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The Daily Tar Heel

UNC football team’s winning ways benefit students, Chapel Hill

Normally by early November, UNC students have retired their football attire in favor of argyle-trimmed basketball jerseys. That’s the way it has been for as long as most people can remember — but now the focus has shifted.

The North Carolina football team is the squad to watch as we enter the end of the semester, something that has rarely been the case this millennium. The Tar Heels are 7-1 overall and 4-0 in the ACC, putting them in position to challenge for an ACC title in December.

“Everything is a lot better when you’re 7-1, you know. The food tastes better, people are a lot nicer. Shoot, even the water I drink tastes better,” said sophomore cornerback M.J. Stewart. “So, it just feels good to win. It just feels good to bring a winning tradition back to Carolina.”

There has been a bit of a culture change on campus, something that started with the players before the season even began.

Following the Tar Heels’ 40-21 loss to Rutgers in the Quick Lane Bowl on Dec. 26, North Carolina called a team meeting to address some of the non-football issues that affected the team in 2014. By the end of the day, players and coaches filled a white board with problems that needed fixing. They then set out to correct them one by one.

UNC has no doubt benefited from the arrival of four new defensive coaches, including defensive coordinator Gene Chizik. But the change to the team’s mentality has perhaps contributed the most to the Tar Heels’ hot start.

“(There’s) just more team chemistry. More leadership. More continuity within the team,” Stewart said. “We’re just a bond of brothers — a band of brothers — and we play like that on and off the field.”

What has ensued is a case of football fever among the UNC community. While attendance numbers haven’t been stellar thus far, the presence of a successful program is something students are ecstatic about.

“I’m excited. I’m from the North so I’ve been really passionate about football and having a good football team,” said senior Alina Wirtz. “And going to a school that now has football and basketball, I think I’m more excited about sports at UNC than I have been in the past.”

The effect on the student body has been drastic, but when you look at Chapel Hill as a whole, the outcomes have been even more noticeable.

During a Saturday in which North Carolina has a home game, a serious economic surge takes over Franklin Street. According to an economic impact study conducted by the UNC Sports Administration Graduate Program, the Tar Heels’ 2013 home game against Miami had a total economic impact of approximately $5.06 million.

The attendance for the Miami game was 56,000. UNC’s matchup this Saturday against Duke is sold out, meaning about 63,000 fans could pile into Kenan Stadium for the noon kickoff, and before that, into downtown Chapel Hill.

“I don’t know if there has been a sold out noon game since I’ve been here,” said senior linebacker Shakeel Rashad. “So that’s gonna be really cool to see.”

Don Pinney, owner of Sutton’s Drug Store, said home football games have helped keep several Franklin Street businesses, including his own, from going under in the past.

“Basketball is the big draw for the University, but football is the huge draw for the town,” he said. “We really live for these home football games. It really gives us enough business to carry us through the summer.”

Since the North Carolina men’s basketball team won the national championship in 1957, UNC has been considered a basketball school to both those in and outside of the University. Football has experienced its high points over the years — the most recent being the success under Coach Mack Brown in the late 1990s — but its popularity has rarely come close to that of the basketball program.

But as the rest of the season unfolds, the North Carolina football team is trying to change that moniker. And if the wins keep piling up, it might be simpler to do so than people think.

@jbo_vernon

sports@dailytarheel.com

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