“North Carolina, c’mon raise up, take your shirt off, spin it rod your head like a helicopter.” Maybe Peteye Pablo isn’t your style. Perhaps General Johnson and the Chairmen of the Board with “sweet Carolina girls, sweet southern pearls” is more your speed? I’m trying to pump you up with music, because your UNC Tar Heels aren’t allowed to go bowling this college football season. Bummer.
Neither is Ohio State in 2012. Which is funny to me, because one of my closest friends has two favortie college teams: UNC and OSU. Guess I e has to wait until college basketball season for both. Even though this year we’ll see both programs drop off a bit. Well, at least the football Tar Heels will have a fun to watch fast paced offense going for them.
2011 was: rather mediocre, especially when you consider how much talent they had. 5-1 degenerated into 7-6, a bowl throttling at the hands of a much better Mizzou team. And now the sanctions come
2012 will go smoothly if: they get off to a fast start again, and they should. The schedule is easy early on, and they have their own version of the triplets on offense: QB Bryn Renner, RB Giovani Bernard and WR Erik Highsmith. As long as their line gels, they’ll outscore a lot of opponents.
2012 will be rough if: They don’t make a huge improvement on pass defense and in the run game. the defense figures to lean on the front seven this fall? The secondary? Lots of leadership questions, as only four starters return on that side of the ball
BMOC: Renner, Highsmith, Bernard, DE Kareem Martin
All-name team: It all starts with Larry Fedora, their coach. This is also the school that gave us the coolest name of all time: Dre Bly, this year we got Junior Gnonkonde, Dion Guy, Tre Boston, Fabby Desir and Peyton Jenest
Bottom Line: They should be above okay. Maybe better that the just above .500 they were last year. 7-8 wins certainly looks likely, and the schedule does them some favors. It would seriously help if they 1.) led the ACC in passing which they should. 2.) They again have one of the better run defenses in the league. It’s kind of a bummer they don’t get to play in the league championship game this year.
Rankings Athlon- 29 Lindy’s- 45 Phil Steele- 30
All the 77s
#47 Northwestern
#67 Southern Miss
#73 Kansas
#76 Minnesota
Paul M. Banks is CEO of The Sports Bank.net, an official Google News site generating millions of unique visitors. He’s also a regular contributor to Chicago Now, Chicago Tribune.com, Fox Sports, MSN, Walter Football and Yardbarker
A Fulbright scholar and MBA, Banks has appeared on live radio all over the world; and he’s a member of the Football Writers Association of America, U.S. Basketball Writers Association, and Society of Professional Journalists. The President of the United States follows him on Twitter (@Paul_M_BanksTSB) You should too