ShareThisBy ROBBI PICKERAL and CAULTON TUDOR
Friday, November 17, 2006
Butch Davis has agreed to become the next football coach at North Carolina, according to half a dozen sources connected to UNC and several in the Atlantic Coast Conference.
An announcement is expected this week, possibly as soon as Monday.
Davis, the former coach of the Miami Hurricanes and Cleveland Browns, would succeed John Bunting, who was fired Oct. 22 but will coach out the season. The 1-9 Tar Heels play N.C. State on Saturday and at Duke on Nov. 25.
Steve Kirschner, UNC's associate athletics director for communications, said Sunday, "There is no news to announce on the coaching search today."
Athletics director Dick Baddour did not return a phone message Sunday.
Davis' agent, Marvin Demoff, also could not be reached, but he told The Charlotte Observer on Wednesday that it would be next week _ meaning this week _ before anything is "really going to happen."
He said there was interest from both parties, and said, "We look forward to continuing discussions with that, but there is no agreement."
Davis, 54, could not be reached on Sunday.
While Carolina appears ready to land Davis, the Tar Heels have been jilted at the last minute before. Virginia Tech head coach Frank Beamer visited Baddour in Chapel Hill on Nov. 26, 2000, but announced the next day he was staying in Blacksburg, Va. Carolina later hired Bunting.
Roy Williams turned down the job as head coach of the UNC basketball program in 2000 to remain at Kansas, then took the Carolina job three years later.
Bunting, asked Sunday if he had been kept up to date on the coaching search and whether he cared if a hire was announced before the end of the season, said: "It's not a concern. The answer is no, I have not. That's probably the way it should be."
Davis won a national championship as an assistant coach under Jimmy Johnson in Miami in the 1987 season, then two Super Bowl rings as an assistant coach the Dallas Cowboys.
He returned to Miami and compiled a 51-20 record from 1995-2000 after taking over a Hurricanes program that faced severe NCAA sanctions after it was cited for a lack of institutional control. After Davis left to coach the NFL's Cleveland Browns, Miami won the 2001 national championship.
Davis was 24-36 in Cleveland, with only one trip to the playoffs. He resigned from the Browns during the 2004 season _ they were 3-8 at the time _ and has been working as an analyst for the NFL Network the past two years.
