The North Carolina football team began practice in summer camp on Friday. On Tuesday, the Tar Heels put on pads for the first time.

So, the whole process of getting ready for the opening game on Aug. 30 against McNeese State at 6 p.m. at Kenan Stadium is just getting started.

Plenty of work remains ahead, areas to shore up and rough edges to smooth.

But coach Butch Davis already said that he is pleased with how this team entered camp, his second at Carolina.

"We're very excited to get the 2008 season underway," Davis said. "There's an awful lot of buzz and excitement about the program. I think that our football program has done a good job of continuing to build momentum from the recruiting class prior to the '07 season, through the '07 season, through (2008) recruiting, through spring practice. One of the things I'm very, very proud of is the way in which our football team prepared for the 2008 season."

Davis said the team left spring practice with some accomplishments, something that he really could not say the year before.

"We solidified some guys in some situations in the spring, but the long, grueling hours of timeless effort, of sweat, that goes in before the start of the season, that's the part that people never see," he said.

There was a day when football players came to camp to get into shape and then prepare for the season. In the modern era of 12-month football, a player has to be acclimated to the heat and ready to play from the first day of preseason camp.

"We talk to our players all the time that it's very easy to show up on Saturday, when there are 65,000 people, and the blimp is in the sky, and the TV trucks are there, and mom and dad are in the stands and the student body is screaming," Davis said. "Everybody wants to play well.

"It's the guys who pay the price during April, May, June, July, that run in 95-degree heat and the only person that's out there driving them a lot of times is themselves and their teammates. I think that they've done a great job from a physical standpoint of preparing for this season."

This is still a team built around freshmen, red-shirt freshmen and sophomores. So last year's experience was invaluable if the 2008 Tar Heels hope to make real improvement on their 4-8 record in 2007.

Davis said that even though he does not have a lot of seniors, the ones who are on this team have seen a tremendous amount in their careers, and they've done a good job of guiding this group through the off months and into camp.

"We're still a young football team, in spite of the fact that we've been here, starting our second year," Davis said. "We've only got 11 seniors this year on the football team, and those 11 seniors have done an awesome job as far as leadership for this football program through those last four months. They've been an inspiration not only in their personal work ethic and the way they've prepared, but the way that they've mentored to the young kids, the freshmen who came here the second semester, the other players, the red-shirt freshmen and sophomores on the football team.

"Those 11 seniors have done an awesome job of talking to our football team about the importance of summer workouts, the importance of training camp. I can't say enough about the hard work that they've done."

Now the time is here for the coaching staff and players to use all that off-season preparation to get as ready as possible to meet or exceed the expectations that trail this team into the 2008 season.

"Our assistant coaching staff has done a great job," Davis said. "We think that we've got a very productive 29 practice opportunities scripted. We've talked about it all throughout last spring and over the summer time, what needs to get accomplished in these 29 practice opportunities. What's going to make us be the best football team that we can be on opening day? Not the best football team that we can be in Week 2 or Week 4 or Week 8 or Week 12, but what's going to get us ready for that (opener).

"We've talked about the heat," Davis said. "We've talked about the conditioning. We've talked about the reps and how much do the starters need, how much do the incoming freshmen need, and who do we need to bring along? I think our assistant coaching staff has done a great job of talking ... to make sure that we don't take any backward steps. We don't want to take any steps backwards, of wasted opportunities, to make sure that we're prepared as we possibly can."