UNC faces 'explosive' Cowboys

Butch Davis faced the McNeese State Cowboys once before.

While Davis was at Miami, he coached the Hurricanes to a win - a 61-14 win, to be exact.

But he doesn't expect the same from this year's McNeese State - a team that outscored its opponents by more than 200 points last season and has on its resume a 76-0 victory from 2006.

"McNeese is a very explosive, fast football team; historically they've always been that way," Davis said at this week's press conference.

"They've had several successful football seasons, obviously last year being 11-1, and typically their program is marked by having very, very fast skilled players."

So Davis will try once again to lead his team to a victory past McNeese State's spread schemes.

"They're going to run a spread offense that, when you're playing a spread offensive team, you really need to be disciplined. You have to. It is assignment-related football."

McNeese State has never played an ACC opponent (Miami was in the Big East when they met in 2000), but the Cowboys have a 1-8 record against Football Bowl Subdivision schools - it beat Louisiana-Lafayette last year.

Starting tailback Greg Little has big expectations for UNC's opener - he knows they're talented, yes, but he said his team can handle them.

"We do see holes in their defense, and we're going to try to exploit them early," he said, adding a further goal - a big victory, "killing the ant with the sledgehammer.

"It's a lot of eyes on us right now, and that's why we have that mentality about the ant and the sledgehammer. We're just going to try and obliterate teams."

But North Carolina, which beat Football Championship Subdivision James Madison to open last season, hasn't won back-to-back season openers since the 1997 season.

And Davis insists his UNC team is not overlooking the Cowboys team that grabbed the second overall seed in last year's FCS playoffs.

"We talk to our football team that, you know, how well you play to a high percentage is more about you," Davis said. "It's how you prepare, it's how you play on Saturday, and you don't have any control over the opponent.

"I can't tell you whether they've had good practices or bad practices. I can't tell you whether they're prepared to play. All we can do is control our own fate."

And so UNC starts its journey for obliteration, ant-killing and a top spot in the ACC Coastal Division.

The first stop, McNeese State - or, as Little calls them, "some guys from Louisiana who're fast."

Contact the Sports Editor at sports@unc.edu.