Don't worry, this relates to Carolina football.
I've been slowly winding my way across the country, retracing the move I made six years ago coincidentally the last inaugural season for a UNC football coach. And I'm discovering a couple of things:
- Jerry Tarkanian runs a youth basketball league. In Vegas. Dedicated to "commitment, honesty and integrity through sport." And no one sees this as a problem.
- Utah is a lot more pleasant than I remembered - and I'm probably the only guy from California liking Utah at the moment. It's definitely greener. than I recall, and Zion and Arches are both gorgeous. That 110 mile stretch without any services is still rough though.
- I hate Boulder. I detoured off 70 to meet a friend there, expecting a Chapel Hill like atmosphere, only to get exurban Atlanta Hell. No local restaurants, just miles of traffic surrounding a huge mall that tried to be car and pedestrian-friendly, and failing miserably at both. I can't imagine having to live there.
- Three TVs tuned to Rutgers-Norfolk State. That's more than were showing Michigan-ND, Ohio State-UDub or Tennessee-Florida
- The bar was filled with Florida State fans, all cheering for Tennessee. OK, I expected the cheering. But really, out of all the gin joints in all the country, I had to walk into this one?
- A guy in a replica leather football helmet. (He was an FSU fan.) I guess the Usenet spam works.
- ESPN's bottom score feed, which once I found one willing to plum that far deep into D-1 scores, displayed the fact that Virginia beat UNC, 22-20.
The passing game is still going great though - Yates had 339 yards in the air, three touchdowns and a late interception that unfortunately proved costly. The start was slow, but they played their way out of a 16-0 hole to have a chance to tie at the end, something you never saw in the last couple of years. The running game still needs help, the defense is improving, and their weren't any special teams problems this week. But it was a rare winnable game, and it hurts to lose.
And it hurts even worse to find out about in Boulder, Colorado.