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CHAPEL HILL -- Cameron Sexton knows this is a big game this week, in part because so many people are telling him it is. Shaun Draughn knows it must be bigger than normal because so much seemed to be going on around the stadium Monday morning.

North Carolina will play Notre Dame on Saturday, and it will be a big football game for a lot of reasons. For the players, it has nothing to do with Joe Montana or Knute Rockne or the long, trumpeted history of the Fighting Irish, who haven't been here in 33 years.

And it's not as if Notre Dame's recent history is all that anyway. Some of the players probably felt like UConn was a bigger game. After all, the Huskies were undefeated. And ranked.

Carolina is ranked in the AP poll for the first time since 2001, coming in at No. 22, and the players and coaches are already hearing about how this is a game for the ages and all that. The truth is, UNC is ranked 22nd and Notre Dame isn't ranked at all, and Montana won't be playing.

Times change, and these days all the talk about Notre Dame is just that -- talk. The old folks remember the days when the Golden Domers were everybody's biggest rival, everybody's biggest game. And make no mistake about it, for the UNC alumni, this is a huge football game.

"Obviously there's huge buzz," Tar Heels coach Butch Davis said Monday. "I don't know the history of them having not been here for such a long time. Last year, when South Carolina came to town, that was a huge buzz. It meant a lot geographically because South Carolina's proximity makes it like that, but certainly Notre Dame because of the history and traditions of the program, obviously that's going to create a lot of buzz."

Davis, a former Cleveland Browns coach, went against Charlie Weis when the current Notre Dame coach was an assistant with the New England Patriots. Davis claims to remember nothing about it and seemed only vaguely aware that his team was ranked this week.

"I kind of live in a bat cave," he said. "The players, we're really worried about ourselves and taking it one game at a time. The rankings are nice, I'm not going to deny that. I think certainly everybody likes the fact that there is some recognition for the hard work and the direction of the program, but as far as its significance right now, it really doesn't have much."

Sexton, the starting quarterback, listened to the questions about Saturday's game and tried to put it into perspective.

"Everybody knows this is a big game," he said. "And we're ranked now. All this excitement is good for our program. It's good for recruiting. I think the excitement's good. People are paying attention to us for good reason, because we're playing well."

Draughn, one of Carolina's emerging tailbacks, said the focus is on Carolina and not Notre Dame. He admitted he didn't know much about the Irish anyway.

"I mean, I've heard things about it," he said. "I never read it too much."

This is no slam against Notre Dame. This is coming from a young program made up of kids, mostly teenagers who haven't seen a Notre Dame national championship in their lifetime. As amazing as it might seem to those of us who have grown up watching the Irish and reading about the Irish and hearing about the stories and traditions of the Irish, the players today simply haven't seen any evidence of it.

"It's not like we live in a bubble," Sexton said. "We know the implications of the game, and we know it will be nationally televised, but we treat everybody the same and we'll play the same."

It's been 33 years since Montana came here and led Notre Dame to a stirring comeback over Carolina, extending the Irish legend and starting that of Montana, who would go on to become the greatest comeback quarterback of all time. And we assume that legend is important to players young and old.

The truth is, years later, even Montana didn't remember it.

We were riding in a car together, heading up to Martinsville for a race where he was to be the grand marshal a few years back. I asked him about previous trips to North Carolina. He thought hard about it.

"I think I was here once," Montana said. "Charleston or something."

I asked again if he didn't remember that comeback win over North Carolina back in 1977, and he paused.

"Yeah, that was North Carolina wasn't it?" he asked.

Athletes.

The history books show Notre Dame playing North Carolina every year from 1949-1956 and 12 times in all between 1949 and 1962. A lot of people around here remember those games. None of them will be on the field Saturday.

Contact Ed Hardin at 373-7069 or ed.hardin@news-record.com