PINEHURST - North Carolina football coach Butch Davis said Monday the school is hoping to begin a $100 million renovation of Kenan Stadium within the next 18 months.

Although athletics director Dick Baddour said through a departmental spokesman that the plan is "still in the early stages," he confirmed that he held his first meeting last Thursday with a special task force to discuss the expansion.

Baddour, who was on vacation, would not put a price, start date or time frame on the project, but the athletics department is working with an architect and a consultant.

"When Carolina did the existing facility, it was the Taj Mahal probably of college football at the time,'' Davis said at the ACC Football Kickoff. "... But 10, 11, 12 years later, everyone in the country has had a chance to look at that and say, 'We need to add this, we need to make ours better than this.'"

Carolina has had tentative plans for several years to to fill in the East end zone (forming the stadium into a complete bowl), add luxury boxes, and build a new academic support center.

Talk of the project heated up when it hired Davis last winter.

On Dec. 4, the Chapel Hill Town Council approved a plan that would add about 8,800 seats to the stadium, but the details of the project would still need to be approved by the Board of Trustees. It also would likely require a fundraising effort by UNC's Educational Foundation.

UNC completed a $50 million renovation to Kenan Stadium in 1997. The stadium's current capacity is 60,000. Although the number of seats to be added has not been determined, the coach is already using the project as a recruiting tool.

He said recruiters will be able to tell prospects: "Hey, you're liable to play the very first game as a freshman, you're liable to run out there in the stadium, and this be a finished product."

Davis said he likes the current configuration of the stadium and enjoys the beauty and charm of the trees that surround it. He said he's hoping to keep both, while also catching up in the college facilities arms race.

"I think it absolutely will happen pretty soon,'' he predicted.

WOLFPACK'S O'BRIEN WANTS INDOOR PRACTICE FACILITY: N.C. State coach Tom O'Brien said he would like the school to eventually to add an indoor practice facility so that workouts wouldn't be interrupted by thunderstorms.

The coach has discussed it informally with athletics director Lee Fowler.

During the past six years, State has spent $120 million on athletics facilities.

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