CHAPEL HILL — The idea was clear to N.C. State coach Tom O'Brien: punt the ball and get the game to overtime.

Gio Bernard had other plans.

Bernard's 74-yard punt return with 13 seconds left clinched UNC's 43-35 win over the Wolfpack on Saturday at Kenan Stadium. O'Brien said punter Wil Baumann did what he wanted with the game tied at 35 and 30 seconds left on the clock.

"I think at that point, you just want to kick it and get it out of there," O'Brien said. "I think we might have over-kicked it."

Updated 8:01 p.m.

CHAPEL HILL — While Giovani Bernard ran up the sideline and into the legend of the North Carolina-N.C. State football rivalry here at Kenan Stadium on Saturday, his teammates on the Tar Heels’ sideline ran with him. 

Here are statements and background information issued Tuesday related to the Matt Kupec travel controversy at UNC-Chapel Hill.

Kupec has issued a statement apologizing for his lack of judgment. Tami Hansbrough, his girlfriend while the travels took place, has said the audit report confirms she did nothing wrong. She wants an apology. The university calls $17,000 in travel they took "questionable personal charges."

Former Gov. Jim Martin, who is leading an  investigation into academic irregularities at UNC, visited The N&O on Tuesday to talk about how things are going. Here are nonverbatim excerpts of what he had to say.

The ACC basketball coaches really like N.C. State.

In their first preseason vote ever, the ACC coaches picked the Wolfpack to the win the conference this season, voted junior forward C.J. Leslie the preseason player of the year and guard Rodney Purvis the preseason freshman of the year.

N.C. State hasn't won the ACC regular season since 1989 or an ACC title since 1987 and its drought in the preseason media poll is even longer. The ACC media, which will make its annual selections on Wednesday in Charlotte, has not picked the Wolfpack to win the league since 1975.

Dan Kane went to Roy Williams' press conference to ask him some questions related to the stories Dan has written about the UNC academic scandal. Dan wrote this story afterwards. Bret Stretlow of the Fayetteville Observer posted a transcript of Dan's questions and the coach's answers on the Observer's ACC Basketball blog. Here's a link.

CHAPEL HILL -- Test results showed the tumor removed from UNC basketball coach Roy Williams' left kidney is not cancerous, the school said Thursday night in a release.

The ACC football schedule will remain at eight games, the ACC announced Wednesday, after its league meetings in Boston.

And the N.C. State-North Carolina basketball rivalry is officially safe.

The ACC had planned on going to a nine-game football schedule in 2013, with the addition of Syracuse and Pittsburgh, but with a new agreement with Notre Dame, which will play five ACC games each season, that plan was scrapped. The league will stay at an eight-game conference season for football.

We had several more letters in the pipeline to run in the paper that called on UNC Chancellor Holden Thorp to resign. Here's a look at those letters and other letters that have been overrun by other news.

John Blake.

Butch Davis.

Dick Baddour.

Holden Thorp.

Thorp was always going to be the next domino to fall. It was just a matter of time. You can’t fire Davis for not knowing what was going on within his own football program, then expect the chancellor to skate for not knowing what was going on within his own university.

And so the football scandal at North Carolina, which is now a full-fledged athletic and academic scandal of unknown scope -- encompassing NCAA sanctions, academic shenanigans in the Department of African and Afro-American Studies and alleged financial improprieties by a pair of fundraisers who happen to be a former UNC quarterback and Tyler Hansbrough’s mom -- claimed another victim Monday when Thorp announced he would step down in June.