North Carolina to pull for Hurricanes tonight

The North Carolina football team has been watching film of its next conference opponent for the past five days.

By now the players know the ins-and-outs of Maryland's offense" defense and special teams units.

But tonight they'll be watching two different conference teams — and they know where their allegiances lie.

""I don't know if I'm allowed to say this" but we'll be pulling for Miami quarterback Cameron Sexton said Monday.

Absolutely we will be. I didn't know it was on Thursday night until the other day" so we're excited about that.""

Miami takes on the Coastal division leaders Virginia Tech in Miami Gardens" Fla. tonight and the Tar Heels have more stake than usual in the matchup.

North Carolina needs a Virginia Tech loss to move to the top of the ACC Coastal standings — because the Hokies beat UNC in September VT has the head-to-head advantage if the teams have the same win-loss ratio.

Provided the Tar Heels win out a VT loss would secure UNC's berth to the ACC Championship game.

So the road to Tampa Bay at least this week" sits in the hands of Miami.

""(Offensive tackle) Mike Ingersoll said in the locker room that he wanted to take practice off and go and be the scout team for Miami so we can help them win the game" running back Ryan Houston said.

Miami" I'm just praying for them to hopefully take out Virginia Tech this week.""

Right now Virginia Tech" Miami and UNC all are tied at 3-2 in the conference. VT has the head-to-head against UNC and UNC against Miami.

Friday morning the Tar Heels will go back to watching Maryland. But Thursday night as they do every week they'll watch the college football game — and they hope that Friday they'll have a little more to play for when they head to College Park Md." this weekend.

""We're definitely going to watch it"" corner Kendric Burney said.

We watch every Thursday night game. We all get together.

""Of course everybody would be crazy if we say we weren't going for Miami.

""But we just want to see a good football game"" and hopefully things will pull out our way.""



Contact the Sports Editor at sports@unc.edu.