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- The North Carolina Tar Heels football team represents the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in collegiate level football. Over its nearly 120 years of existence, the program has won 631 games for a winning percentage of .566, and has appeared in 26 bowl games. The team's most recent bowl victory came in the 2001 Peach Bowl, in which they defeated the Auburn Tigers 16–10. Since joining the Atlantic Coast Conference in 1953, the team has won five conference championships, with the most recent title coming in 1980. One very important contribution to the game of football by North Carolina is the modern use of the forward pass; they were the first college team to use the play in 1895. Bob Quincy notes in his 1973 book They Made the Bell Tower Chime: "John Heisman, a noted historian, wrote 30 years later that, indeed, the Tar Heels had given birth to the forward pass against the Bulldogs (UGA). It was conceived to break a scoreless deadlock and give UNC a 6–0 win. The Carolinians were in a punting situation and a Georgia rush seemed destined to block the ball. The punter, with an impromptu dash to his right, tossed the ball and it was caught by George Stephens, who ran 70 yards for a touchdown. ” While not consistently successful, the North Carolina football program has had intermittent success and has featured a number of great players, many of whom have gone on to prominence in the National Football League, including Lawrence Taylor, Charlie Justice, Chris Hanburger, Ken Willard, Don McCauley, Jeff Saturday, Alge Crumpler, Willie Parker, Greg Ellis, Dré Bly and Julius Peppers. On November 13, 2006, the program hired as head coach Butch Davis, former head coach of the Miami Hurricanes and Cleveland Browns. In addition, the school pledged that they would fund the football program to the same extent that their men's and women's basketball teams are funded. On February 7, 2007, Davis and staff inked one of the top recruiting classes in North Carolina football history, earning recognition from Scout. com, Rivals. com and ESPN. com.
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