Let’s Appreciate Julius Peppers

I was nine years old when my interest in Carolina football began to blossom. There’s a chance I went to games at Kenan Stadium before then, but I distinctly remember attending wins against Indiana and Stanford in September, feeling the numbness of watching a great team get beaten by a better team on Judgement Day against Florida State, and telling my dad that Jonathan Linton would get the 195 rushing yards needed to amass 1,000 for the season against Duke (which he did).

That season started an addiction, and Julius Peppers’ 2000-2001 seasons cemented it for me. During a redshirt sophomore campaign where he amassed 15 sacks (including four in a loss at Virginia), Peppers wowed us when he…