Too much of 2012’s news happened off the field for the North Carolina football team.
Just three months after Larry Fedora was hired away from Southern Mississippi, in December of last year, the NCAA Committee on Infractions ruled on March 12 that his first team would be ineligible to play in a bowl game.
With this reality looming over the program from the beginning of his tenure, Fedora faced the twin challenges of implementing his up-tempo offense and inspiring players struggling to find something to work toward.
Off the field, it was clear that Fedora’s long-term commitment would be to return support to a program whose fans were becoming increasingly weary of scandal and mediocre performance.
For the most part, he was successful.
The season saw the emergence of Giovani Bernard as a Tar Heel hero and UNC’s first win against N.C. State in six years.
“Our goal is just to go out there and win 12 games,” Kevin Reddick, a senior linebacker, said before the season. “My mindset is to stop somebody else from going to the ACC championship or going to a bowl game.”
The Tar Heels didn’t win 12 games, but they went 8-4, winning five games in the ACC.
UNC finished the season Nov. 24 with a victory against Maryland and the best record in the Coastal Division.
“We never looked back,” Fedora said after the Maryland game. “Then it was like, ‘OK, here’s the plan, here’s what we’re going to do,’ and we really haven’t talked about it since.”
But the season’s end was a cruel reminder of the problems the Fedora era had inherited.
