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The North Carolina Tar Heels have earned their first Associated Press poll ranking since Oct. 28, 2001 as a result of Saturday's 38-12 win over previously unbeaten and 24th-rated Connecticut. Carolina cracked the survey, released Sunday, in the 22nd spot and ended a 112-week drought.

The 112-poll stretch represented the Heels' longest absence from the AP survey since they went the entire 1960s without making it.

The citation comes at an interesting time. UNC, which hasn't won a game while ranked since Jan. 1, 1998, hosts Notre Dame, also 4-1, Saturday. For the first time in the 63-year history of the AP poll, an Irish team is unranked after winning at least four of its first five games.

While coaches are loath to discuss such seemingly trivial matters in the middle of a season, the appearance in the ratings has to qualify as good news for Carolina, which is off to its best start since it began the 1997 season at 8-0. Among the 66 programs in the current Bowl Championship Series structure, only five had longer active streaks of AP futility than UNC: Baylor (now 256 weeks), Indiana (238), Duke (227), Arizona (130) and Mississippi State (118).

Wake Forest advanced four spots while having the week off. The Demon Deacons, upset by Navy on Sept. 27, improved from 25th to 21st entering Thursday's ACC Atlantic Division meeting with Clemson and have now appeared in seven straight weeks. The school record of nine was established two years ago.

No. 18 Virginia Tech (4-1) is the ACC's standard-bearer.

Carolina earned its most recent win in statistically odd fashion. The Tar Heels ran only 49 plays and were almost never threatened. Since the start of the 2004 season, BCS teams have gone 12-39 when getting fewer than 50 offensive plays.

The Heels amassed more than 30 points with fewer than 300 yards of total offense. They hadn't done that since at least 1994.

In other odd developments around the ACC:

* Virginia (2-3) has posted two shutouts and has suffered three losses of 28 or more points. Only one other team in ACC history has managed that combination of results over an entire season. That was the 1982 N.C. State Wolfpack, which blanked Furman and Wake Forest but was thumped 41-9 by North Carolina, 54-0 by Penn State and 41-3 by Miami.

* Speaking of the Hurricanes, their 41-39 loss to Florida State was good for a few bad memories. On Nov. 23, 1984, the Canes lost to Boston College 45-42 on the famous Doug Flutie-to-Gerald Phelan pass at the final gun. They proceeded to win their next 94 games when scoring 39 or more points until the Noles clipped them on Saturday.

Contact Rob Daniels at 373-7028 or rob.daniels@news-record.com