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The Daily Tar Heel

GROUNDBREAKING

Victory Against FSU Especially Sweet for Seniors, Bunting

For years, fate has smiled on Florida State's football team, bearing it national title games and championship crowns. Heisman Trophy winners came and went, and Tallahassee was blessed by a glorious year-in-year-out glow of national dominance that few programs ever know.

For years, fate has frowned on North Carolina, handing loss after loss. Injuries came to stay, coaches left, and Chapel Hill was cursed by a disturbing year-in-year-out trend of roller coaster seasons that programs dread.

So when Florida State came into town Saturday, fate seems to be shining its familiar light on the game. North Carolina had lost its first three contests; Florida State had taken its first two.

But there was that certain something, so subtle that only a few could feel it. North Carolina cornerback Errol Hood could; UNC wideout Kory Bailey couldn't. Maybe what Hood felt was fate finally shifting the playing field, giving the Tar Heels a boost and knocking the Seminoles to their knees.

And when fate was through with North Carolina and Florida State, the score read 41-9. With North Carolina on top.

"Today, something felt funny," Hood said after the game. "It was like, we're ready to play. We went out there and it was like everything was going right for us. The boys were excited, the fans were excited, the coaches were excited.

"It was fun out there."

Fun had been missing from Kenan Stadium for a while. Although UNC won its last game there, a 13-10 victory against Maryland on Nov. 11, 2000, the Tar Heels struggled at home in the Carl Torbush era, going 7-10. John Bunting was supposed to make his debut at Kenan Stadium as UNC's new coach Sept. 15 against Southern Methodist, but that game now won't be played until Dec. 1.

Instead of the easier task of SMU, fate gave Bunting Florida State, a team that North Carolina never had beaten, a team that had exactly two losses to ACC teams since joining the conference 10 years ago.

And a team no one but North Carolina's players believed they could beat.

"It's great for us," defensive end Julius Peppers said. "We worked hard for this because a lot of people did not expect this from us. A lot of people did not think we were able to pull it off, but we believe in ourselves as a team. In the locker room before the game, we all thought we were going to win the game.

"This is one of the biggest wins in the history of the program, if not the biggest."

It's certainly a big win for the North Carolina seniors closing out four and five years of having never beaten Florida State and having really never come that close.

"It means a lot," Hood said. "I told myself when I first came up in here and Florida State beat us in '97 -- as a senior, we're going to get them.

"As the years went by, I had a little doubt, like `Wow, it might not happen.'"

But it did happen. And those seniors -- Kory Bailey, Ronald Curry, Quincy Monk, David Thornton, Merceda Perry, Ryan Sims and all the others - will have an accomplishment that 11 UNC teams haven't been able to have.

The accomplishment did not go unnoticed by the fans at the game. Students jumped past security guards, leapt over the fence and upset hundreds of moths living in the bushes surrounding the field to celebrate the victory even before it was over.

As the clock ticked down, the students -- who had been chased from the field just long enough for the game to end -- ran to the center of the field, congratulating their coach and players for a job well done.

"I went into the bunch," Curry said. "I jumped around with everybody else. I'm still a kid, especially at heart. When it's business, it's business. When it's pleasure, it's pleasure. And that was a great moment, a joyful moment."

Students tried to knock down the west end goalpost, working on it for a full 40 minutes before it went down. Many of the UNC players watched the students' effort with fans until they were ushered into their locker room.

They were met in the locker room by their proud coach, who wore his Super Bowl championship ring.

"I told the players it might be in my top 10," Bunting said of the victory's significance in his career. "It might be in my top five. It might be in my top two. They stopped me right there. They knew where I was going with it."

The Sports Editor can be reached at sports@unc.edu.

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