Tucked in the News and Observer's preview/retrospective of tonight's Rutgers matchup is this quote from Mark Paschal, UNC linebacker:

"We almost abandoned ship,'' Paschal said. "We started throwing stuff out, changing personnel -- we started doing some crazy stuff after that first Rutgers game, because everyone was like, 'Oh, we lost to Rutgers.' ... I just think it was panic -- panic in the sense that they were worried that we ended up losing to a team they didn't know would be that good."

That's pretty telling, because the general response from Chapel Hill after the game was disappointment, but not despondency. After all, the Scarlet Knights were a team with a similar performance over the two previous years, and Carolina did have winning scoring opportunities late. It wasn't until the next three games - blowouts to Virginia Tech and Clemson, broken up by a ridiculously close win over Furman - that the writing looked to be on the wall. I wonder if Bunting would still be the coach if he'd stayed the course and not retooled the defense?