Poll Says North Carolina Is Still The Tar Heel State

North Carolina is still the Tar Heel state according to a poll done by Public Policy Polling.

“Twenty seven percent of North Carolinians are UNC fans,” director Tom Jensen said. “Fourteen percent each for Duke and NC State, 9 percent for ECU, 5 percent for Appalachian State, and Wake Forest always finishes last on these polls and they’re at 4 percent.”

He said it is pretty rare to see college allegiances shift, even with one of the most successful seasons in the Tar Heels‘ history, there are not many bandwagon fans.

“These numbers haven’t shifted much, even with UNC having such a tremendous season, 27 percent saying they’re UNC fans is pretty much in line with where it has been,” Jensen said.

But there was one person who’s approval numbers were helped by winning football games.

“One thing that was interesting was looking at Larry Fedora’s approval numbers,” he said.

At the end of last season, Jensen said 42 percent of Carolina fans approved of the job he was doing. The most recent poll shows 66 percent of UNC fans approve of Fedora, while only five percent disapprove.

“Even though there hasn’t been a shift in the number of Carolina fans there has certainly been an increase in the popularity of Larry Fedora,” he said.

Fedora now has a higher approval rating than his Duke counterpart, David Cutcliffe, who has a 54 percent approval rating.

“You might think Cutcliffe has higher than a 54 percent approval rating, ” he said. “I think what you’re seeing though, with 39 percent of Duke fans not having an opinion about Cutcliffe one way or the other, is that especially with Duke and UNC, you have a lot of people who say they are fans of the school, but are really just basketball fans of the school.”

So to anyone thinking UNC could become a football school, fans made it clear that basketball is still the number one priority. 54 percent of UNC fans say they’d rather win a national championship in basketball, as opposed to just 35 percent who said football.