Bowl practice No. 1 starts shortly at Country Day School, a private school just a few minutes from downtown. The Bucs provide a pretty nice facility and finished 8-3 this season, though it should be noted they lost at home on senior night to Charlotte Latin School, 30-10.

This matters because North Carolina is practicing at Charlotte Latin School and who knows how much karma is available.

Probably not much. Bowl games, with the various variables that inevitably come into play, like extra prep time and the relative unfamilarity among the opponents, typically come down to a few things: Mistakes, fundamentals, special teams and one or two big/trick plays.

The Tar Heels haven’t been in a bowl since 2004, when they lost the Continental Tire Bowl, which is now the Car Care Bowl, to Boston College. It’s the only time a Big East team has won the bowl, though the Eagles promptly took that with them to the ACC.

WVU, which is playing in a seventh straight bowl, has won three in a row because it’s been pretty good in the aforementioned areas, especially turnovers.

In 180 minutes over the Sugar, Gator and Fiesta bowl victories with Pat White at quarterback, West Virginia has not had a turnover.

It is a combined plus-6 in turnover margin in beating Georgia, Georgia Tech and Oklahoma in those games … and turnovers have told the tale in WVU regular seasons and bowls for years.

It’s a very reliable barometer.

When WVU was mired in a then-record eight consecutive bowl losses (1987-1998 ) under Coach Don Nehlen (Notre Dame takes nine defeats in a row into Wednesday’s Hawaii Bowl), the Mountaineers won the turnover differential only once.