North Carolina is 2-0 to start the season and plays its first ACC game of the year at home Saturday against old rival Virginia. But are Tar Heel fans into the season? There were 10,000 or so empty seats last week against Rutgers and while the Heels won the game, they turned the ball over five times and snuck by when they were heavily favored.

Will the fans return to see the oldest rivalry in the South this weekend?

“I’ll really be honest with you. I don’t really look at the seats on game day,” said UNC coach Everett Withers. “I look at the opponent, look at our offense and defense.”

Withers did say he wants the fans at the games and the players are playing hard. “If they’ll come watch us play, they’ll be excited to watch us play,” he said. “We want them to come out and watch the games and be excited. All we can do is put a good product on the field, exciting product on the field, and hopefully we’ll get fans in those seats.”

If not, it could dissuade recruits from coming to Carolina. Withers disagrees. “I don’t think it becomes an issue with recruits because you got to understand, this place sells itself. If you want to come to school, get a great education, play in this beautiful stadium, play in a great conference like the ACC, play great opponents each week, I don’t think it becomes a problem.”

Turnovers are a problem right now for the team and if the Heels turn it over five times this week, they won’t beat Virginia.

Withers said he doesn’t think the Rutgers win would have been close if not for the turnovers. “We stopped ourselves I think more than Rutgers stopped us,” he said. “That’s one of the points that we’ve gone through this week is it’s about us taking
care of our business.”