CHAPEL HILL — Playing in a bowl game doesn't just mean extra practice time to prepare for West Virginia, North Carolina coach Butch Davis said Tuesday, but for beyond.

"As the NCAA has scaled back spring practice, to where there's only 15 days, and there's only a limited number of those days where you're actually allowed to have equipment on, and maybe not even full contact, the additional 10, 12, 14 practices for a bowl game is really a huge advantage for a football program,'' said Davis, whose 8-4 Tar Heels will play in the Meineke Bowl on Dec. 27.

CHAPEL HILL — Quarterback Cameron Sexton is not the only big comeback story to come out of North Carolina's win at Miami on Saturday. There's Trimane Goddard, too.

When the senior safety made the game-saving interception on the final play of the game — plucking the ball out of the air after it bounced of the hands of Kayne Farquharson in the end zone — it marked an exclamation point for a player who had to redshirt in 2006 because of a fractured foot.