CHAPEL HILL – Don’t bother bringing any of that moral-victory stuff around the Kenan Football Center, because nobody inside is having anything to do with such talk.

It’s nonsense, they say.

But that doesn’t mean North Carolina can’t walk away from its 21-20 loss to No. 1 Clemson here Saturday feeling good about itself. It would be foolish to strip away everything this team did from last Sunday’s practice the day after losing at home to Appalachian State to Saturday’s thrilling affair that came down to a two-point conversion attempt with 76 seconds to play.

The Tar Heels earned good will for their performance against the defending national champions who roll out waves of future NFL players every time one of its orange-clad units take the field. The Tigers are awfully impressive.

But on Saturday, they darn near lost to a gutsy UNC squad that had no business even competing in this game, so say the oddsmakers. Vegas said Clemson was a four-touchdown favorite and the ESPN Gameday crew didn’t even bother offering a pick for the game earlier Saturday morning.

Yawn. Ho-hum. Clemson in a walk.

But it wasn’t, and not just because of how the Tar Heels played Saturday but because of how they prepared all week.

Remember the Wake Forest game, which seems like eons ago? Remember the narrative that came out of that 24-18 loss?

P-r-e-p-a-r-a-t-i-o-n.

The Heels did a poor job of getting ready for the Demon Deacons and followed up a week later with a so-so job preparing for App State. Carolina lost both games and Brown preached his team needed to learn how to practice and get their minds right for games better.

So, riding a disappointing two-game skid and the biggest, baddest dudes of them all venturing into Kenan Stadium was a certain bloodbath waiting to happen. But the guys in Carolina blue never once saw it that way.

Their crafty Hall of Fame coach didn’t sell them any swamp land in Florida during the week, Brown was upfront with the media and his team about the task at hand. It was gigantic, he said, and so did his players.

But they prepared to win. And by the time they ran out of the tunnel into the sweltering sun they believed they would. Not could win but would win.

“This shows us what we can be,” Brown said afterward.

Of course, they can be that if they learn to approach each week as they just did regardless of the opponent.

“That’s who we need to be,” Brown said. “The lesson we need to learn this week is do the work this week, not today. Because the team that practices that way, and prepares that way, is usually good on Saturday. We’ve got to do the same thing for Georgia Tech next week.

“You’ve got to be a team that plays to a standard and doesn’t play to an opponent.”

To some, this was a measuring stick game so the Tar Heels could see just how far they are from where Clemson is, especially since Brown says they want to be the Clemson of the ACC’s Coastal Division. That was supposed to be the knowledge gained, but instead the Heels had reinforced the message the staff has been sending since they arrived last winter: It’s about them.

Now they know just how much and what it really takes.

A program’s growth is measured in a variety of ways, and even in defeat, the moral of this performance is what the Heels discovered over the last six days.