{"id":7428,"date":"2014-08-28T23:34:03","date_gmt":"2014-08-29T03:34:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/?p=7428"},"modified":"2014-08-30T21:51:13","modified_gmt":"2014-08-31T01:51:13","slug":"fan-guide-to-uncs-home-opener-vs-liberty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/?p=7428","title":{"rendered":"Fan guide to UNC’s home opener vs. Liberty"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"uncliberty\"<\/a>North Carolina opens its 124th college football season on Saturday, Aug. 30, when the Tar Heels host Liberty of the Big South Conference at 6 p.m. It’s the season opener for a pair of teams looking to build off the momentum of strong finishes from a year ago. Carolina won six of its last seven in 2013, including a 39-17 win over Cincinnati in the Belk Bowl, while the Flames reeled off five straight victories to end the year.<\/p>\n

Saturday’s game is the first meeting between Carolina and Liberty on the gridiron. The two institutions squared off in the first round of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament in 1994 with the No. 1 Tar Heels prevailing, 71-51.<\/p>\n

Carolina is 1-1 in season openers under head coach Larry Fedora. In 2012, the Tar Heels knocked off Elon, 63-0, in Fedora’s debut as UNC’s coach. Last year, Carolina fell at No. 6 South Carolina on a Thursday night in Columbia, 27-10. A win over Liberty would be Fedora’s 50th as a head coach.<\/p>\n

Carolina has won five of its last seven season openers. All five came against FCS competition.<\/p>\n

Liberty is coached by Turner Gill, who is in his third season with the Flames. Gill previously was the head coach at Buffalo and Kansas.<\/p>\n

AT A GLANCE
\nRecords: North Carolina 0-0, Liberty 0-0
\nRankings: Carolina is ranked No. 23 in both the AP poll and the USA Today Coaches’ Poll. Liberty is receiving votes in the Sports Network FCS Top 25.
\nTV: ESPN3 (click to watch). Ryan Rose (play-by-play), Forrest Conoly (analyst) and Angela Mallen (sideline) have the call.
\nRadio: Tar Heel Sports Network (click to listen), a division of Learfield Communications. Jones Angell (play-by-play), Ethan Albright (analyst) and Lee Pace (sideline) have the call.
\nTwitter: @TarHeelFootball, @CoachFedora | @LibertyFootball, @LibertyTGill<\/p>\n

QUICK HITS
\n\u2022 Carolina is ranked No. 23 in both The Associated Press and USA Today Coaches Top 25 Polls. It is the first time the Tar Heels have been ranked since 2010. That year, Carolina began the season No. 18 in the AP poll, but lost to No. 21 LSU in the season opener in Atlanta.
\n\u2022 Carolina had just six scholarship seniors on its 2014 training camp roster and just one senior starter on offense – tight end Jack Tabb.
\n\u2022 Carolina’s offensive line has just 43 starts to its credit led by junior offensive guard Landon Turner with 17. Jon Heck started all 13 games last year at right tackle and Caleb Peterson started 12 at left guard. Offensive tackle Kiaro Holts started one game in 2012 vs. Idaho.
\n\u2022 Carolina looks to continue its outstanding special teams play from a year ago. In 2013, the Tar Heels ranked first in the country in punt returns, 10th in net punting and 19th in kickoff returns.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

North Carolina opens its 124th college football season on Saturday, Aug. 30, when the Tar Heels host Liberty of the Big South Conference at 6…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","wpcat-1-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7428","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7428"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7428\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7430,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7428\/revisions\/7430"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}