his coaches have recruited well through it all. But far too many young players are on the field before their time because some teammates are under investigation for either breaking NCAA rules in regards to agents or possible academic infractions.<br \/>\nNonetheless, Carolina (1-2) went to New Jersey last weekend and won its first game of the year, beating Rutgers 17-13. Now the Tar Heels will focus on playing East Carolina (2-1) on Saturday at 3:30 p.m. at Kenan Stadium.<br \/>\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153It took an awful lot just to maintain that positive attitude,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Davis said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153that if we keep working, good things are going to happen. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s kind of the mantra for the rest of the season &#8230; certainly you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve got to take care of your own personal self and practice as hard as you can, prepare as hard as you can and good things will happen.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<br \/>\nDavis said last weekend was the first time he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s seen his players smile in weeks.<br \/>\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153It was a huge relief to finally get that first win. [Coach Davis] is right \u00e2\u20ac\u201c that was the first time I saw a lot of [smiles], me included,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d safety Matt Merletti said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Just, honestly, to feel genuinely happy and to finally get some good light on our program.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<br \/>\nBecause of the suspensions and negative publicity in the national media, this team is playing beneath a dark cloud foreign to Carolina teams. Rutgers fans taunted the Carolina players by waving dollar bills, referring to the illegal gifts certain UNC players allegedly accepted from agents.<br \/>\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t say it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s difficult, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just one of those things that we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re going to have to deal with,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Merletti said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153With all this stuff going on, I kind of expected that going into a hostile environment like that and to get some reaction from the fans. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re just really trying to focus on taking one game at a time and not focus on the fans, but the team.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<br \/>\nAnd for at least one week, they have been able to practice with a little less pressure bearing down on their collective backs.<br \/>\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Just to get a \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcW\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 \u00e2\u20ac\u201c no matter how we get it or how ugly it is, we were just happy to get a win,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d quarterback T.J. Yates said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153After a couple of close games, just to flip it around for us feels good.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Eddy Landreth Staff Writer CHAPEL HILL \u00e2\u20ac\u201c A season that was supposed to be about championships and making a leap forward as a program has become another 12-game struggle for survival. In Butch Davis\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 first three seasons, the coaching staff and players turned a program beaten and battered into a winner again. Throughout this&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[431],"class_list":["post-12878","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12878","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12878"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12878\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12917,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12878\/revisions\/12917"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}