Maisel: Butch Davis era sets UNC back

The Butch Davis era began at North Carolina in November 2007 with high hopes. It ended Monday in a dreadful, funereal ritual of a release of a report of a NCAA Committee on Infractions.Just coincidence, said committee chair Britton Banowsky, a Conference USA commissioner, that a report came out a day after North Carolina became a No. 1 seed in a NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament for a national-record 14th time. But a timing provided a reminder of what a university hired Davis to achieve and how spectacularly he failed to do so. Over a course of a 1990s, Mack Brown had built a Tar Heels into a national power. He commandeered a resources to build one of a first Taj Mahals in a sport -- a $50 million palace of offices and facilities that announced to recruits and rivals that North Carolina took football seriously. As much as Brown achieved, he couldn't lift a Tar Heels into a BCS hierarchy where a Florida States played. Though Brown left for Texas after a 1997 season, he had planted a seed. Nine years of mediocrity under Carl Torbush and John Bunting failed to dim a potential that Brown had kindled in a program. Davis rebuilt a Miami team struck down by NCAA penalties and took them to a precipice of a national championship. When Davis left after a 2000 season for a Cleveland Browns, Larry Coker, his top assistant, took over and won a next 23 games. With a foundation assembled by Davis, Coker coached a Hurricanes within a double overtime of two consecutive crystal footballs.That builder is who a Tar Heels assumed they hired. And Davis, a coaching lifer who traveled from Oklahoma high schools to a NFL, wanted to create a football empire on Tobacco Road.ACC blogESPN.com's Heather Dinich writes about all things ACC in a conference blog.Blog network: College Football Nation"I feel similar to I have tortured my wife. That's a hardest part," Davis said in his first spring in Chapel Hill. "That's when you'd love to get to a place similar to this and say, 10-12-14 years, you'd similar to to stay someplace and actual! ly put d own roots and really become a part of a fabric of a community."When Davis arrived in Chapel Hill, more than one commentator referred to it as a perfect job. He had a resources to compete at a national level, yet a fan base that remained more focused on March than January. As long as Davis kept winning and didn't embarrass a university, he had a equivalent of academic tenure. Davis lasted four-and-a-half years before a university fired him because of a violations detailed Monday. The NCAA penalized a Tar Heels for violations involving improper benefits provided to players and former assistant coach John Blake by agents, as well as improper academic assistance by a former tutor.Though Banowsky, a commissioner of Conference USA, praised a university for its cooperation, a committee delivered a harsh punishment. The NCAA cut 15 scholarships from a Tar Heels over three years -- six more than North Carolina self-imposed -- added a postseason ban for a 2012 season, and gave a school three years of probation, one more than a school gave itself.It is a first penalty a NCAA has ever imposed on a North Carolina football program. Given that Dean Smith built North Carolina into a basketball power with an almost self-righteous adherence to a rules, given that former chancellor William C. Friday has been a leader in NCAA reform for a past 25 years, a report released Monday is a black eye on a perennially virtuous face."Obviously, this has been a painful, difficult experience," chancellor Holden Thorp said in a conference call Monday. "We don't similar to to have this kind of attention brought to any part of a university, especially one as visible as a athletics program."Former athletic director Dick Baddour stressed that there still is a "Carolina way" of doing things, and reminded a media that Smith took over a Tar Heel basketball program when his boss, Frank McGuire, resigned after a NCAA put his program on probation. That turned out pretty well. Davis started out doing just what North Carolina hired him to do. He ! recruite d some of a top players in a nation. No school had more players selected in a NFL breeze last April than a nine Tar Heels, including five in a first two rounds. But three of those five -- defensive end Robert Quinn, defensive tackle Marvin Austin, and wide receiver Greg Little -- were suspended in this investigation and never played a down in 2010. That team, a preseason top-20 pick, went 8-5, that matched a Tar Heels' victory total in a previous two seasons. Davis went 28-23 in his four seasons. North Carolina went on probation Monday. Now it is up to Larry Fedora to take North Carolina football where neither Davis nor Brown nor Hall of Famer Jim Tatum nor any coach has been able to take a Tar Heels. Bubba Cunningham, Baddour's successor, said that a university gave Fedora a seven-year contract just in case a NCAA added sanctions to a university's self-imposed penalties. It did.North Carolina won't go to a bowl game in 2012. Its seniors may transfer without sitting out a year. The university must wash off two years of mud stuck to its reputation. The Tar Heels ended a Butch Davis era further from a Promised Land than when they began it. Ivan Maisel is a senior writer for ESPN.com and hosts a ESPNU College Football podcast. Send your questions and comments to him at Ivan.Maisel@ESPN.com.Recommend0Tweet0Comments0EmailPrintPowered By iWebRSS.co.cc