The Charlotte News from Charlotte, North Carolina • 11

SECTION I' There were plenty of Tar Heel fans on hand to cheer their team to victory (News photosDon Hunter) Soap opera year ends happily JACKSONVILLE Fla This been a football season for North Tar Heels been a soap opera These past four months have had more tumbling emotions than The World but they had a happy ending shortly after midnight Friday when Carolina finished off a surprising 17-15 victory over perennial national power Michigan in the Gator Bowl game before a crowd of 70000 and a national television audience Because the victim was Michigan which frequently spends its holidays at the Rose Bowl this ranks as one of most prestigious victories ever The game was the culmination of two seasons of problems that have dogged the Tar Heels since Bill Dooley left and Dick Crum became the coach Last season the players and coaches had trouble adjusting to each other and there was a lot of discontent On the whole those things were smoothed out this season but other things kept happening It was all forgotten Friday night though been a tough two seasons for the coaches and the players" said senior linebacker Buddy Curry hope this will turn it all around Coach Crum and his assistants are good coaches had problems but it seemed that during the time since we finished the regular season been all ironed out UNC cheerleader Beth Cloninger with a Tar Heel on her cheek had good reason to be happy after the game Friday night Tar Heels managed only one win and a tie in their next five games There was speculation that Lawrence was dogging it and that he and Crum who had fallen out the previous year were at odds again Famous Amos got healthy again and finished with a flourish and against punishing defense which yielded an average of only 12 points in regular season games he scampered for 110 yards in 23 carries and caught five passes for 30 yards Carolina pulled out of its sinking spell to win its last two games and finish 7-3-1 but expect a bid to a bowl as big as the Gator and a matchup with a team like Michigan Apparently not many others expected it either There was a great outcry when the Tar Heels got this coveted invitation People said they didn't deserve it UNC got rough treatment in the newspapers here and elsewhere The game was billed as a mismatch But Crum had his team ready He told his defenders to "go out and play like wild He equipped his offense with some new wrinkles new sets and shifts and men in motion Carolina played splendidly on offense and well enough on defense Michgan too played well until its passing quarterback John Wangler was injured and it had to go with Dickey who is a good option quarterback but not a particularly good passer It's possible Michigan would have won had Wangler not been hurt but who can say? And what might have been doesn't count This was the second year in a row an ACC team beat a Big Ten giant in the Gator Bowl Clemson beat Ohio State by the same 17-15 score last year this will make people start to respect the ACC said Kupec the Big gotta do something We even the conference The Tar Heels were just a team that had a soap opera season and made it have a happy ending just seemed to click into place for this Perhaps the most dramatic example of this was Phil Farris He came to Carolina as a running back was switched to defensive back then moved to wide receiver He started the season hot caught four touchdown passes in the first four games then dropped two passes and fumbled a kickoff return in the Wake Forest game which UNC lost Crum announced that he was going to bench Farris and let someone else try to hold onto the ball Farris faded out of the picture completely for two or three games then worked back in for a few minutes in the last three games Friday night Farris listed on the first two teams but with the Tar Heels trailing 9-7 in the third quarter he leaped between two defenders in a corner of the end zone and grabbed a touchdown pass He was hit hard as he caught it but held on "When coach Crum benched me I felt I wouldn't get to play said Farris was about ready to just give it up but I talked it over with coach Crum and we decided it would be best for me to stick it out got a lot of criticism for sorta dropping me like that but it was my fault I brought it on myself was my last game I didn't want to go out on a sour note personally or as a team This was a great way to end it Quarterback Matt Kupec and running back Amos Lawrence tied for the outstanding player award When their name were announced Crum smiled Things had not gone smoothly for them either Kupec had publicly criticized the coaches after he was benched during one game Crum was ready to kick him off the team but Kupec made a public apology and came back to play some of his finest football Against Michigan the blond senior completed 19 of 28 passes for 161 yards Lawrence suffered a pulled groin muscle after Carolina had won its first four games and was nationally ranked The UNCC gets fill of Tigers Tie would have spoiled Tar Heels finest hour By STAN OLSON News Staff Writer FORTLAND Ore For years UNC basketball team has been hungering for a shot at Clem-son or any Atlantic Coast Conference team for that matter After Friday night the 49crs probably would have just as soon stayed hungry For Clemson bullied its way past UNCC and into the finals of the Far West Classic whipping the 49ers 85-65 in a semifinal bout in Memorial Coliseum Clem 02son meets Oregon State an 86-71 winner over Brigham Young in the first game at midnight EST UNCC and BYU tangle for third place in the consolation game at 10 pm Eastern time The story of this one can be told rather simply in numbers instead of words awesome front line of John Campbell Larry Nance and Horace Wyatt measures 6-feet-10 6-10 and 6-10 UNCC countered with 6-4 6-8 6-6 The Tigers were simply too tall and too many The 49ers put up a game scrap om the first half but a late Clemson surge lifted the Tigers to a 41-31 halftime lead In the second half Clemson packed back into its 2-3 as Coach Bill Foster calls it just do it to please the and dared UNCC to come inside The guys in green couldn't Whenever a 49cr tried to penetrate he was swallowed up by a forest of organe