Davis wants more Tar Heels-Irish matchups

CHAPEL HILL — North Carolina's game against Notre Dame on Saturday completes a home-and-home agreement that was signed in the late 1990s.

But UNC coach Butch Davis said he would like to try to schedule another series with the Fighting Irish sometime in the future.

"Notre Dame obviously brings a lot of mystique, and the history of the program, the tradition ... it's rare,'' Davis said. "I would like to think that maybe sometime we could schedule another home-and-home with Notre Dame. You don't play them every year, but maybe over a 10-year period of time you get to play them twice."

Larry Gallo, the Tar Heels' senior associate athletics director, said he plans to talk to Notre Dame about the possibility of scheduling another series. But it may not be easy. Traditionally, the Irish like to play seven or eight home games in South Bend, Ind., each year.

"And they're going to play a couple of service academies on the road," Davis said, "and they have the historical game with Southern Cal that every other year, it's going to be in Los Angeles. So there are not a lot of opportunities to get a chance to get on the schedule with them, but certainly it's a cool thing certainly for this area."

UNC lost at Notre Dame 45-26 in 2006. The No. 22 Tar Heels and unranked Irish are both 4-1.


-- Robbi Pickeral