Ready for the rivalry game on Saturday? North Carolina fans aren’t, at least, not in that context. The Tar Heel faithful vehemently deny that their “little brother” 100 miles to the east could possibly have risen to the level of ACC competition that warrants the title of “rival.”

And who could really blame them? The Pirates are a meager 3-12-1 against UNC since their first matchup in 1972 in a series that includes a 56-0 Tar Heel win. And while those numbers can’t and shouldn’t be overlooked, a closer look at football in the state of North Carolina in the last quarter-century can tell us another story.

ECU has won 9 of its last 15 games against UNC’s (and ECU’s) truest football rival, NC State. Since that time (1982), the Tar Heels are 17-14 against the Wolfpack —better, but far from dominant. So, if the transitive property tells us anything, the school formerly known as East Carolina Teacher’s College (ECTC) has been closer in competition to the flagship university than fans of the latter might want to believe. And it has to be noted that only three games in the ECU-UNC series have been played away from Kenan Stadium in Chapel Hill.

While history favors the Tar Heels, even the most adamant UNC fans can see the progression of ECU’s program over the last couple years. The Pirates went 10-3 a season ago — one of those wins coming in convincing fashion in the form of a 55-31 Pirate victory in Chapel Hill.

And a week removed from a nationally televised 28-21 upset of No. 17 Virginia Tech, ECU (2-1) will be looking for its fourth-consecutive win against the ACC when the Heels travel to Dowdy-Ficklen for the fourth time ever on Saturday.

Even considering the momentum coming out of the Greenville camp, the Tar Heels (2-0) hold the advantage of coming off a bye week. And season-opening wins over Elon (average FCS program) and San Diego State (a respectable program but one UNC should beat at home nine times out of 10) have likely masked a significant part of Coach Larry Fedora’s playbook that he’s saving for Greenville.

UNC will certainly be motivated in this one, as players and coaches have thrown around the word “embarrassed” in high frequency this week in regards to their performance in last year’s matchup against ECU.

But if psychology plays a factor in college athletics, the Tar Heels haven’t exactly played their cards right.

Following last year’s loss to ECU, UNC running back A.J. Blue expounded on his comments that his teammates “definitely” overlooked the Pirates by stating, “It’s ECU. Nobody expects to lose to ECU, especially us. So the complacency was definitely there; the lack of focus was there. We’re still working hard. I can’t take that away from these guys. We’re working our butts off every day in practice, but again, its ECU, so that’s not a game we expect to lose.”

A story also broke later that week about UNC quarterback (at the time) Bryn Renner having a sweating problem that affects his throws.

It seems that the fan-popularized notion that ECTC shouldn’t be able to hang with THE University of North Carolina rubs off on players, and those two stories alone effectively throw any psychological advantage that UNC enters Greenville with out the window. And the Pirates don’t need any more motivation, as they’re playing an in-state foe at home in front of a sellout crowd with a top-25 ranking on the line.

It’s as if the 2013 Tar Heels were trying to give an example of exactly how not to react to a loss (at least to the media). And it puts this week’s comments from the UNC camp in perspective. They’re not “embarrassed” by losing, 55-31; they’re embarrassed by who gave them the beat down.

Vegas favors the Pirates in this one by 2.5 points, so don’t expect a blowout on Saturday. But if the Pirates happen to go up by a few touchdowns in the fourth quarter, running up the score would be about as justifiable as running up the score gets. It’s doubtful that ECU head coach Ruffin McNeill cares about manufacturing a rivalry with the Tar Heels (especially because they don’t play annually), but if the Pirates want a rivalry, they have the talent on both sides of the ball to boil some blood this year.