Drake Maye, young faces aiming to help UNC rebound after lackluster 2021 season

During one of the North Carolina football team’s recruiting events at the home of head coach Mack Brown, several Tar Heel players gathered with the goal of enticing prospects to come to Chapel Hill.

Catering to the interests of the high school players standing before them, the group assembled at the ping-pong table. Everyone was ready for some cordial competition – everyone except Drake Maye. 

With his sweat dripping onto his coach’s floor, the first-year quarterback stood with a paddle in his hand, spending extra time working on his serve and dominating anyone that challenged him. When it was time for offensive coordinator Phil Longo to drag him away so the young signal caller could talk to the recruits about the UNC program, Maye could hardly budge.

“Everything that he does, he’s just ultra-competitive,” Longo said. “And that’s the way he plays the game of football – you want that with your quarterback.”

After spending much of his life around the University – with his father, Mark, being the team’s starting quarterback in 1986 and 1987 and his older brother, Luke, becoming an All-American on the basketball team – Maye’s competitive edge and drive for success pushed him through an offseason position battle with sophomore Jacolby Criswell. Last weekend, the coaching staff told him he had won the starting job, taking the reins from record-breaking quarterback Sam Howell, who departed for the NFL after last season.

As the Tar Heels move into a new era and seek to put last year’s 6-7 campaign in the rear-view mirror, they will rely on an abundance of new faces, with Maye stepping into the spotlight.

“He earned the job,” Brown said. “We looked at everything from spring into today.” 

When Howell was named the starting quarterback as a true first-year in 2019, he had an abundance of future NFL-level talent around him. Dyami Brown and Dazz Newsome lined up to catch passes in Longo's air raid offense while Javonte Williams and Michael Carter barreled through defenders in the backfield en route to 1,000-yard seasons. 

Unlike his predecessor, Maye will take the field with players with much less experience — presenting a new set of challenges in the Tar Heels' offense.

Although junior wide receiver Josh Downs set the program single-season receiving records last season with 101 catches and 1,335 yards, the rest of the wide receiver room is much less proven. Additionally, the season-ending injury of senior running back British Brooks leaves the backfield with more questions than answers as five running backs are expected to split carries.

Despite many of his teammates’ lack of meaningful game reps, Maye said he feels comfortable with how he has progressed as he gets ready to step into a leading role.

“Getting with the offense, just repping it for a year, is a lot different from walking in like a deer in headlights in spring practice," Maye said at a press conference in June. "I feel like I'm processing things better, and in practice it feels like it's starting to come quicker and come easier."

While Maye is expected to lead the offense, new defensive coordinator Gene Chizik will be tasked with cleaning up a defense that ranked 94th in yards allowed per game last fall.

With the graduation of vocal leader Jeremiah Gemmel and one of the program’s all-time sack leaders in Tomon Fox, plenty of young faces will be expected to make contributions to the retooled unit.

Among the candidates to lead the defense is junior linebacker Cedric Gray, who burst onto the scene with a team-leading 100 tackles in 2021. Joining him as impact players are former blue-chip prospects in juniors Myles Murphy and Desmond Evans, who will look to improve their play in a new defensive scheme. 

But perhaps no player has turned more heads than sophomore linebacker Rara Dillworth, whose speed and versatility has helped him earn a spot on the roster’s "blue team" — a distinction given to players expected to receive significant playing time. 

“I’m really, really proud of Rara,” Chizik said. “He’s probably going to be one of the fastest linebackers in college football and it shows on the field.”

Following two promising seasons in 2019 and 2020, last year marked a step backward for a program that was trying to stake its claim as one of the best in the country.

For every positive moment – including a top-10 win over unbeaten Wake Forest and several historical offensive performances – the Tar Heels would register a puzzling dud. Among those disappointments were losses to teams like Georgia Tech and Florida State and a winless record away from Kenan Stadium.

With much of the “Mack is back” hoopla now subsided, the Tar Heels — and their new leaders — are hoping to revert back to the basics and regain the edge that once helped them take the college football world by storm.

“We’ve had an outstanding spring and fall camp, and these kids have been fun to coach,” Brown said. “Unlike last year where we had inconsistencies – we were having to coach effort – these guys have done everything that we’ve asked them to do.”  

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