The first order of business Sunday morning--following the requisite four-mile run around campus, to clear the cobwebs, and the visit to Ye Olde Waffle Shop, to stoke the furnace for a long day at the keyboard--was to open my thick notebook of Extra Points back to 1991, the last year the Tar Heels lost at N.C. State. This three-ring binder is 3.5 inches thick, contains nearly 200 newsletters and over half a million words on Tar Heel football dating to 1990. They were trying times then. They are difficult times today as well in the aftermath of the Wolfpack pummeling the Carolina defense Saturday for 615 yards in posting a 47-34 victory.

The storylines in 1991, when the Wolfpack of coach Dick Sheridan nailed the Tar Heels of Mack Brown, 24-7, revolved around these points:

* How badly the Tar Heels played overall, from a busted assignment in the secondary leading to an easy Wolfpack score, to errant passing, with QB Chuckie Burnette completing only 16-of-34 throws with three interceptions.

* How the perception was that Sheridan was eating Brown's lunch in developing quality players, since Brown was winning in recruiting but couldn't parlay those song-and-dance victories in February to green-grass triumphs come September.

* How there was nonetheless hope for the Tar Heels, given the fact that they had obviously recruited solid players but they remained--at that juncture in time--too young and green across the roster to consistently beat quality opposition.

I wrote it then and I'll write it again, straight from Extra Points, Vol. II, No. 4, September 30, 1991:

"Of the Heels' last three recruiting classes, only one has had the time to mature into a nucleus of third-year players. And quality, consistent football programs, which Brown most certainly is building at Carolina, are built on fifth, fourth and third-year players."

You can't argue that. By 1993, when the Tar Heels went 10-3, they were starting 18 juniors and seniors. By 1997, when they went 11-1 and finished No. 4 in the country, a new wave of early and mid-1990s recruits had developed, and the Tar Heels were again starting 18 juniors and seniors.

"We played hard," Brown said that day in 1991. "We never gave up. We just didn't play well."

Twelve years later, you could roll out the same words and stick Bunting's name beside them.

"Everybody battled hard," Bunting said. "They played their hearts out, they laid it out on the line and gave it everything they had. We just did not play smart at times."

It's interesting how the football programs at Carolina and State have see-sawed since a stand-off in the 1970s, with the schools rarely fielding elite programs at the same time. Since the Associated Press began its weekly football poll in 1936, there have been only four seasons--1979 and 1992 through 1994--when the Tar Heels and Wolfpack were each in the Top 20 at the same time for at least three weeks of that season.

State was 60-30-4 with only one losing season over eight seasons during the Lou Holt/Bo Rein eras of the 1970s. The Tar Heels under Bill Dooley were 55-35-3 over that period from 1972-79 with two losing seasons. Carolina had the edge for the decade as a whole if you add the 1970 and 1971 seasons, which were winners for Carolina and losers under Earle Edwards and Al Michaels--and ultimately the years that prompted State's administration to look for a coach who could compete against Dooley. It's fair to characterize both programs in those days as being sound and solid--but certainly not great.

Since then, the programs have been like battleships--churning and lumbering in one direction for several years, then slowly, almost imperceptibly, turning and heading in the next direction for several more. That's why there have been streaks--Carolina with seven wins in a row, then State with five, then back to Carolina with seven, and now State with three of four.

Carolina's Dick Crum dominated Monte Kiffin and Tom Reed in the early 1980s. Sheridan righted the ship at State, split with Crum in their two meetings, then bulldozed Brown for four years before a sense of equilibrium developed in 1992. Reed in his last year and Sheridan in his early years had the advantage of recruiting against a Carolina program that had become stagnant and viewed as standoffish by North Carolina high school football coaches.

Anyone who believes Bunting will stand pat for the kind of defense the Tar Heels have played for 16 games now doesn't know or understand the man. This is a process--just as it was for Mack Brown years ago.

Brown by 1993 had solved the in-state recruiting morass and had the clear talent advantage and ruled over Mike O'Cain for four seasons. Carl Torbush took the baton and won twice more over O'Cain before Amato surfaced in 2000.

Now Amato, primed and pumped for his first head-coaching assignment after 18 seasons at Florida State, clearly has the edge in athleticism and team speed. Amato, like Reed and Sheridan before him, has benefited in building his program by the turmoil in the Carolina camp--recruits hardly embraced the uncertainty of the Torbush era and it took Bunting a good year to begin making headway mastering the recruiting learning curve after he took over in 2001.

Hopefully from the Tar Heel point of view, Bunting's most recent recruiting class shows the Tar Heels can go head-to-head with the Wolfpack for the players it wants. Now it's a matter of putting several quality classes together and allowing them to develop--a scenario no different from the evolutionary stages of Brown's program more than a decade ago.

At the moment the difference is speed--the Wolfpack has plenty of it on defense, the Tar Heels are lacking.

"They've got a lot of speed, and it showed early in the game," Bunting said.

"Their speed is their strength," said receiver Jarwarski Pollock. "They're like Florida State on defense the way they run."

