After Monday’s practice, there were no questions for the North Carolina football coach about his job security. Players didn’t have to tell the media what it’s like to play during a season clouded by mystery.
No NCAA investigators have been on campus recently. No players have been suspended. Nothing about tenant rates in Miami night clubs has been tweeted.
The UNC football team is, for a time, just a football team. We media members asked interim head coach Everett Withers about injury updates, how freshmen looked on the field and position changes. It was the first time in more than a year that I could say the NCAA investigation wasn’t in the conversation.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying this ugly chapter for UNC athletics — one that shows academic fraud, improper agent benefits, a rouge associate coach and a now disposed head coach who was on the cusp of bringing the Tar Heels to national relevancy — is done. But midway through training camp, does any of that matter?
For the past year I, along with several other writers, lobbed investigation-related questions at Butch Davis anytime he met with the media. I’d say a large portion of the press conferences, pre-practice updates or postgame pressers would begin with something regarding the black cloud over Chapel Hill. And if they didn’t start with it, you could bet someone in the group would ask later.
I have no regrets about that either. Those questions were warranted then because, like it or not, the investigation was the story. It was like the team was a shell company — a vehicle used for the purpose of talking about the investigation.
Sure, UNC’s wild Music City Bowl victory got plenty of play across the nation.
But who could forget the innumerable graphics ESPN displayed showing how many players had been suspended from the team or ruled permanently ineligible? During the ESPN telecast of the season opener against LSU, embroiled former associate head coach John Blake was on screen more than Al Pacino in “The Godfather.”
The investigation will once again be the story surrounding the team when Chancellor Holden Thorp and athletic director Dick Baddour attend the Committee on Infractions hearing on Oct. 28 to plead their case to the NCAA. It will be the story for weeks after as we wait for a punishment to be dealt. And the story will get even bigger when the NCAA finally makes its decision on the fate of UNC football.