and white seemingly never to be heard from again Eventually UNCC just quit trying settling for 18-footers from the perimeter Clemson put the game away early in the second half when nine straight fast-breaking points turned a 10-point Tiger lead into a 19-point bulge 58-39 Their lead never again was less than 14 points Afterwards the 49ers were properly impressed with their venture into the land of the giants although they thought they could have played better were tough and big and strong as guard Chad Kinch said were just too big inside It was hard to score inside Just look at that damn Forward Donnie Koonce who spent the evening looking up at whoever he was guarding agreed biggest strength is that he said work it they get it into the big men then they turn aroyund and stick were added forward Bobby Potts knew we had to deal with it but they were getting second and third shots and that hurt us a lot I'm 6-6 and when guarding 6-10 giving up a lot And there were too many of them" Asked about his range of mountains Foster looked like a cat swallowed the canary they got he said was some intimidation in Still the 49ers fought furiously on the boards and the rebounding margin of 41-33 Clemson could have been a lot worse Foster who got his major college start as head 49er coach and stayed at UNCC for five gave his old school some credit thought be a lot closer ball he said not a bad club I saw kick Furman and that may not mean much to you but back East Furman's a pretty good had been downplaying his first meeting with his old school but when it was over he finally admitted it got to him a little they came out for warmups and I saw one of those green jackets with the funny 49er emblem I designed on it I felt he said with a grin thought I should run off with them when they left the court And this team is similar to my last teams there if you take away Cedric back John Wangler not suffered ligament damage in his knee late in the second quarter with Michigan leading 9-0 Wangler had been spectacular hitting on six of eight passesfor 203 yards and a touchdown His replacement BJ Dickey do badly hitting 11 of 18 passes for 125 yards and a TD but when Wangler went out the complexion of the game changed In the late going Dickey was intercepted twice On the Tar next possession they scored to go out at halftime trailing only 9-7 Then they put together a picture-perfect 16-play 97-yard drive in the third quarter for the score that made it 14-9 and with less than eight minutes to play Jeff Hayes who had earlier missed three field goals kicked a 32-yarder that proved to be the winning margin Quarterback Matt Kupec connecting on 19 of 28 passes for 161 yards in his final game as a Tar Fleel and junior Amos Lawrence rushing for 118 yards and catching five passes for 38 more led the attack never thought we could drive the ball 97 yards against said Carolina Coach Dick Crum "That was the turning There had been a lot of speculation that Michigan was taking Carolina lightly Crum said he think so So did Kupec not true that they have respect for said the quarterback could tell by the way they looked They came out and played us knew we could play with said defensive back Ricky Barden had good practices We knew their scheme and we felt good felt we were going to beat them I Just felt By RONALD GREEN News Sports Editor JACKSONVILLE Fla What was to be one of North finest hours on a football field was about to be wiped out The Tar Heels had had it all their way in the second half and had appeared to be home free with a victory over mighty Michigan in the Gator Bowl game here Friday night But with 1:28 to go Michigan scored cutting margin to 17-15 The Wolverines went for the two-point conversion that would have tied it BJ Dickey tossed a pass to Anthony Carter a fast quick sure-handed receiver in the end zone The ball came in low Carter fell to the turf grabbed at it but hold it and one of the biggest victories in Carolina annals had been saved had worked on that play in practice" said linebacker Buddy Curry "We were in the same defense we used against it in practice I had called for a man-to-man defense and Carter was my man But I got picked (screened off momentarily by another player) and I got there a little too late Carter beat me All I could do was hope something would happen and it did The quarterback threw low" That's how close it came to being a rather dismal tie all things considered instead of a rather surprising victory that had Carolina fans shouting in the streets of Jacksonville Beach where the Tar Heels were quartered until daylight today It took a break like that along with a key Michigan injury for the Tar Heels to wrestle this Big Ten giant down That and some of the best football the Tar Heels have mustered in awhile There is no guessing of course what might have happened had Michigan quarter Bobby Conrad sandwiched between Phil Scott (31) and Chad Kinch goes for two points anyway (UPI) The 49crs could have used Maxwell and a little bit better marksmanship explained UNCC coach Mike Pratt in a little slump but come out of it" The slump was accentuated by Clemson of course Working inside forward Michael Johnson was one-for-nine in the first half and center Phil Scott was 0-for-4 They tried one shot between them in the second period and missed it The scoring burden fell to the outside shooters and 23 points and 18 and 12 came mostly from downtown While the 49ers fell to 5-4 overall Clemson is now 8-0 and the Tigers did it with their usual everybody-gets-to-score attack John Campbell was awesome in the middle scoring 17 points and gobbling up 15 rebounds and fellow giant Horace Wyatt added 14 points on six-of-eight floor shooting So the long-awaited matchup is done But one 49ers 6-6 Greg Johnson was less than happy about the way the proceedings were conducted not 20 ppoints better than he said thought the refs had a lot to do with it We had boxed out inside and they were going over the top of us with no calls And then outside they were calling little touch fouls on In any event even if the Tigers 20 points better than UNCC on this night they were indeed better And another chunk of the world has discovered the quiet monster Bill Foster is assembling down in Clemson SC.