CHAPEL HILL -- The first practice of the North Carolina football season was only a few minutes old when Butch Davis brought calisthenics to a screeching halt to give a quick lecture on the proper way to clap hands.
In unison, in case you were wondering. Clapping is not optional, if anyone was thinking about skipping it.
"We had a little issue with that at the start of practice," quarterback T.J. Yates said later, with a chuckle.
Safe to say Davis has more to worry about than the proper clapping of hands at the moment, but the coach will have to be satisfied with fixing such minutia. That NCAA investigation of his program will not be so easily addressed.
Practice opened under a cloud Friday - not literally, of course, as the temperature approached triple digits under a clear sky - but just about everyone took pains to pretend it was business as usual.
The only thing missing was Kevin Bacon in his ROTC uniform insisting, "Remain calm! All is well!" while being trampled by the mob on its way to the Food King.
"We'll talk about football," Davis said. "We're not talking about the NCAA review."
Never mind that Marvin Austin and Greg Little opened practice with the second team. Neither was available to the media after practice, and for all we know they went right back to their usual spots on the first team at 2:16 p.m., as soon as practice was closed to outsiders.
Barring any such paranoid machinations, the reduced roles for the two players who are known to be the focus of the NCAA investigation certainly raised eyebrows, even though Davis said he wouldn't settle on an official depth chart until there was some resolution.
Investigators visited Chapel Hill for the first time almost a month ago, and the practice-field demotions of Austin and Little were maybe the most tangible development since. North Carolina's into-the-deep-end opener with LSU is now only four weeks away, and so far there's no word if or when the NCAA will issue a ruling.
Until then, the program remains in purgatory or limbo or whatever interim dimension you like, waiting to find out the status of two of its most important players - not to mention whomever else may be involved and facing sanctions.
For everyone else, practice could not have started soon enough.
"That's one of the good things - we're out of the real world and in this small little bubble in our dorms and the football center," Yates said. "We don't go anywhere else for a week and a half. That's good for us. We can block everything else out and concentrate on football. ... Everybody knows there's nothing we can do to control it. We just have to focus on football and keep it out there on the field."
Given all that, it's unsurprising everyone tried to put the best face on the first practice. For the first time, there's something other than the investigation to discuss, whether that's the Yates-Bryn Renner battle at QB or the growth of the young receiving corps or Quan Sturdivant's difficult summer.
Better to talk about that than the possibility UNC will be missing two or more key players for the LSU game - or beyond. Better to get back to practice than live in a world where there are lots of questions and very few answers.
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