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CHAPEL HILL -- Hark the sound of irate voices.

The last sounds out of Kenan Stadium, on the day the ACC collapsed on itself, were the plaintive howls of wolves and sheep alike. N.C. State defeated North Carolina 41-10 Saturday, keeping State's strange bowl hopes alive and rekindling a strange quarterbacks controversy for UNC.

On the day the Wolfpack's crafty Russell Wilson dominated the 98th meeting of the rivals, North Carolina saw a carefully crafted season slip away. Wilson, the red-shirt freshman quarterback who has become one of the best players in the conference, led an improving State team to an easy victory over a Carolina team that suddenly doesn't have a quarterback.

Or maybe it has too many.

Neither was apparent as the Tar Heels left their own field with boos echoing off cold, aluminum seats nearing the end of a regular season that had once been the stuff of legend. Of course, football legends are cheap in the ACC, and Saturday's game was yet another example of why this season will long be remembered as one best forgotten.

After announcing last Sunday that Cam Sexton would remain his starting quarterback then announcing a day later that an open competition for the job would be held throughout the week, Butch Davis sent his team out for a game he'd tried to keep in the context of a season.

In the aftermath of a six-turnover disaster with starter T.J. Yates being booed off the field, Sexton slumped into a chair and said he did not agree with the decision to demote him and did not agree that a game against N.C. State was just another game.

"I grew up in North Carolina, and I know what that game means," Sexton said. "That game means everything to me. I know I was intense. I was ready to go, and I know this team was intense and ready to go. And I know that this team wanted to beat them more than anything in the world."

He stood on the sideline and watched as State played harder and with more intensity and won its third straight game to complete a sweep of the in-state Division I schools for the first time since 1986. State is now 5-6 with a game against Miami and bowl eligibility in the balance.

The curious decision to pull Sexton after last week's loss to Maryland left Davis open to criticism, in part because of his initial declaration that Sexton would remain the starter. The decision didn't sit well with Sexton. He'd played quarterback since the third possession of the Miami game, a seminal 28-24 win that started the midseason resurgence of Carolina and started all the talk of championships and New Year's Day bowls and had Davis answering questions about the Tennessee job.

Yates started all last year and at the beginning of this season before an ankle injury in the loss to Virginia Tech gave the job to backup Mike Paulus. Sexton came to the rescue early in the Miami game after Davis gave up on Paulus and directed five wins over seven weeks to lead Carolina to the top of the Coastal Division standings, to 17th in the national polls and into the discussion about the ACC title and subsequent BCS bowl.

All that's gone now. Carolina has Duke left and then a lesser bowl and then an offseason quarterback controversy for the ages. No less than five quarterbacks could be in the running for starting next season, at least three of whom walked off the field Saturday with no confidence at all about next week, much less next season.

Davis tried to explain his position afterward in a rambling discourse that basically suggested he had no idea who would start next week.

"We're going to go back and take a long look at this film," he said. "One of the things I think that everybody, obviously quarterbacks, historically always, probably always, get more credit than they actually deserve. And they clearly probably get more blame than they actually deserve. They can't protect, and they can't pick up the twists, they can't pick up the blitzes, they can't hold the ball for the running backs.

"Every quarterback is going to be the victim of how the other 10 guys play, and so that's why before you just jump off the ledge and say 'Well let's just go nail both of them to the cross and crucify them' let's see how they actually played."

One thing that will jump off the tape will be the play of Wilson and N.C. State, which is healthy for the first time all season and is arguably the hottest team in the ACC. The arguments raged into the evening Saturday as jubilant State fans jawed with angry Carolina fans, and the noise bounced off empty seats after one of the strangest games in a long rivalry and a long season just begging to end.

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