North Carolina Tar Heels vs LSU Tigers Football Preview

The inconvenient truth about grand plans is that no matter how well-intentioned they often are, the messy course of human events can – and does – get in the way of mice, men and matchups.

When this Chick-fil-A College Kickoff (the name of this game had everything but the word “Classic” attached at the end) was initially established in July of 2009, the North Carolina Tar Heels and Louisiana State Tigers had reason to think they’d be setting up a mouthwatering meal of a manhood-making moment. North Carolina knew that in 2010, it would boast a defense loaded with NFL combine candidates, while LSU – though beset by problems in 2008 – figured to be back on the beam and ready to contend for national championships, as is the expectation in Baton Rouge.

Now, with the kickoff just days away, the outlook is decidedly different.

The pervasive nationwide manhunt for wayward sports agents – one of the biggest topics of the summer in the college sports community – hit the North Carolina campus hard. Defensive tackle Marvin Austin – one of the main NFL aspirants on the Heels’ loaded defense – was linked by NCAA investigators to agent Gary Wichard, who represents former UNC defensive tackle Kentwan Balmer, now with the San Francisco 49ers. It had come to the attention of NCAA investigators that Austin had been driving Balmer’s car. Moreover, Austin was suspected of being paid to take a trip to Miami for the purpose of carving out deals to smooth the path toward an NFL career. The long and short of it is that Austin’s doings raised red flags throughout the NCAA, and as a result, Austin’s season is shrouded in uncertainty.

Then came NannyGate, the bombshell of a story in which Davis’s nanny was revealed to be a tutor who gave inappropriate help to several members of UNC’s defense, in a story reminiscent of other academic scandals at the Tennessee football program and the Minnesota basketball program (just to name a few prominent examples over the past 15 years). The jawdropping news – which hit the airwaves on Aug. 26 – plunged Davis into a bottomless pit of misery. His place as the UNC head coach can’t be very tenable at this point. His proximity to the problem prevents him from being seen as a credible policeman and a conflict-free problem solver. His status as the face of the Carolina program has been substantially tarnished; some would go a step further and add the word “irrevocably.”