"History repeats itself because no one was listening the first time."
The heat. The tragedy-induced layoff. The first-half hiccup. The Nathan Elliott of Pitt games of yore. Over and over Saturday in Kenan Stadium in Carolina's home opener, stories and scripts from yesterday kept coming full circle in the Tar Heels' 38-35 victory.
Saturday happened to be the 39th anniversary of No. 13-ranked Pitt with coach Jackie Sherrill and defensive end Hugh Green coming to Chapel Hill for a 1:30 kick-off under a bright sun, mid-80s temperatures and requisite Southern humidity. Tar Heel Coach Dick Crum sensed watching the visitors from eight hours north in pregame warmups that the weather would prevail as the afternoon wore on and delivered a fiery pregame speech that players from that team chuckle about to this day: "We're going to lay it to those guys and we're going to sweat those fat suckers down.