I’m embarrassed that I even have to write this post.

North Carolina State University, the brick-littered West Raleigh community college living forever in the shadow of the flagship university 27 miles to its west, beat my Tar Heels 41-10 in Kenan Stadium last year. The inability for the Heels to hold on to the football on that cold November day and the sight of inebriated red Starter jersey-clad State fans makes my blood boil as I write.

While I have a lot of close friends and family members who I’ll offend with that previous paragraph, they’ll forgive me by Christmas. The insufferable delusion of Moo-U’s fan base (as a whole) is exponentially more annoying even than Duke’s. DISCLAIMER: It should be noted that, since I live in North Carolina and not New Jersey, I don’t run across many Duke fans.

I’m ashamed to write this post only because it qualifies as a must-win for Butch Davis and the Tar Heels. To go 0-3 against a school that once hosted a parade in honor of a 10-win Gator Bowl Champion would be a major setback for the program. Hearing “41-10″ every time I try to have an intellegent debate with a Pack fan has to stop, especially when I know good and well their team has won 28% of the games in the history of the “rivalry.” Most of all, quiet Military disciplinarian Tom O’Brien  (who I still think is Opie from The Andy Griffith Show, the later years) had the audacity to state that his team was the “best football program in the state, without question” after that game.

Whereas it is Thanksgiving, and we all are certainly blessed, I won’t dig any further into these guys (for now). I expect it to be a hard-fought smashmouth game with lots of personal fouls and hard hits. The Packers will do it because big brother is beating up on them. The Heels will do it because they want to intimidate their potential bowl opponents.