Butch Davis Downplays NC State Rivalry, Importance of Anything But Notre Dame Game

NC State football has not been what you would call "great" this year; Russell Wilson has been a pleasant surprise and the team is showing some improvement under Tom O'Brien, particularly as the year closes out, but, yeah, it hasn't been the greatest season for Wolfpack fans.

But that doesn't mean that the game this week against North Carolina has lost any importance -- it actually gives State, with wins already over Wake Forest, Duke and East Carolina -- a shot at "sweeping the state." But, please don't try and tell Tarheel coach Butch Davis that it really matters.

"At the end of the season," North Carolina coach Butch Davis said Monday, "they're all insignificant, it's just the number [of wins]. During the course of the season, certainly there's games -- home games take on more importance than road games sometimes, conference games take on more importance than other games. Marquee games against Notre Dame take on a certain amount.

See, I tend to disagree ... but then again, I'm not a hired gun just looking for the next marquee job Butch Davis, so how can I really know? The truth is that for as much as someone like Davis would like to downplay the idea that State and Carolina aren't rivals (there's a distinctly elitist and somewhat delusional approach to this rivalry from the Chapel Hill side), such a meme only exists in the basketball world.

In football, this is very much a huge game, and while it probably hurts to admit as much coming off a loss to Maryland, Butch should probably own up to the fact that Notre Dame would be the worst team he's played all season if he hadn't been so full of foresight as to schedule McNeese St. instead of App.