Season Still Anybody's Ballgame

And in talking about his squad, Bunting shot from the hip, as is his personality, and admitted his team wasn't very good.

"It's going to take some time," he said, for the team to become very good. "It's not going to take a lot of time, but it's going to take some time. It's going to take some patience. It's going to take a lot of hard work."

But standing at 5-3 overall and 4-1 in the ACC, Bunting's team has become very good, very quickly.

With four games left in the regular season, and only one difficult challenge remaining, Bunting has the Tar Heels on the brink of being bowl-bound and might just keep much of UNC fans' attention focused on the gridiron come the beginning of the basketball season.

But as astonishing as Bunting and the Tar Heels' success has been, the team is merely one facet of the strangest ACC football season in recent years.

Until Saturday's loss, Maryland held solo control of first place. Maryland? Maryland.

The Terps and the Tar Heels have similar stories. Nice-guy coaches, team plays bad, nice guy gets fired. No-nonsense alumnus brought in, team gets conditioned, team gets discipline, team gets wins. (Duke might want to follow Maryland and UNC's lead once Carl Franks and his 20-game losing streak is shown the door.)

Under the guidance of Ralph Friedgen and Bunting, Maryland and North Carolina have done much to shake up the ACC. Maryland's 7-0 start, coupled with its upset of Georgia Tech, and UNC's toppling of Florida State have made at least this year's championship race an honest-to-God race.

Thursday, the Tar Heels face their biggest obstacle to winning the ACC Championship -- Georgia Tech.

If the Tar Heels can defeat George Godsey and Co., they have to get past three relatively easy opponents (Wake Forest, Duke and Southern Methodist) and hope for Maryland to fall in order to secure the title.

In comparsion to the Tar Heels' last month, the Terps have to overcome Clemson at home and N.C. State at Carter-Finley Stadium after a nonconference game against Troy State on Saturday.

For the Tar Heels and Maryland, Florida State needs to lose -- and lose big -- to Florida and fall to another ACC rival to be safely out of the championship picture.

Throw in Clemson, Georgia Tech and N.C. State trying to claw their ways to the fourth and fifth ACC bowl bids, and the conference resembles a free-for-all, when it's usually Florida State and the basketball schools.

The bottom of the pack, Wake Forest and Duke, are the only teams not participating in the odd behavior of the conference. At least they're dependable -- they're still not very good. They've got one win between them, and that's when Wake topped Duke.

Coaches always like to talk about how competitive their conference is, and, for once, the ACC actually is competitive this year. There's a good chance someone other than Florida State is going to be representing the ACC in the Bowl Championship Series.

And this mad rush for the championship ring by Maryland, North Carolina and Florida State keeps getting more interesting. Georgia Tech has a chance to be a bump in the road for both UNC and Florida State while the Tigers will try to tame the Terrapins.

With just four games left this season, it's too early to tell who'll come out on top of this funky ACC race.

Rachel Carter can be reached at racarter@email.unc.edu.