Sexton will still start for UNC

North Carolina quarterback Cameron Sexton called his performance during the Tar Heels' 17-15 loss at Maryland on Saturday the his worst of the year.

But when Butch Davis was asked Sunday whether he would give any thought to starting T.J. Yates, he said: "No."

"Our plan is right now to start Cam,'' Davis said.

"I think that certainly T.J. is improving every week, he's getting back into the routine. He missed a significant amount of practice time where he wasn't able to practice. And I'll go ahead and jump whatever the next question might be about quarterbacks ... I've made this statment, and this is how things are: The quarterback is not any different than any of the other players on the team, that the person who gives us the best chance to win the game is the guy that obviously we're going to play.

"Certainly, yesterday Cam did not play as well as he had played in the previous ballgames, but he had a lot of help in that. The protection at times wasn't good, guys dropped balls, we just didn't play as well. So there's no one single individual that ever wins you a ballgame or loses a ballgame, and ... the games that we've won this season are because we won as a team in all three phases: we have not hurt ourselves, we have not beaten ourselves. Yesterday, we did not follow that blueprint."

Sexton was 10-for-24 with one touchdown and one interception against the Terps. He also fumbled once.

Yates has played only one series, going 1-for-3, since he fractured his left ankle in September.

Davis said he did talk to Sexton after the game Saturday, and again on Sunday. The message: "You can't get lost in the moment."

"He beat himself up on one of the scrambles -- not the one that he fumbled, but one of the other scrambles, and he made the right decision to pull the ball down. He made the right decision to direct the traffic to block the oncoming guy. It's unfortunate that he didn't make the cut inside that would have given us a first down, that would have kept the drive alive,'' Davis said.

"I think Cam, like all the other players, they realize ... we want them to play well. And when they don't play well, we want them to honestly look and see, 'Why?' Whether's it's Cam or any of the other guys on the team -- 'Why did I not play as well? Was my focus someplace else? I wasn't looking to the second receiver, the third receiver? Was I out of bounds, out of alignment defensively?' and I think he'll do that; he'll take an honest look at the way that he played, and look at the opportunities he had, and try to correct it."