After an afternoon of rumors that included a closed Board of Trustees meeting and pokerfaced comments on whether North Carolina Tar Heels coach Butch Davis had been fired or not, Butch Davis has indeed been fired as the head coach of UNC football, according to CBS Sports, who said players have already been made aware. Joe Schad reported "the process of termination" is underway.
In late-July. As in weeks before college football season.
Before the news broke, UNC chancellor Holden Thorp declined to comment on the firing.
Until now, North Carolina's apparent reason for not axing Davis as soon as the pile of allegations arrived was plausible deniability. At the ACC's media days over the weekend, Davis took responsibility for the program's mountain of troubles:
I'm the head football coach. And things that happen, anything I can do to make sure these things don't happen ... anything that we can do to make sure that doesn't happen again, that's part of my responsibility.
He also said he had no plans of stepping down and was reassured by the school's support. When last we'd heard from Davis in relation to the long and winding NCAA investigation into Carolina football, the school had announced it was handing over his phone records to the media.
And to think, this all started with a tweet.
Stay tuned to this UNC football investigation StoryStream, and keep an eye on Butch Davis and the North Carolina football program over at Carolina March.