State followed FSU's lead with its offensive game plan from the opening kick-off-use its wide receivers' speed and the relative lack of it from Carolina's linebackers to ding little passes into the flats and over the middle, get them in space and let them run. The idea's even better given the sporadic tackling acuity of the Tar Heel cornerbacks. The Seminoles marched to easy scores to begin the season-opener a month ago, and the Wolfpack and QB Philip Rivers had their way with Carolina's defense its first two possessions of each half Saturday.

"There's a ton of frustration," Bunting said of Carolina's defensive maladies. The Heels are back to last in NCAA Division I-A with 522 yards allowed per game.

Newcomers continue to play more snaps on defense. Mahlon Carey has emerged as a force at strong safety. Linebackers Larry Edwards and Fred Sparkman played more Saturday than they have all season, and Sparkman was noticeable on one third-quarter play when he chased Cotra Jackson from behind, stopping the State tailback for a one-yard gain. Puff Thomas joined the goal-line unit in an impressive three-down stand from the one-yard line in the second quarter, forcing State into a field goal.

"We got a lot of snaps for the young linebackers," Bunting said. "That's going to help us."

With the Tar Heels 0-4 and State, Maryland, Virginia and Wake Forest--schools with head coaches in their respective positions four years or less--a combined 15-7, Bunting is going to have to continue to deal with unfavorable comparisons. That's no different from what Brown was coping with in his early years. At various times, Steve Spurrier at Duke, Bobby Ross at Georgia Tech and Dooley at Wake Forest were thrown in his face. But other programs are beyond Bunting's control. All he can do is continue to grow as a head coach in major college football and put the pieces to Carolina's proud defensive tradition back in place.

"We're not even close to where I want to be defensively," Bunting said last week. "Not even close. I hope to get closer and closer and closer, game by game. We'll keep grinding away. We played 22 guys against Wisconsin. We'll keep getting more people in every week."

Asked by a newspaper reporter to describe the eventual goal, Bunting said: "I want to be a pressure defense, to mix fronts and coverages, to blitz and dog and zone-dog. More importantly, I want to be a good tackling team. We got a little better last week. That is very important--you have to be a good tackling defense."

Asked by the same reporter who in his past had had a lasting effect on his defensive philosophy, Bunting mentioned Marion Campbell, the defensive coordinator on the Philadelphia Eagles teams of the 1970s and early 1980s.

"He was probably one of the very best defensive coordinators of all-time," said Bunting, a linebacker and defensive captain. "We were fundamentally sound. We were technique-sound. We didn't play a whole lot of fronts and coverages in our base defense, but we were No. 1 for several years based on the fact we were fundamentally sound, technique-sound. And we had some real good players--and not me. Believe me, I just ran the show. I was not very fast or strong. The other guys were really good players. Three of the four linebackers went to the Pro Bowl. Guess who did not go."

Anyone who believes Bunting will stand pat for the kind of defense the Tar Heels have played for 16 games now doesn't know or understand the man.

This is a process--just as it was for Mack Brown years ago. Those Heels had no chance on defense in 1988. Then they lost a senior-laden line and all-star tailback in 1989 and had no chance on offense. Slowly, Brown and staff put the pieces in place and let them mature into quality units. Today the offense is miles in front of the defense.

But Bunting believes the Tar Heels will win a game and begin the turnaround soon.

"There were some people prior to this game saying this was a make-or-break game, like football's going to end at Carolina or something if we don't win this game," Bunting said. "Man alive, slow down. There's a lot of football left. We're trying to get better, and we think we can. And I'm not talking about next year, I'm talking about next week."

Things worked out in 1991. I suspect they will this time as well, only the storyline could be somewhat more dramatic. Amato and staff are better recruiters than were Sheridan and his staff 15 years ago. State has made a significant financial investment in its football facility. One wild card in each program's evolution, though, will be the coming edict from the UNC system for higher minimum academic standards for admission, with no exceptions allowed for athletes. Bunting and staff are already working toward that eventuality, witness his decision to de-emphasize recruiting in Florida because problems many prospects in that state have in meeting math standards.

In truth the years ahead hint more of the old Dooley-Holtz days, when both camps were darn good and the head coaches held their noses talking about one another. But that's good for college football in North Carolina. It's a shame this rivalry was relegated as it was last week to pay-per-view TV. It should be played at the end of the season on national TV with ESPN's Game Day crew in town.

After all, the Carolina-Duke basketball rivalry has only made each program work that much harder.

SQUIB-KICKS - The Tar Heels traveled as a team to Henderson on Sunday for the funeral of the brother of starting center Jason Brown. Soldier Lunsford Brown, 27, was killed a week ago when mortars struck a U.S. base on the outskirts of Iraq.

*Carolina's dwindling depth at cornerback took another blow Saturday when Cedric Holt suffered a broken ankle and will miss the rest of the year. Michael Waddell missed Saturday's game with a sprained ankle, and Lionell Green played despite a shoulder injury suffered in practice last week.

*Kicker Topher Roberts nailed 5-of-5 kick-offs into or out of the end zone on Saturday. His other two kicks were an intentional sky kick at the end of the first half and an onsides kick at the end of the game.

*Darian Durant became Carolina's career completions leader, moving three ahead of Jason Stanicek. Durant now has 375 completions; Stanicek had 372 from 1991-94. Durant is second on the career passing yardage list and is only 98 yards short of Ronald Curry's record of 4,987 set from 1998-2001.