Music City Bowl: UNC vs. Tennessee

By Steve Megargee, Rivals.com College Football Staff Writer

His team’s big plans for the season didn’t include spending the holidays in Nashville, but North Carolina coach Butch Davis won’t complain about the way things worked out.

Davis says he will look back on this season with pride rather than disappointment.

North Carolina entered the season with arguably the most talent of any team in the ACC—particularly on defense—but NCAA investigations into academic misconduct and improper contact with agents gutted the Tar Heels’ roster for much of the season.

Rather than winning an ACC title and earning a trip to the Orange Bowl, North Carolina (7-5) barely finished above .500 and received an invitation to Thursday’s Music City Bowl vs. Tennessee (6-6).

Davis refuses to dwell on what might have been.

Coming Attractions: Janzen Jackson survived '09. Now the heat is on

• Typecasting. Recruiting gurus varied on the extent of their hype -- Rivals' opinion was by far the highest, tagging him as the No. 2 overall player in Louisiana and the No. 2 incoming cornerback in the entire 2009 class -- but everyone generally agreed on Jackson's blue-chip status, and he was certainly one of the coups of Lane Kiffin's late push at Tennessee thanks to an 11th-hour defection from the home-state favorite, LSU. As expected, Jackson broke into the Vols' thin safety rotation right away, starting the second game of the season against UCLA and entrenching himself opposite All-American Eric Berry by midseason. Tennessee fans go to sleep at night with visions of Jackson as the second coming of Berry dancing in their heads.