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All North Carolina had to do at the outset of the 1981 college football season was point Kelvin Bryant toward the end zone and the tailback would do the rest. Bryant scored 15 touchdowns in the first three games of '81 as the Tar Heels outscored East Carolina, Miami (0.) and Boston College by a cumulative 161-21 score.

Bryant rushed for 520 yards on 70 attempts in the three games, an average of 7.4 yards per carry. He rushed for 211 yards and six touchdowns against East Carolina, scoring on runs of 1, 45, 4, 7, 32 and 4 yards as the Tar Heels prevailed, 56-0. Bryant ran for 136 yards against Miami, making touchdown runs of 8, 2, 1 and 4 yards and also scoring on a 15-yard pass from Rod Elkins in a 49-7 rout. In North Carolina's 56-14 trouncing of Boston College, Bryant had scoring runs of 2, 2, 39 and 4 yards and gained 173 yards rushing overall. Bryant, though, suffered a knee injury in the opening quarter of North Carolina's next game, against Georgia Tech, and scored only three touchdowns the rest of the season and finished the year with 1,015 yards rushing. Arthroscopic surgery forced Bryant to miss four full games.

Victor Harrison. Of the eight Tar Heel touchdowns (out of 23) not scored by Bryant in the first three games of the '81 season, Harrison notched two of them on eight- and 10-yard TD passes from Elkins (against Boston College).

Bobby Ratliff. He also scored two touchdowns in the three games, running two yards for a score in the East Carolina game and going one yard for a TD against Boston College.

North Carolina's other non-Bryant TDs in the three-game stretch: Alan Burrus' one-yard run against East Carolina, Greg Poole's 28-yard interception return against Miami, Larry Griffin's 16-yard catch of a Scott Stankavage pass against Miami and Mark Smith's 63-yard reception of an Elkins pass against Boston College.